Marco Tullio Giordana on the Locarno film “Separate Lives” Italian family

In 1980, Italian writer and director Marco Tullio Giordana won Locarno Film Festival His first feature film Curse I will love youThis year, he returned to participate Version 77 Swiss Festivals Life next door （Separate life) He is back to reap another honor.

On the occasion of his new film’s out-of-competition premiere Picturesque Swiss town Marco Tullio Giordana was awarded a special leopard on Monday afternoon “in tribute to his career”, festival organisers said.

“In the 1980s, an art city in Italy, a wealthy family,” reads a description of the new film on the Locarno Film Festival website. “Rebecca is born with a noticeable red spot on her face, which causes her family to feel rejection, cruelty and painful love. Music will become her refuge.”

The film is based on Maria Pia Villadiano’s novel of the same name, and Giordana co-wrote the script with Italian director Marco Bellocchio and Gloria Malatesta. The cast includes Sonia Bergamasco; Paolo Pirobon, Valentina Bellethe debut feature by Italian pianist Beatrice Barison, Sara Ciocca and Michela Cescon.

Check out the film clip below.

“Locarno is a festival that I hold very dear because I won the Golden Leopard for my first film 44 years ago and I have returned to it many times since then,” Giordana told Hip replacement Through an interpreter. “Compared to other festivals where there’s a whirlwind of activity and people coming and going, this is a very friendly festival. In Locarno you can enjoy films, meet old friends, and even make new ones.”

The filmmaker said he has always been fascinated by Italy’s many different cities and towns and their different cultures and traditions. “I feel like I’m traveling through and discovering my own country by making films set in different regions of Italy,” he shared.

The film is set in beautiful Vicenza, which was one of the things that attracted him to the project. “It also features complex family relationships, a theme that I’ve dealt with in many of my previous films,” he says. “But the setting and the family environment and background are more closed, more bourgeois, more exclusive, proving that being rich doesn’t necessarily mean happiness and contentment.”

Why is family a recurring theme in Italian films? “In Italy, family is really a very important element of our culture,” Giordana told Hip replacement“And I mean not just the happy nuclear family, but all the degradation that can happen in family bonds and relationships.” The image of the Italian mother, for example, is one that people share. “When you talk about the Italian family, you’re talking about Italian society. It’s like looking at it through a microscope, through a lens.”

Jordana praised the energy the actors brought to the new film. “I love them. They’re all so creative,” he said.

When asked specifically about Barison, he gushed, “She’s amazing. I love her.” How did he cast her? “I wanted a real piano player to play Rebecca. I didn’t want to start with an actress and a pianist to film the close-ups of hands on the keyboard, as you often see in movies. I just wanted to film the live performance. I looked for performers at conservatories in the Veneto region because I wanted the performers to have a real accent (the accent of the region Vicenza belongs to). When I saw Beatrice from a distance, I prayed that she would be great because as soon as I saw her, I knew she would be perfect, and she was at the audition. She didn’t care about the camera or being filmed. She was just herself.”

But Jordana mentioned that the actors faced some challenges because of his own challenges. “The way I work with actors is this. Before I give them instructions on set, I usually ask them to show me the scenes they have studied, and sometimes I take their suggestions and I will modify or change them.”

exist Separate lifewhich ended up taking quite a bit of revisions. “During this shoot, I had insomnia,” the filmmaker shared. “I couldn’t sleep the entire shoot, so I was rewriting lines and scenes all night. In the morning, I came with new lines for them to learn while they were in makeup.” While this gave the actors “little time to get familiar” with the dialogue tweaks, “it also meant the performances felt more natural — to the point where they said, ‘What’s the point in working on these parts if everything’s changed?’ I had to say, ‘We’ll probably go back to the original plan.’”

What was it like working with his friend Bellocchio? “I worked on the script with Marco. Of course, when he asked me to be in the film, I felt the need to rewrite parts of the script because I had to make it more personal. He gave me suggestions and different advice, but never interfered,” Jordana told Hip replacement“He never asked me to review the dailies or the footage. He only looked at the rough cut and then gave his suggestions again. Since I finished shooting ahead of schedule and didn’t waste any money – on the contrary, we saved some money – I realized in the editing room that I had missed three or four key scenes. I asked him to allow me to go back and shoot them.”

One example is the scene in which Rebecca rebels against her mother when she is 10 years old. “I overlooked this, but it was crucial to explain the guilt she felt afterwards,” the filmmaker explains. “We needed to see this aggressive side of her towards her mother. Perhaps a more traditional producer, worried about time and money, would not have allowed me to do this, but Marco understood my need.”

What’s next for Jordana? “Besides making films, I’m also working in theatre,” he told Hip replacement“So my next project is a theatre show where I will be adapting the play, which is based on the novel, with the actors who play the main characters in the play. The late Mattia Pascal The work of Luigi Pirandello.”

In addition, he wants to make a new movie. “A few years ago I wrote a movie that I hope to make, the title is II Red & Black,” or Red and Black“I have other projects or movies that are probably too old or too dark to be made into movies. But what I want to do is continue to alternate between theater and movies.”