-Who is Luigi Pingitore?

A tiny man wandering through an endless world.
Someone who has never fully accepted adulthood, who uses images and words to find his bearings, to avoid getting completely lost — someone who holds a blind and absolute faith in the power of words and images to occasionally shed light on existence. Not just his own.

-Do you remember the exact moment you fell in love with cinema?

I remember it perfectly. I was just under 10 years old when I saw a film on TV that completely hypnotized me, even though I couldn’t quite understand what I was watching. The film was Picnic at Hanging Rock by Peter Weir. For the first time, I saw — and this I could understand — a film that didn’t follow rules, that felt like a dream, where the freedom to imagine was the most important thing. At that moment I thought:
how wonderful — so it’s possible to dream even without going to sleep!

-Tell us about your short screenplay “JAGO I NTO THE WHITE”.

JAGO INTO THE WHITE was a fascinating and complex challenge. I’ve always been deeply drawn to the theme of talent, and the relationship between inspiration and expression. That’s why one of the things I love most is making documentaries about artists. Film ing and telling the story of the creative act — a mysterious, powerful, almost messianic act — is something I find beautiful.
That’s exactly why I decided to make this film, and from the very beginning — since the first notes I jotted down — I had one clear goal: I didn’t want to make just a documentary, I wanted to make a film. No interviews, just a real – life character followed in h is daily life, and a post – production process typical of narrative cinema: an original soundtrack, sound design reconstructed by a foley artist, meticulous work on color grading and the final mix.
After all, I’m not a documentarian — I see myself as a director and a writer, and I use different genres and languages to tell the stories that matter most to me.

–Which Director inspires you the most?

I have a sacred trilogy. Antonioni, Bergman, and Fellini — in that order.
Antonioni is perhaps the director I feel most connected to. He taught me how to use silence and space. Light and camera movements. Bergman, on the other hand, taught me how to use words. And to understand that there are no limits — you have to say everything, even the unspeakable.
Fellini is a genius, and 8½ is the most beautiful film in the history of cinema. I think that says it all.

-What do you dislike about the world and what would you change?

