Dreams can truly come true. Of course, it isn’t enough to merely believe in yourself with all your heart. You also need effort, to surround yourself with the right people, and a pinch of luck. In this way, dreams can become reality even in the most unlikely of circumstances, as happened to the duo Max Pezzali-Mauro Repetto, two boys from a flat, unremarkable province. Making music and finding success looked like their dream, on the surface. They turned it into reality, reaching enormous popularity in a blink and then facing a new challenge: figuring out how to move forward and prove that their success wasn’t merely a fluke.
Everything begins to change in the spring of 1993, with the recording and subsequent release of the second album. Max and Mauro are no longer just two boys from Pavia dreaming of breaking through: the 883 have become a fixture in Italian music, and after the triumph of their first record they must contend with ever-growing expectations. The often unbelievable events that led to the creation of what would become one of the emblematic albums of the ’90s, the way Max and Mauro faced sudden fame and the new personal and artistic challenges, are recounted with plenty of irony and nostalgia in Nord Sud Ovest Est – The Legendary Story of the 883, the second and final chapter of the Sydney Sibilia series that began with Hanno ucciso l’Uomo Ragno – La leggendaria storia degli 883. It begins today, October 9, with the first two episodes exclusive on Sky and streaming only on NOW, followed by a new installment every Friday until the finale on November 20.
Nord Sud Ovest Est – The Legendary Story of the 883: After the First Hit, the Challenge of the Second Album
In 2024, at the end of a first season blessed with strong audience and critical acclaim, a question surfaced within the friendship and professional partnership of Max Pezzali and Mauro Repetto: when, hearing a song Max had written for Silvia, Mauro asked what role he could have in a track that wasn’t their usual fare and that he wouldn’t be able to dance to. Nord Sud Ovest Est – The Legendary Story of the 883 restarts the tale right from that moment, in a way that will leave you utterly astonished. We find ourselves at a point where the bond between the two friends is incredibly strong. They decide to set aside that “anomaly” and stay faithful to the style that now defines them, closer to pop and dance.
Yet compared to before, something inevitably changed: Max and Mauro have tasted success and must now learn to live with it. The sales of their first album were impressive but not enough to crown them number one, so the two (portrayed in a remarkably on-target way by Elia Nuzzolo and Matteo Giuggioli) find themselves working on songs for their next record not only under the pressure to reconfirm themselves but also to do better, to be first. It’s a restart completely different from the previous one: this time they no longer need to convince anyone to listen to them, but to prove they can stay at the top they’ve reached.
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Clearly, as two youths, inexperience and distractions obstruct their path, though they also teach them a great deal. Above all, Max struggles with how things unfolded with Silvia (Ludovica Barbarito), now far from Pavia. He tries to move on, begins a new relationship, but forgetting his first great love isn’t easy. He can rely on the support and companionship of his closest friends Cisco and Nemorino (Davide Calgaro and Riccardo Armiento), even if they seem to do their best to complicate his life, often in a provocative fashion. And, as with any great artist, what he and Mauro experience and learn along the way ends up deftly shaping their works, their songs: Nord sud ovest est, Sei un mito, and Rotta per casa di Dio. It is precisely on the path toward the new album that the series recovers one of its most successful elements: telling how experiences, friendships, loves, failures, and seemingly insignificant moments of two guys’ lives can transform into the songs destined to become the soundtrack for an entire generation. Under the guidance of manager/guardian Pierpaolo (Edoardo Ferrario) and pressed by the pragmatism of Claudio Cecchetto (Roberto Zibetti), Max and Mauro, in their comfortable Pavia, succeed in their aim of delivering a new great album, navigating other challenges like their first music video and their first featuring.
Sei un mito, the single that previews the second album, quickly climbs to number 1 in Italy and brings the 883 to Non è la Rai, Fiorello’s Karaoke, and Festivalbar. The same album becomes a colossal phenomenon: it stays at the top for 14 consecutive weeks and sells roughly 1.4 million copies, ultimately becoming the best-selling album in Italy in 1993. There are cover shoots, crowds of screaming girls, and significant accolades. That milestone Max and Mauro had pursued together now seems reached, even beyond their wildest expectations. And it is this transformation that becomes a core focus of the new season: how to remain friends when everything around you suddenly changes? How to keep being the same guys when your name is everywhere? Max and Mauro confront fame in their own way, while trying to figure out what the next step for the 883 could be. Even Come mai, the song for Silvia—a much more serious ballad far removed from the dance model that had made them famous—becomes a marker of artistic and personal growth and of a desire to experiment that accompanies the making of the new album.
Nord Sud Ovest Est thus ends up representing much more than a simple confirmation of the 883’s success. It is the album that places two boys from Pavia squarely at the heart of Italian music, forced to measure themselves against everything they had hoped for and against the consequences—not always predictable—of achieving it. Their friendship, the different ways they experience that fame, their respective ambitions, and the attempt to find their place within a phenomenon much bigger than themselves accompany the entire story. Along the way, the differences between Max and Mauro become clearer, as do questions about their future. But before arriving at that moment, Nord Sud Ovest Est – The Legendary Story of the 883 tells mainly two friends grappling with something extraordinary: the fame they had dreamed of has finally arrived, and they must figure out what to do with it. A new chapter that, through music, friendship, loves, ambitions, and inevitable changes, from start to finish, offers more emotion, more laughter, and a great deal of nostalgia for a time when we were happy and didn’t know it.
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