From Scratch, a recently released Netflix series is already touching viewers’ hearts.
Developed by Attica Locke and Tembi Locke, the program features Eugenio Mastrandra and Zoe Saldana, who also serves as producers. Executive producers include Reese Witherspoon, Richard Abate, Lauren Neustadter, Jermaine Johnson, and Will Rowbotham. Five episodes, including the pilot, were directed by Little Fires Everywhere and Tall Girl writer, producer, and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Nzingha Stewart. Dennie Gordon is in charge of directing the last three episodes.
What’s the From Scratch storyline?
The episode tells the tragic story of Amy Wheeler (Zoe Saldana), an ambitious artist who travels to Italy as part of a study abroad program. She meets Lino Ortolano, a chef from Sicily, there. The pair faces numerous difficulties as a result of their disparate cultures, languages, and origins.
The show follows the couple’s journey and shows how their love triumphs over the numerous challenges life throw at them.
Is it an actual true story?
Yes! The TV show is based on the real-life experiences of Tembi Locke, including her travels in Italy, her love affair with Saro Gullo, and the terrible death of her husband as a result of a rare kind of cancer. Even though the names have changed, the events are quite similar. Like the series, Locke relocated to Italy after finishing high school, where she met Gullo, the man she would eventually wed. The pair experienced both highs and lows, with Gullo’s family disapproving of his choice to wed a Black woman from Texas.
Gullo stayed in Florence while Locke eventually moved back to the US, but the two eventually met up again in New York and eventually moved to Los Angeles together, where they got married, in 1995. Gullo received a diagnosis of leiomyosarcoma in 2002, a rare type of cancer that develops in the smooth muscles. The couple adopts a daughter together following his diagnosis.
Gullo, however, died in 2012 after receiving treatment for ten years. Over the course of three summers spent in Sicily, Locke wrote about her and her daughter as they struggled to adjust to life without Gullo. In the series’ last episode, Aftertastes, Amy fulfills her late husband’s wish by traveling back to Sicily and spending time with his family, who are also mourning his loss.
Below is the trailer for From Scratch: