ELECTRIC HILLS
1. Opening
Electric Hills is a documentary that tells a surprising and almost forgotten story: how a small Italian region, Marche, helped change the language of contemporary music.
Far from the cultural capitals, among hills, countryside and workshops, artisan craftsmanship met electronics. The result was visionary laboratories, companies and instruments that have played on stages and in studios all over the world: from Pink Floyd to Jean-Michel Jarre, from Kraftwerk to Tangerine Dream, all the way to the composers of Stranger Things.
This is the story of an Italy that quietly built the sounds of the future.
The film has been shot. One last step remains to finish it, and we want to take it with you.
2. What the film is about
From the accordions of Castelfidardo to the electric organs of the 1960s, from the first Italian synthesizers to the drum machines that anticipated Japan: The Marche region was an unexpected technological avant-garde, where craftsmen, technicians, musicians and inventors imagined and built sounds never heard before.
Electric Hills tells the epic of this district for the first time: an industry that reinvented itself as the rules of music and society changed and created something unexpected. Previously unseen interviews, archive materials, forgotten instruments and the voices of the musicians who made history with those instruments reconstruct the legacy of an Italy that has influenced music all over the world. It is a story of vision, courage and imagination, still alive today in the current musical district, which, amid new technologies and creativity, continues to produce and innovate, inspired by such an important tradition.
3. One last step together
Thanks to the support we have already received, we have covered development, pre-production and filming. We have gathered testimonies, images and sounds that tell the story of an Italian excellence that is still far too little known.
What remains is post-production: the phase in which all this material becomes a film, ready for festivals and distribution.
Completing it requires €40,000, broken down as follows:
- Editing: €10,000
- Rights to images and archive materials: €10,000
- Original soundtrack and music rights: €6,000
- Sound design and mix: €5,000
- Color grading, master, subtitles and festival versions: €5,000
- Rewards, shipping and platform fees: €4,000
The campaign runs in “keep what you raise” mode: every contribution goes directly to post-production. If we don’t reach the full amount, the film will still be made, perhaps with a longer timeline and less archive material, which is precious but very expensive.
The funds are collected by the Museo del Synth Marchigiano, the campaign promoter, and are intended for the production of the film, carried out by The Blink Fish.
Supporting Electric Hills is not just a financial contribution: it is a cultural choice. It means believing in a story of innovation, talent and vision, and allowing it to finally be recognized.
We are close to the finish line. With you, we can reach it.
4. Who is in the film
In the film, among others:
- Jean-Michel Jarre: pioneer of world electronic music
- Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein: composers of the Stranger Things soundtrack
- Boosta: Subsonica
- Claudio Simonetti: Goblin
- Tommaso Colliva, Massimo Martellotta, Enrico Gabrielli: Calibro 35
- Sam Battle: Look Mum No Computer
- Martin Schmidt and Andrew Daniel: Matmos
- Fabrice Quagliotti: Rockets
together with inventors, designers, technicians and firsthand witnesses, Italian and international, who lived through or were influenced by this sonic revolution.
Dixon, Stein and Boosta visited the Museo del Synth Marchigiano, where they played and recorded with the instruments in the collection. Like them, many figures from the contemporary and experimental electronic scene have made their way to the Marche hills over the years. These were not courtesy visits, but sessions of studio work, exchange and creation, in which instruments born among these hills play again in the hands of those who continue to redefine the language of music.
5. The origins: the Museo del Synth Marchigiano
Electric Hills was born from a real place, before it was a cinematic idea: the Museo del Synth Marchigiano.
The Museum grew out of the passion of a group of friends, musicians and collectors who, over the years, have found, saved, repaired and brought back to life extremely rare electronic instruments made in Marche: synthesizers, organs and drum machines that have run through decades of pop, rock and electronic music, on stages and in the studios of international artists.
The Museum was created to fill what its founders call “a great absence set against a great presence”: on one side, the lack of memory of a fundamental chapter of the cultural industry of Le Marche; on the other, the continual, often unexpected reappearance of Italian instruments in records, videos and photographs of the world’s music figures.
Over time, the collection has attracted musicians, composers and researchers from all over the world, and from these encounters came the need to tell this story in an organic, shareable way. Electric Hills is the natural continuation of that work.
6. What makes this project special
The provinces as avant-garde
The film overturns the centre/periphery narrative: here the provinces are not backwardness, they are vision. Among wheat fields and family workshops, a musical Silicon Valley avant la lettre was born. It is a story that doesn’t belong only to Marche, but to anyone who has listened to electronic, pop and rock music in the last sixty years.
A contemporary visual language
Rural landscapes and futuristic imagery, evocative shots, archive materials and interviews, with an edit inspired by music videos and today’s pop culture. An aesthetic that speaks to music lovers and to a young, international audience.
Not nostalgia, but the future
Electric Hills does not look at the past with regret: it tells of a living legacy that continues to influence music, design and technology today.
Fabrice Quagliotti, keyboardist and leader of the French space-rock band Rockets
7. Who we are
The campaign is promoted by the Museo del Synth Marchigiano.
The film is produced by The Blink Fish, an independent production company with a strong focus on visual and narrative impact.
The writing is by Paolo Bragaglia, composer and performer, with the collaboration of Leonardo Gabrielli, lecturer and designer, and the whole staff of the Museo del Synth Marchigiano, who have been working for years on the rediscovery of this heritage.
The direction is by Marco Bragaglia, director and visual artist with over thirty years of experience in cinema and visual arts, always drawn to places where memory and imagination meet.
And many other collaborators who made the film possible.
8. Closing
Become part of Electric Hills: choose the reward you like best among those on the page and share the campaign with anyone who loves music. Every share counts as much as a contribution.
It takes just a minute, by card, PayPal or bank transfer.
Thank you!
Technical Notes
*Rewards will be distributed at the end of the campaign, and travel, food, and lodging expenses related to invitations for screenings and visits will be borne by the backers
*The association’s PayPal account was activated for administrative reasons under the name of our secretary, Federica Curzi. Therefore, her name may appear as the account holder or contact person during the transaction or on the payment receipt; it remains understood that all funds will be fully and directly credited to the association.