Taxi In Time

Honourable Mention

Taxi In Time is one of six films that we consider particularly successful and significant alongside the winners of the 2nd Taxi Film Festival 2025.

Taxi In Time made us laugh like almost no other film at the 2nd Taxifilmfest 2025. Like a rollercoaster, the film races with its viewers through ever wilder iterations of a crazy porc cycle of business models and technological revolutions. It’s obvious from the very first seconds that it can’t end well, and it comes to a conclusion that is as plausible as it is impossible. Hilarious.

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‘Taxi in Time’ is a short film parodying Uber’s battle against taxis, using an app called “Taxi in Time” that allows you to summon a DeLorean taxi in real time and travel anywhere, anytime... but be careful, it can have unexpected consequences!

Team

Gianluca Fratellini: director, screenwriter, producer
Mario Leone: Screenwriter
Christopher Lloyd: ‘Doc
Dario Penne: “Doc’s Italian Voice”
Gianluca Fratellini: “Journalist”

Type: Animation, Experimental, Short, Web/New Media, Other
Genres: Parody, Animation, Short, Science Fiction, Comedy
Runtime: 3 minutes 49 seconds
Completed: 22 June 2018
Production budget: €10,000
Country of Origin: Italy
Country of Shooting: Italy
Language: English, Italian
Shooting Format: Digital
Aspect Ratio: 16:9

Director’s Biography – Gianluca Fratellini

Gianluca Fratellini was born in Modugno, Puglia, in 1980 and grew up in Palo del Colle, a small village near Bari. He became interested in 3D at the age of 14 and spent his school days studying the first books on 3D Studio and Autocad. He often visited the office where his father worked and they used Autocad. During the breaks, he used the computers there. After graduating, he went to the University of Informatics, hoping to meet people who shared the same passion and with whom he could exchange information – in vain.

In a few months, he created the short film A Bug’s Story (5 minutes) on a very slow computer, with a character similar to A Bug’s Life by Pixar. While preparing for his first analysis exam, Oniria Pictures, a company in Luxembourg, sent him an email asking for a demo tape and asking if he would be interested in working on the 3D animated film ‘Tristan & Isolde’. At first, he was shocked by the news and thought it was a bad joke played on him by his friends. He dropped out of university and soon after moved to Luxembourg, where he worked for three years, first as a junior 3D animator on the American TV series ‘Bob’s Beach’ – 52 episodes of 11 minutes each – and then as a senior 3D animator for the first film, ‘Tristan & Isolde’, and then for the second feature film, ‘Renart the Fox’, which was realised in 3D with 2D rendering and backgrounds. During those three years, he also made his short film ‘Life in Smoke - Una Vita in Fumo’ (8 minutes), working almost every night after work, including Saturdays and Sundays.

Thanks to the constant commitment and emotional support of the people close to him, he was able to successfully complete his short film, which still gives him satisfaction and has won numerous important awards at Italian and European festivals. He worked at Ubisoft Montreal in Montreal, Canada, as a 3D Senior Animator and Layout Supervisor in the Cinematic department for games such as Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, Rainbow Six, Far Cry, AND 1 Streetball, Surf’s Up, etc. He was also a 3D Animation Teacher of level II at Ubisoft’s campus organised by Cegep of Matane in Quebec.

He worked at Animal Logic in Sydney, Australia as a 3D character animator on Mumble for the Warner Bros animated feature film ‘Happy Feet’. In England, he worked as a 3D senior animator at Climax. He worked at Ilion Animation Studios in Madrid, Spain, as a 3D character animator on the 3D animated film ‘Planet 51’, distributed by New Line Cinema & TriStar Pictures, after working on the commercial for Danone and also as a 3D lead animator on the TV series ‘Glumpers’. He also worked with Double Negative in London as a 3D character animator on the film ‘Paul’ starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for Universal Pictures and on the Disney/Pixar film ‘John Carter’ starring Pixar director Andrew Stanton (of Wall-e and A Bug’s Life).

He worked at Sony Pictures Imageworks in Vancouver, Canada, as a lead 3D animator on the animated film Hotel Transylvania, directed by Genndy Tartakovsky and produced by Sony Pictures Animation for Columbia Pictures. He is currently working at Blue Sky Studios in New York as a 3D character animator on ‘Epic’, ‘Rio 2’, ‘Peanuts’ and ‘Ice Age 5: Collision Course’.

He worked in London at Framestore on the Walt Disney film Beauty and the Beast, directed by Bill Condon, and the Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, directed by James Gunn.
He then worked as a lead animator at Mikros Animation Studio on the animated film Sherlock Gnomes, directed by John Stevenson. He worked as a lead animator at MPC on the new Disney film Dumbo, directed by Tim Burton, Maleficent 2 and The Lion King, directed by John Favreau.

In the meantime, he worked as a 3D lead animator and supervisor for a spot for La Biennale, the ‘76th Venice International Film Festival 2019’, for the entire animation of the 3D lion, several commercials for MPC and SWISS and his short films: ‘A Bug’s Story’ - “Life in Smoke - Una Vita in Fumo” and worked on a new short film.

He worked in London as a 3D animation supervisor for Double Negative on the animation project ‘Ron’s Gone Wrong’ and is currently working at MPC with Robert Zemeckis as lead 3D animator on the Walt Disney feature film ‘Pinocchio’.