“There’s something about summer that makes us feel young. The longer days seem not only to offer us more daylight, but more tangible time from which we can benefit. We see our friends more often, we stay out after work. In short, we have more room for the people and things that we love – and perhaps it is their presence that reminds us of our youth.”

A Young Summer’s Heart – the new short film from COPSON founder Maria Falbo and filmmaker Romano Pizzichini – is a hazy reflection on summers spent. It’s the embodiment of a feeling – when the days and nights of a long, hot holiday merge in your memory so that specifics melt and tastes and smells and local colours combine to form an idealised paradise in your mind’s eye.

The film follows a young slick-backed ingénue – first-time Danish actor and skater Villads Larsen – embracing the Italian lifestyle in a humorous and almost Godardian sequence of skated-between events (think Pierrot le Fou meets The Search for Animal Chin) and features the new COPSON collection, which is pretty much the film in fabric form.

We caught up with the creative duo to find out more.

Where did the idea for A Young Summer’s Heart come from?
Romano: It actually came about in a fairly different way from how I usually work. We had a basic framework, or rather, a couple elements which we knew we definitely wanted to work with. One was Calabria and the other was Villads. It became about finding a story that felt honest within that framework.

Maria: The new COPSON collection was designed with a sense of romance in mind. Romano came up with the script and this was the name that stood out perfectly. Whats better than romance, summer and youth combined?

Where was it shot exactly? What’s your relationship with Italy as a place?
Romano: The film was shot in San Morello, Calabria. Maria’s family is from there and as soon as she showed me photographs I knew we could make something very unique over there. My family is also from Italy, and I felt like I could bring certain nuances to the film because of my proximity to the culture. It’s not hard to find scenic looking beaches, but this part of Calabria offered us the possibility of combining that with the humbler, even grimier aspects of Italian country life. It’s not a resort town and it’s not a postcard film.

Maria: It was shot in Calabria – Italy’s untouched most southern region. My whole family is from there and I spent all my summer holidays there as a kid. It truly is a magical place, the landscape is beautiful and it’s one of the only places untouched by tourism. I’ve always shot photos there, but was keen to take it to the next level and do something big. COPSON is massively influenced by the colours and laid-back lifestyle of Calabria.

Can you describe briefly what inspiration you took from the cinematic influences (Permanent Vacation, Inherent Vice, Breaking Away, Gomorrah)…?
Romano: There are elements of all these films which I found relevant to what we were doing. The pure, romantic characters of Permanent Vacation and Breaking Away. Inherent Vice’s willingness to be silly and the environments in Gomorrah. I think most of all they opened our eyes to what was possible.

I love how the film focuses on the passion of someone on the outside looking in. Do you think that’s something that’ll resonate with an inner-city, overworked, land-locked London audience?
Romano: I hope so. In fact, it was one of the reasons that most of the crew got onboard. Although I think it was equally exciting for kids in Calabria to get involved in something from London. Everybody romanticises about somewhere special, and I think that’s why most people I’ve spoken to have been able relate. There’s a passage in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time that sums it up pretty well: “Even from the simplest, the most realistic point of view, the countries which we long for occupy, at any given moment, a far larger place in our actual life than the country in which we happen to be.”

Maria: I’d like to think that people that watch the film can get a sense of the good-time COPSON feeling. Calabria is where I always feel it the most.

The film features skateboarding, but it’s clearly not a skate film. Did you want to explore a different kind of skateboarding lifestyle? Why?
Romano: There are so many great skate films out there, with very talented skaters, which are thrilling to watch. I didn’t think I could add anything to that story. My background is in fiction, so in my head, skating was just another element of our short story. I don’t personally think it has to do with a different approach to skating. It was just a story we thought was interesting, in which the main character happened to skate.

Maria: Skateboarding is a massive part of my influences and always will be, but sometimes I feel that it can be too close-minded or cliquey. I wanted it to be part of the video but not the main focus – again how I see it in relation to COPSON. We are a brand with skate roots, but there is so much more on offer.

How do you hope the film is received? Inspiration? Escape?
Romano: Hopefully they find it relatable and funny, but whatever people take from it is fine by me. I like it when viewers make their own interpretations, and I always try to leave room for that. Other than that, it would be great if the people who worked on this film, purely out of their own goodwill, got some sort of recognition. We had the perfect team.

Maria: I had no idea what to expect, especially form the skate community. I hope that people can enjoy an inspirational combination of great talents, music, visuals, scenery and skateboarding.

The new COPSON collection is available online now.