During the week of “Los Angeles Italia”, thanks to the invitation from the Consul General Antonio Verde’s offices of the Italian Consulate, we were able to interview several directors, who contributed to introducing an important cross section of Italy’s most diverse aspects into the United States. The exodus abroad of young Italians, disability, and the reinterpretation of old westerns, were the arguments Giovanni Veronesi, Fabrizio Maria Cortese and Daniele Nicolosi spoke to us about.
Mr Veronesi, in your film you tell us about the exodus of young Italians who escape abroad. In what way did you want to share all of this?
On the radio program that I broadcast everyday on Radio Due, I constantly hear of young Italians who live scattered all around the world. As each one of them shares his/her personal experience with me, telling me why they left and what they miss. It was here that I realized that I was able to shout what they themselves were not about to, leaving in silence. There are 120,000 young people who leave Italy every year. In 10 years, one million young people will no longer be in Italy, thus leaving the country without an entire generation. The film is addressed to me and to my parents. It is not a matter of gaining experience abroad or of brain drain, but of a million kids who leave because Italy drives them out. As far as immigration, it attracts a media attention which politicians must react to for these poor people who die on the rubber dinghy and the exodus of these young people is silent and implacable. They are not only in need of money but of hope, dreams, and desires.
Why do Italians discover that they are resourceful abroad, while in Italy they are considered to be a burden?
High schools are a true problem of our country. It should be required to teach students to have a cultural identity, certainly not something to be mistaken for nationalism. We must know who Renzo Piano is, of the Italian firms that build roads and bridges all over the world, of all of the excellences which do not only include fashion, food and Ferrari, but of the scientists and people who open businesses abroad and contribute to allowing the possibility for many others to work. These are all things that our younger generations must recognize before leaving and taking with them a strong “know-how” mentality, instead of uncovering it once they are already abroad.
How does political immobilization affect society and young people?
This is a social problem but if a Minister of the Department of Education or of the Department of Labor would take the issue of the young people who are leaving, to heart in an effective way, they might grow up considering themselves lucky to have grown up in the homeland of artist, for example. If an Italian goes abroad to be a painter, he is admired. If you were to do that in Italy, it would be looked upon as lazy.
There are many social themes that directors deal with and a film that highlights a hard reality with a positive and hopeful perspective, is Fabrizio Maria Cortese’s, “Ho amici in Paradiso” (I Have Friends in Paradise), which will be broadcast on Rai Uno. It is a profound film capable of unhinging the preconceived notions of which each one of us should rid ourselves.
What is the type of film that is being presented in Los Angeles today and what themes does it cover?
The film is a light comedy that tackles the theme of disability in a tragicomic note. There are eight different characters from the Opera Don Guanella of Rome, who, are all capable in different ways, along with six famous actors of the Italian cinema. It tells the story of a man and the change in him when, after having committed petty crimes, is given in custody to social services. At the beginning, the man will face some problems because he is not able to confront himself with these people but later begins to understand them, finding friends and falling in love with a psychiatrist of the Center. Yesterday at the screening of the film at the Chinese Theater, many people got emotional, laughed, and had fun. Los Angeles has given us a beautiful welcome- something fantastic.
I imagine this was a great experience, even from a personal perspective. What has this film left you with?
I wrote this story because above all else, I have changed. I have learned to downplay any situation and I wanted the character to portray my change and what happened to me knowing these people.
Daniele Nicolosi, is a young director and scriptwriter from Torino who presented a short film titled “Along the River”, a western interpreted with a modern note and with the main character, Franco Nero.
Choosing to film a western nowadays is an atypical choice. What is your film about and how would you define it?
It is a unique western because it does not follow its typical stereotypes but deals with actual story lines like the relationship between a father and son or the delicate subject of the Indians, for example. The film takes place in 1905 in an imaginary city of New Mexico and Franco Nero, who portrays a disenchanted and melancholy sheriff, is appointed to investigate a murder against an Indian girl. He later discovers the involvement of his son and is torn between his feelings for his son and his duties as a law enforcement officer.
How was the film received and what plans do you have for the future?
Although it was a somewhat risky project, the movie did very well with the Festival circuits. It won three awards here in Los Angeles and the screening at the Chinese Theater was extremely emotional. Having Franco Nero present also helped us very much. For the future, we have a script for a full-length film which we would like to propose to producers here in America and film it right here with American actors.
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