Diciannove Diciannove, the autofictional debut characteristic of director Giovanni Tortorici, captures one 12 months within the lifetime of a younger Italian man, Leonardo, who decamps from a London enterprise college to check literature in Siena, the place he quickly turns into obsessive about the examine of seventeenth century Jesuit author Daniello Bartoli. Wandering amidst the medieval structure of this small central Italian metropolis when he’s not holed up at dwelling, studying from amongst his stacks of books, Leonardo largely eschews social invites from engaging feminine college students whereas, with rapidly fading bursts of enthusiasms, participating in a collection of anti-social actions, together with a revenge marketing campaign towards a essential professor and stalking a 15-year-old boy he spies on the web. But if the dialogue of those plot factors makes Diciannove seem to be some sort of youth suspense movie, that might impression can be incorrect. Through its narrative matches and begins, the moody, typically impenetrable however assertively charismatic lead efficiency of Manfredi Marini, and a succession of disarming digital camera and editorial prospers, Diciannove is a movie uniquely capturing a specific kind of late adolescent drift, each private and mental. Moving to its personal rhythms and narrative pursuits, it’s a really promising debut for Palermo-born Tortorici, who has labored as an assistant to director Luca Guadagnino, who can also be a producer of this movie.
Diciannove (“Nineteen” in Italian) premiered on the 2024 Venice Film Festival, performed the Toronto International Film Festival (the place the under interview passed off), and is now tonight’s closing night time choice at MoMI’s First Look competition. (Tickets are still available.) Additionally, the movie was just picked up by Oscilloscope for forthcoming U.S. launch. Below, I discuss with Tortorici about turning adolescent recollections into cinema, being impressed by expressive and violent administrators, and, for a climactic scene, changing the Hong Kong director Johnnie To with a Lacan-influenced psychoanalyst.
Filmmaker: When encountering mentions inside a movie of labor {that a} movie journalist just isn’t acquainted with, there’s a temptation to feign some data with a fast Wikipedia replace. But I’ll simply be upfront and say that I have no idea something concerning the 17th century Jesuit author Daniello Bartoli, who your protagonist, Leonardo, in Diciannove is obsessive about. So may you inform me a bit about Bartolli and why he was a big particular person to have as this obsessional curiosity of your lead character?
Tortorici: The movie is a little bit bit — no, not a little bit bit, it’s autobiographical. I bear in mind once I was 17, I used to be into literature, however extra into Occidental, Western, classical books. And at a sure level I learn this ebook about Italian literature from this gorgeous well-known Italian author of the 18th century. I used to be studying like all these names that I by no means heard of, that I by no means studied in class. I bear in mind hating a little bit bit my professor, so I used to be like, “Okay, I should study these writers [named in the book] because they are unknown. They were so important for their time, and maybe I could learn something very peculiar and specific.” Daniello Bartoli was quoted many occasions by very large Italian writers like Giacomo Liopardi and Alessandro Manzoni. Nowadays, he’s nearly unknown, however on the time, because it’s described within the film, he was just like the Dante of Italian prose. They stated he was writing like sculpture, since you see in lots of, many angles what he was saying. He was writing about these missions of the Jesuits world wide, and it was so graphic and violent — missionaries dying, [being] tortured, blood and terror. I bear in mind loving him for that, and I felt a little bit bit particular understanding so effectively this unknown author.
Filmmaker: What was it about you on the age of 17 that made him so interesting?
Tortorici: There was a desperation within the books as a result of it was all about these missionaries giving their lives to God. In a sure means they had been carefree about life. They couldn’t care about life usually, in order that they had been blissful to present their lives to one thing increased. That was a interval of melancholy for me — contemplating life usually as nothing. So, in a sure means it comforted me.
Filmmaker: Tell me a little bit bit extra about your background and the way you bought into the movie.
Tortorici: I got here from learning literature, and at a sure level I used to be very doomy. I used to be very sad in Siena, and I hated college. I feel that I needed to present myself a shot in life usually. I used to be interested by cinema as a extra sociable life — a little bit bit extra colourful. Writing for me was all solitude, and I began to consider expressing the tales that I needed to inform with cinema, with photographs. So, I switched and went for a faculty of cinema. I needed to check on my own, however my dad and mom had been a little bit bit strict, they usually advised me, “If you want to do cinema, you must go to a school of cinema.” So, I went to a college of cinema, even when I wasn’t attending classes.
Filmmaker: Did you make brief movies?
Tortorici: No, not formally, however I used to be capturing loads on my cellphone with associates, only for enjoyable. It was an excellent train. I bear in mind making an attempt to do pictures that I favored or that I used to be observing in cinema usually. It was very free as a course of as a result of I didn’t have a DP or sound — I had complete freedom, and it was tremendous helpful.
Filmmaker: And throughout this era, what kind of movies had been you watching and being impressed by?
Tortorici: I used to be in love with Italian B motion pictures just like the poliziotteschi, the horror motion pictures of the ‘60s and ‘70s, like Bava, Fulci, Castellari, Di Leo. The nouvelle imprecise, in fact, and the New Hollywood. I beloved Brian De Palma. I used to be actually attracted by a sort of expressive and violent director.
Filmmaker: As you say, the movie is autobiographical, and regarded throughout the coming-of-age style, it’s fairly unpredictable in its plotting. Tell me about writing the screenplay and touchdown on its construction. Did you might have a way of the entire earlier than you had been writing, or had been you creating it a bit extra scene by scene?