Since your question is long and complex, I can only give you a long and complex answer: I’ve realized there are a lot of things I don’t love.​ A lot of things I’ll never love. I don’t love Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. I don’t love those who worship them as idols. I don’t love bosses. I don’t love entrepreneurs who don’t know how to do anything, the captains of industry, the ones who play the stock market with daddy’s money, the ones who start trading at 19 and think they’re brokers, the ones who believe in easy money, who believe money is an end and not a means. I don’t love content creators who have nothing to say, the ones who self – publish a book and then write “official profile” on social media, the ones who say they’re open to collaborations. I don’t love food bloggers who go around telling you what they like as if it were the truth about taste. I don’t love girls who sell their videos on OnlyFans and then explain that this too is a form of female revolution. I don’t love the female revolution, or the male revolution for that matter; I don’t love marches, sweat, slogans, or flags. I don’t love anxiety. I don’t love the kids who spend thousands of hours on TikTok watching other kids who, like them, spend thousands of hours on TikTok, until one of them — luckier or more skilled or who knows what — sets a foot beyond the swamp of anonymity and starts dreaming o f becoming Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. I don’t love vertical videos, fast videos, stupid transitions, or inaccurate subtitles. But I also don’t love the small – minded bourgeois who don’t even try to understand and have already decided everything is shit — who say this stuff sucks just because they’re left out, old, out of sync with the present, living inside a dull, self – consoling no stalgia that elevates their own time into an absolute myth, when even in their time the world was full of brainless idiots. I don’t love those who live locked in their shitty little world, who use fear to navigate life, who know nothing beyond themselves, who confuse selfishness with self – love and vice versa, and when they say they need to take care of themselves — now, they need to take care of themselves — it just means they’re about to screw you over. I don’t love the anxiety of screwing people over, the fear of loving, the shame of shamelessness, forced exhibitionism, the shyness of failure. I don’t love what it means to succeed, and I don’t love what it means to fail. I don’t love Napoli Bene — because no one has ever shown me where the good is. I don’t love happy hours that inevitably turn into painful melancholy, I don’t love fruity cocktails, people who drink bitters with ice, people who eat thin pizza, those who don’t crumble under the weight of memories and try hard to believe in the future, those who speak loudly about their lives, those who scream in rage over bullshit and then bow their heads in defeat in front of real injustice, I don’t love Juventus fans, southerners who vote for the Lega, I don’t love that in summer it’s too hot, even though heat is beautiful in one specific way, I don’t love arrogant thirty – somethings, disillusioned forty – somethings, crazy fifty – somethings, or twenty – somethings who are arrogant, disillusioned, and crazy all at once. I don’t love people who prefer winter over summer, people who wait for the rain, people who don’t drink coffee in the morning, decaf coffee. I don’t love the fate of all the memories I’ve stopped remembering, all those moments I thought would last forever, all the right promises made to the wrong people and all the wrong things I did to the right ones. I don’t love those who have never spent a night sleeping on a beach, who have never skinny – dipped, who have never once been moved thinking about how shitty life can be — and then been moved again realizing that, either way, it’s far too short. I don’t love writers — the clever ones, the ones who calculate everything, who are obsessed with their place in the world, neat writers, who never step outside the lines, who live on constant compromise, who want to tell us a little story (fuck your little stories), who are afraid to get their soul dirty, afraid to mess with power, who shake hands with everyone, who read nothing, who lost their original spark — the one that, at sixteen, lit them up and told them literature, true literature, could lead to some kind of truth. I don’t love writers trapped in the turning point, the cliffhanger, the three – act structure, the noir guys, the crime guys, all those who lean on easy news headlines, who recycle the same plots, the same ideas, the same characters, I don’t love the nonsense – spinners who care only about the rankings, who survive off simple plots, instant words, pages that reek of hand sanitizer.​ I don’t love bitter poets, poets with no poetry, extinct poets, the soul – bankrupt, the incontinent ones who turn their misery and failures into fake grand inner epics. I don’t love those who pretend to live, the arrogant, the touchy, the irritable, the gloomy for no reason, I don’t love all those men full of money who, despite it all, live miserable lives. The ego show – offs, the narcissists in love with the idea of themselves, I don’t love friends who don’t answer the phone or messages anymore, and then pop back up when they need something, I don’t love those who don’t value friendship. In truth, I don’t love anyone who goes silent after a call or a message because they don’t know what to say or because they lied and don’t know how to get out of it. The slick ones living off tricks, who crumble in embarrassment when caught, I don’t love the rudeness that masks cowardice, I don’t love people who don’t keep their word, who are not men of honor — because honor is sacred, and it’s not true that it’s gone out of fashion. I don’t love those who don’t cultivate illusions, those who never give up, those who give up, those who have already surrendered, those who refuse to surrender, those who blast our ears with motivational quotes about never giving up, I don’t love life coaches, I don’t love people who meditate to find their path and then lack the courage to walk it. I don’t love those who delude themselves into thinking they’re empathetic, I don’t love resilience (actually, I hate it), I don’t love inner strength when used as a marketing slogan, I don’t love those who waste their lives in front of the TV, those who waste it in betting shops, those who waste it in endless arguments, in the absence of calm, in neurosis. I don’t love those who don’t give themselves, once in a while, a flash of useless happiness.

-How do you imagine cinema in 100 years?​

Potentially, cinema — understood as the projection of a film inside a large, increasingly comfortable theater, with magnificent, immersive, hypnotic audio – video systems — has a bright future ahead of it. Television as we know it today is destined to disappear, and what will remain will be, on the one hand, fragmented and miniature viewing experiences, and on the other, the great Magic of the cinema.

Because watching a Film in a theater is a Unique experience. But this is just a hope. The truth is that in 100 years, cinema will follow the same path as every other artistic language — just look at what literature has become in the world today. We are living in a historical moment in which everything that produces emotion and reflection is under attack and threatened.

We are living in a horrible time, dominated by minds that cannot see beyond their own egos, in a reality where Beauty and Art are increasingly irrelevant, replaced by entertainment and spectacle. Entertainment and spectacle are perfect industrial tools: th ey flatten differences, inhibit individuality, and suppress dreams. Either we are reborn with a true Renaissance, or we will succumb — because human
beings without Beauty and Art are nothing more than imperfect automatons.

–What is your impression of WILD FILMMAKER?

All experiences of exchange, dialogue, and analysis must be encouraged — everything
that celebrates the Beauty of cinema. So long live Wild Filmmaker! And besides, the
word “wild” is absolutely beautiful!