Logline:
When a small-town clerk demands his father’s respect, days before emigrating to the New World, a seeming opportunity may come with a price — his family’s American dream.

Treatment:
Face Painters is an epic dual-narrative set within two different epochs in the lives of Luca Gravetti, founder of Gravetti & Sons Funeral Home and his hardworking artisan son, Buono, a full-blown illiterate and Luca’s de facto successor.
The present-day story is Brooklyn, 1963 when Luca is overwrought with dementia, and Buono must juggle both the ailing business and his dear father. When Buono’s illiteracy proves too much, he reluctantly contacts his estranged brother, who has all the smarts of a Wall Street whiz kid but is mired by alcoholism and racist dogma. Meanwhile, the Kennedy assassination triggers one last memory in Luca, setting him off on a journey of lost love and redemption.
The earlier story, set in Tuscany, 1928, portrays the family’s last days before their migration. Luca finds a chance to finally gain his hard-nosed father’s respect, but a devious bishop exploits the matter, and the local strong-arm is rebuffed. Luca disregards his wife’s ridicule of being a fool by opting instead for the praise of the townspeople and ignoring the ominous powers heading their way. Meanwhile, a six-year-old Buono experiences his own life-changing event, catapulting him from the innocence of a kid to a manhood well ahead of his grasp.