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Idiopathy
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Dinner with Dante
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Because We Are Too Many
BEST INTERNATIONAL NARRATIVE FEATURE & BEST DIRECTOR (Category: Narrative Feature)
Sitting in a Dream – Golden Hair
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Thankful
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Teddy
BEST MOBILE FILM & BEST EXPERIMENTAL CINEMATOGRAPHY
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Sheldon Mashugana gets stooged
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Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana
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An impossible secret
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Asherah’s Colors
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The Order
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The Demon
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THE BLANKET – Die schwarze Decke
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Nossos Caminhos (Our Paths)
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Sonia and Connor
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Lacrime di Vento
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Non temere
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The Esteemed Priority
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Michelangelo and Me + Da Vinci and Me opener
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Monument to Love
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Routine
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Nostalgia
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2020: life and death of a virus
BEST EUROPEAN EXPERIMENTAL DIRECTOR & BEST INTERNATIONAL INSPIRATIONAL SHORT FILM
Anything You Lose
BEST INDIE FILMMAKER (Category: Documentary Feature)
I am an Italian composer, director and actress based in Cologne. In 2015 I had my international debut as composer with great success of public and critics at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with the opera „O.H.I.O.-ObstHaine Im Oktober”. I worked with international theatres, orchestras and ensembles, such as Komische Oper Berlin, Oper Köln, FontanaMIX Ensemble and Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon. My work focuses on opera, film, folk music and archaic musical, theatrical and textual arguments. Particularly important is the musical search of the relation between word and sound, where I research a musical style that follows and increase the musicality of the word. In 2022 I started making my films based on my music compositions: „Der Blaue Klang” (The blue sound, 2022) and „Der Rote Klang” (The red sound, 2024). Both films were made starting from my composition for piano „Nach Kandinsky: drei Impressionen”, a work commissioned by FontanaMIX Ensemble in 2021. „Der Rote Klang” won the „8&Halfilm Award” 2024 and the Special event American Film Market 2024 of Las Vegas, both sponsored by Wild Filmmaker, an Honourable mention at „One-Reeler Short Film Competition” in Los Angeles and was selected as quarter-finalist at „Belgrade International Film Festival” and „Art Giraffe International Film Festival” in Nice.
-What has been the greatest difficulty you faced in producing your project?
The whole organization of my film production was a lot of work: indeed, „Der Rote Klang” team was small, but talented and I am honoured to have had the opportunity to work with everybody of this beautiful team and first with Hei Wa Wong, the second director of my film. I am the music composer, the principal director, the screenplay writer and the actress of this movie and we had to shoot several scenes in a closed room, in which I had to smoke a lot. We shot these scenes in one afternoon: the shooting process was intense and a little bit difficult for everybody of us, but the smoking idea was genial for the film and for the music too.
-Do you think the film industry today has been damaged by political correctness?
More than the film industry, the whole world of art is in danger and one of the main causes is the serious human and existential crisis we are experiencing in recent years. We have lost contact with our most human and emotional side; we have lost our sensibility, and we no longer recognise the authentic meaning of beauty and poetry. We are so far from the world of emotions and their truth. We are too distracted, too superficial. Now more than ever we have the urgency to stop and listen to ourselves within, deep, with sincerity and humility.
-What was the greatest source of inspiration for creating your project?
The music, because my films are based on my music compositions. “First the music, then the film”: after composing the music, I write the film direction and the screenplay: the action and the image sequences follow the musical structure and phrasing of the composition, re-proposing the emotional intensity of the music, with a great expressiveness and an incisive language. For example, my composition for piano „Nach Kandinsky: drei Impressionen”, of which „Der Rote Klang” is a part, is inspired by the ideas about colour theorized by Kandinsky in his book „The Spiritual in Art„: from painting came music, and from music, then, the film was born. The original artistic idea, that is, the theories about colour, developed and changed, thus generating a new idea, which is the one narrated in the film.
-If you could ask a question to a great director from the past, who would you like to talk to and what would you ask them?
Visconti, Fellini, Ėjzenštejn, Hitchcock and Truffaut: these are some of the great directors of the past, whom I would like to talk to for hours, but the most important question I would like to ask them is: „Today people have forgot their authentic relation with the sense of beauty, magic and fascination. Will we be able to rediscover ourselves and a genuine relation with art?”
-What do you think of the Wild Filmmaker platform?
I think Wild Filmmaker is a beautiful opportunity for independent and talented directors, because this community gives them the possibility to get in touch with international film festivals, which are connected with the film industry. I really appreciate Wild Filmmaker has invited me to be part of the community, because it gave me the chance to be selected in different international film awards and has awarded my film „Der Rote Klang” at the „8&Halfilm Award” 2024.
Independent cinema is shrouded in fog. What does “independent cinema” mean after all? A low-budget movie? Cinema free from masters, be it politics or the lobby of the moment? My point of view is simple: making independent cinema means being true to myself. Giving life to what I feel. Being willing to do anything to give it life. I am lucky that a small production, “The Shadows Factory” allows me to realize my projects. Respecting the atmospheres I see. Trying to involve the faces I see from the moment of writing. I admit it: I need to have control. Control over locations. Control over stage design. Control over costumes. Control over so many things. I try to take care of everything that can represent a saving on expenses. My second film, Katabasis” is a very personal film. Maybe too much. Already in my first film, “Santa Guerra” I had a role as an actress. In “Katabasis” for an infinite number of reasons I had to be the leading actress. This required a great effort. I’ve been tied up in every way for days, I was grabbed by the neck a total of 78 times, I had wax poured on me for two afternoons, I put out a cigarette in the palm of my hand for 4 times, I stayed in a grave for hours, lots of nude scenes, lots of sex scenes… Well… All these things were the least difficult. There was an even stronger emotional component. And after 2 months I was tired, emotionally destroyed. I was so tired that everything that happened off the set seemed like a parallel life to me. And in this parallel life, one day I saw open an heavy window. It was closed. The impact was very strong. Apparently, however, I only had a little bruise. The makeup solved everything. It wasn’t like that. The days after, I couldn’t see clearly. I blamed it on tiredness. I continued. When I was behind the camera, I couldn’t “focus” anymore. I blamed it on tiredness. And then I was becoming intractable. I didn’t trust other people’s focusing. I had come to trust only my mother’s eyesight. And she’s not an operator or a focus puller. Until, on December 7, 2023, I shot the final scene of the film as an actress. I remember that day that I didn’t feel well and that I asked to repeat the scene more than 50 times. In the end, I closed my left eye with one hand. I couldn’t see anything with my right eye. There was an emergency visit to the hospital. My eye was flooded with blood. The doctors were confused.
For ten days, serious illnesses were hypothesized and ruled out. The cause was simpler and was discovered during eye surgery: after a few days, the impact against the glass had created a hole in the retina. Problem solved. In January, other problems began. This time in my left eye. Between January and October, I had at least eight hemorrhages in my left eye. On October 14, I had surgery. I hope this is the end of a nightmare. All this because of a collision that I didn’t give importance to. Or at least, not the importance it deserved. This experience of mine means nothing. I don’t deserve applause because I took a risk the eyes to make a movie. I’m certainly not a hero. I’m just a person who loves cinema. In fact, I love independent cinema. And when I’m involved in a movie, it comes before everything else, even myself. I think it should be this way. And I think it shouldn’t be forgotten this when you want to become a director (in this case also an actress) of an independent movie.
