QAHWA SADA: An Interview with ALEX AMORESANO MARIA ALESSIA DI MAIO

Please tell us about the projects you worked on before making ‘QAHWA SADA’. How did you start, and how did you learn to make animation?

Alex Amoresano: The writing of Qahwa Sada began almost by accident. Alessia and I had decided to try our hand at creating an animated short, and we spent several mornings over coffee trying to settle on a subject. Then the idea simply surfaced—while we were talking about our friends in Gaza and noticing a Palestinian flag hanging in the café. As for the animation itself, I’m self-taught. My background is in comics and storyboarding, so I already had a strong foundation in drawing to build on.

Tell us about ‘QAHWA SADA’. How do you describe it?

Maria Alessia Di Maio: It has often been described as “the animated short about Palestine,” which is certainly true, but our goal wasn’t to portray war through the usual imagery of weapons and violence. Instead, we wanted to show war as the destruction of everyday life—an ordinary routine that disappears from one day to the next without you even realizing it. And what is the ultimate everyday act? Having a coffee.

Please tell us about your favorite animators.

Alex Amoresano: I love the style of Cartoon Saloon. They really inspired me. Other animation studios that I love are Studio La Cachette, and obviously, Studio Ghibli.

If you were given a good budget, what would be your ideal project?

Alex Amoresano: I think I would create a comedic-dramatic series about the history of my family, former marquises of the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of France. My grandmother’s uncle was an eccentric nobleman and enterpreneur that from Italy and France, went to New York in the late 1800. According to the newspapers , he was the man who inspired the Great Gatsby. Hope to find one day the budget to tell this tale.

Describe how you would ensure that production is on schedule. What steps would you take?

Alex Amoresano: First of all, I would make sure that the storyboards and animatics for the entire production are completed. The storyboard is the most important step: it contains the key moments, the pacing, and the essential beats of the story.

Storyboards should be done even before the project officially starts—if you have the idea, you can put it on paper. After that, it’s all a matter of cutting and stitching things together. Next, I would set deadlines for each department, taking into account buffer time for deliveries; let’s say Alessia and I calculate every possible setback. Before being directors, we’re two engineers.

What was the hardest part of making ‘QAHWA SADA’.

Maria Alessia Di Maio: The hardest part was avoiding the banal, the predictable, the kind of “solidarity story” that feels like a homework assignment. We wrote this story not only for the audience, but for people who are actually living through this tragedy, this genocide. The greatest challenge was doing everything we could to create a short film in which they could recognize themselves, see themselves reflected. Just as all people in Palestine could.

If possible, tell us about your next work. What plans do you have for your future work?

Maria Alessia Di Maio: For our upcoming project, we can reveal very little—only that it will take place in Naples, the city we call home, a city we watch transform year after year. We continue to collect stories, testimonies, and reflections, observing a place that grows ever more modern while remaining bound to the challenges it has carried for two centuries. And so we find ourselves asking: does modernity truly mean progress?