Ugo: An Artist at War is a love story, a war story, a film about a struggling artist, and his wife’s discovery - one clue at a time - about what her husband had hidden from her for 37 years.
WAR
Private Ugo Giannini of New Jersey, fights from D-Day all the way to the war’s end.
Ugo survives 244 days on the front lines without getting so much as a scratch.
But the trauma haunts Ugo for the rest of his life.
DRAWINGS
On the morning of D-Day on Bloody Omaha Beach, Ugo’s buddies are shot right next to him as they jump off the landing craft. Ugo survives drowning, saves lives on the beach, scampers up a bluff, and finds himself all alone, above the chaos…When he realizes no one is catching up to him anytime soon Ugo Giannini does the unthinkable...he draws.
Ugo makes five sketches that day and 27 throughout the war.
But he is not a war artist, he is a soldier who draws when he can.
LETTERS
From the ranks of U.S. Army riflemen in World War 2, one does not expect to find many budding Hemingways, or Twains, or Fitzgeralds…so powerful…simultaneously mesmerized and unnerved. To read Ugo’s wartime writing is to have a momentary window inside the psyche of an exceptional soldier, a window he would soon seal up forever.
- Joseph Balkoski, author Beyond The Beachhead
PARIS
After the war, Ugo studies with legendary painter Fernand Léger. Léger is a tour de force in the art world and a WW1 veteran and makes a massive impact on Ugo.
Paris allows Ugo to shake off the war and dive back into painting.
MAXINE
Ugo returns home and a great American love story is born out of different cultures, classes and experiences.
Maxine is an accomplished pianist and together they share two children and all of life’s highs and lows…but some things are kept hidden.
PAIN
Ugo trauma goes undiagnosed and untreated.
PAINTINGS
Ugo never stops challenging himself as an artist.
This is some of his collection of lifetime works.
UGO’S FINAL WORKS
In Ugo’s final decade he is obsessed with delivering
a series of paintings dedicated to his war experience.
