INTERWIEW MARIO ROCCATO – WRITING ABOUT A LOVE
1. Being a filmmaker needs a lot of expertise and patience because one has to handle everything all around, so what keeps you motivated? A great passion for cinema. Since I was a child I cultivated the dream of making my own film, and today I was lucky enough to have been able to do it. When you really love something the work is born in your hands despite any obstacle. Love overcomes any difficulty.
2. How do you handle when an actor is not professional? Luckily for me My actors were all very good and professional. My secret, perhaps, was to let them work without interfering, having given them only some general indication of what I wanted. In this way they could express the best of themselves, they could invent their character while respecting the initial script; in this way they gave me interpretations that I consider really great: a film is the result of the creativity of many people.
3. Who are your filmmaking influencers? I have loved Ingmar Bergman since my youngest age. I believe that Ingmar, with his exceptional actors, almost all from the theater, was able to convey a deep philosophy of living in the magic of images. A genius.
4. What are the toughest aspects of making a film today? Overcome the doubt that your work can be understood and appreciated despite its diversity compared to the most appreciated commercial films. Today it seems that, in order to obtain funding and pleasure for the public, it is so often necessary to adapt your film to the most common needs of the market, and for this reason I think there are excellent authors who are unable to emerge despite the value of their intentions; some give up at the start. One of the main difficulties is therefore to find a producer who wants to invest in an auteur film, perhaps in the perspective of sending the work to the main festivals of the world for a recognition of the pure and simple quality of the product. For this reason I personally funded Writing about a love, helped by the generous availability of the actors, the composer of the wonderful music and the whole team: everyone was content with a minimum fee to make this film in which they believed. I am really happy that the film has been appreciated by you and all over the world, and therefore also by cultures very distant from each other, but united in their passion for the cinema.
5. How do you choose a script that you are going to direct? Personally I had no problems because I wrote the subject and the script myself. Should I choose a script from other authors I would try to choose a theme as close as possible to my creative sensibility: I think this is fundamental because the subject of the film must first be able to arouse a deep emotion in the director who will direct it.
6. Do you think the role of a producer is vital? Certainly a producer facilitates the work a lot, because there are aspects of realization that also require a certain financial tranquility. However, as I have already said, I have been a producer of my film and I have been able to make it, with a minimum budget, and so I suggest my colleagues not to be too afraid and to throw themselves into the enterprise, as far as possible. I believe that many items of great expense, visible in high-budget films, can be safely eliminated when the subject and the actors are able to support the realization of the work. Obviously, in order not to commit the producer to an excessive and useless expense, much modesty and a great deal of passion is needed from everyone.
7. How tough it is for a producer to keep the budget unaffected? I believe that the management of the production budget is similar to the management of a family budget: if each participant is aware of the value of money the producer will not have useless and harmful problems.
8. What projects are you working on next? Currently I have 5 new scripts ready, all dedicated to the theme of love and its problems. I could start shooting a new film again tomorrow, but at this point I need the financial support of a producer, because my finances do not allow me the realization of a new work. On the other hand, Writing about a love has proven to need a very minimal budget. I’m living in the hope that a small or large producer will be interested in the new works I have designed.
9. Were there any funny anecdotes from your filmmaking process?
Shooting a film is not only a demanding, often tiring activity; during the shooting we tried to minimize some accidents that occurred during the shooting and that, in the end, were also funny: for example, in the scene shot in a park there was someone, a short distance away, that was constantly starting the mower, and we also laughed at this. In another scene (which I then did not include in the montage because in the end useless), the psychotherapist (Fabio Dessi) had to enter the protagonist’s house (Simona Di Sarno), and say "Normally it is not done this way, that I come to your house; but, since we are..." and they both burst into laughter : in at least 4 remakes of the shooting, imagining a double meaning in the phrase ... When I showed the shooting to the actors the protagonist initially covered her eyes not to see herself in the scenes shot... I threatened to put toothpicks in her eyes...
10.What do you think the audience like to watch these days?
I think that, today, the general public wants to watch mostly violent films or, in any case, great action: a way, perhaps, to get rid of inner tensions knowing that everything they are seeing happens outside of them, that in the end they are safe. In general, moreover, the public prefers films where they do not face the real problems of living, the sufferings of the soul: in short, the public wants above all to be distracted, and the result is that more and more rarely today we see films of deep content, This was the case, for example, in the 1960s and 1970s. I believe, however, that there is a large audience that would appreciate watching films that "make you think," perhaps because they are tired of all the incredible speed of action films, the often gratuitous violence of certain people and tired of montages that become spasmodic to speed up the pace of shooting.
- FOR GOLDEN BIRD FILM CHALLENGE