Tell us about your artistic path.
I’ve always been a self-taught person. After finishing University, I started shooting my first works with the help of my business partner, Marco Santoro. Small short films, video clips, an experimental film, a little bit of everything. Then, we founded our production company, Naffintusi, which in addition to cinema has always focused on live audio-visual shows and music.
Let’s talk about your work in competition at Laceno d’Oro: how did you start? Where did you find the spark?
It all stems from an idea of Teho Teardo; I had the pleasure of working with him on another short film called La Flame. In the middle of the pandemic, he had rewatched Chris Marker’s cult film La Jetée and chanced upon a review written by J.G. Ballard. He talked to me about it, and we tried to conceive, together with Elisabetta Pacini, a short film that, although freely based on that review, could be an independent work.
Cinema and festivals are finally coming back to theatres. Do you think that, after the last two years, cinema – from production to distribution and access – has inexorably changed?
Cinema, like all forms of art and life itself, is constantly changing. It seems obvious to me. The pandemic has only accelerated this process of change, which like all changes is not necessarily bad. Cinema has been missing Festivals more than other things. Festivals are like a continuous search engine; they should be able to make room for works that struggle to enter mainstream environments. Now more than ever I believe that festivals must play a key role in offering the public films that escape the so-called platforms algorithm. The risk is that of having to rewatch the same film repeatedly.