Tortorici: I bear in mind doing a normal construction. And, within the first place, taking a whole lot of notes about some scenes. Maybe I’d choose some scenes and attempt to have a little bit little bit of an natural construction. I truly wasn’t interested by narrative processes. I needed to be at liberty to inform the story with out interested by narrative mechanisms. I used to be simply impressed by my private expertise. I wasn’t in search of something extraordinary within the narration, or cliched. I simply like to put in what I skilled. I actually prefer to self-analyze myself. I used to be simply interested by that interval of my life, and I discovered it very fascinating as a result of it was very uncommon as a way of life. There was a whole lot of isolation, not [much of a] social life, a whole lot of learning, and a whole lot of obsessions. This unusual curiosity in this sort of literature was very uncommon. I assumed it was fascinating to see all of that as signs of a giant neurosis, as a result of I feel the character could be very neurotic.
Filmmaker: How a lot of the character do you continue to relate to or really feel related to as an individual? Or is it a personality who’s now previously?
Tortorici: I feel it’s a whole lot of the previous, however I can really feel one thing that belongs to me a little bit bit even at the moment. For instance, I’m not likely into all of the literature. And I’ve opened as much as the twentieth century, the twenty first century. I bear in mind loving this [older] literature for the morals that it was expressing, and I feel I used to be making an attempt to have these morals to be able to really feel protected against my instincts. As you realize, it was a literature very near the church and morality.
Filmmaker: You use so many enhancing and digital camera strategies within the movie that perform as little exclamation factors, or expressive gestures —whip pans, zooms, flash cuts, freeze frames. How many of those had been found whereas capturing, or in submit, and what number of had been consciously written into the script or shot record beforehand?
Tortorici: I used to be visualizing a whole lot of them in the course of the script whereas writing. As I advised you, I’ve at all times beloved these sort of expressionist administrators. Watching them I really feel pleasure, that there’s this triumph of cinema usually, as a result of, on the finish of the day, cinema is the language of photographs. I bear in mind being obsessive about phrases whereas I used to be learning literature. I used to be obsessive about vocabularies. I used to be considering that each one the tales [have been] advised, the distinction is in the best way you inform them. And so, I shifted that [thinking] to cinema. I turned a little bit obsessive about the language of cinema. I like these administrators who’re very attentive to the [formal aspects of cinema]. I like Takeshi Miike, for instance, who could be very inventive. I deeply love Hong Kong [genre] motion pictures. They are all about this hyper-aesthetic cinema. I attempt to be very attentive in placing the correct kind on the content material.
Filmmaker: How would you like the viewers to absorb these gestures?
Tortorici: I feel it might assist them… perhaps the widespread viewers just isn’t very acutely aware about [them], however I like that, even in an unconscious means, they will really feel the cinema with the digital camera and the montage.
Filmmaker: The boldest one among these gestures was what appeared prefer to me a reel change cigarette burn however over the brow of your character within the scene along with his professor. I don’t know whether it is an precise reel change cue, however it appeared like one to me.
Tortorici: [Diciannove] was shot on movie. I used to be watching the fabric with my editor, and on the finish of 1 shot there was the movie burning, so there was this black gap. And I used to be considering it’s excellent for the scene as a result of [Leonardo] just isn’t understanding why he was improper. I adore it as a result of it’s actual – it’s not digital, not VFX. You can really feel it is rather materials.
Filmmaker: I perceive that the artwork collector on the finish of the film is performed by a well known Italian psychoanalyst. He’s asking your character if he’s learn Freud or Lacan, and he brings up Freud’s idea of the dying drive in his judgement of the character. I discovered it fascinating that on the finish of your film you topic Leonardo to outdoors evaluation from somebody from one other technology.
Tortorici: The psychoanalyst is Sergio Benvenuto, who truly just isn’t very well-known in Italy as a result of he’s not very mainstream. He doesn’t care concerning the mainstream in any respect. I bear in mind studying his books and loving him, and at a sure level I [sent] him an e-mail. We met in Rome, and I used to be in search of this closing character. In the primary place, it was a scene with a [film] director. We had been making an attempt to succeed in Johnnie To, the Hong Kong director, and he was coming. But at a sure level they shifted the Hong Kong Film Festival to a different date whereas we had been capturing [and he couldn’t come]. I used to be a little bit upset; there was a scene lacking.
Filmmaker: What would the scene have been like if he had been capable of come?
Tortorici: Very completely different. Competely surreal and symbolic. They would have spoken Chinese and at a sure level Johnnie To would have pulled out a gun. But I felt hurried to complete the film, so I rewrote the scene [for Benvenuto].
Filmmaker: Tell me extra about Benvenuto. What is it about him and his considering that made you suppose he’d be the correct particular person for the scene?
Tortorici: He comes from the college of Lacan. He attended classes from him in Paris. He attended classes by Roland Barthes. So, you realize, he’s very ’68 technology – very free. He doesn’t actually care about saying what he thinks, or about psychoanalysis being politically right. So, I assumed it was excellent for being the character who was telling the direct reality that [Leonardo] could be very neurotic.
Filmmaker: Did you enable him enter into the scene, into the phrases he says describing Leonardo?
Tortorici: No, I simply wrote it. His character is a little bit little bit of a straight shooter — very direct, a little bit bit violent, even, as a result of on the finish he says one thing like “You’re a poor brat.” That’s how they’ve translated it in English. In Italian it’s like, “You’re miserable.” As a psychoanalyst, Sergio wouldn’t say that in actual life, however I feel he was a bit amused by saying these items.
Filmmaker: To return to an earlier query about screenplay construction and narrative, there are such a lot of moments that appear like they’ll construct into storylines however then which don’t. They sort of drift away. At the start of the movie, with the nosebleeds and his issues ingesting, you think about that perhaps Leonardo is ailing, has some form of liver illness, even. There’s the incident of him following the boy he sees on the web, or beginning a revenge marketing campaign towards his professor, which he calls off nearly instantly.
Tortorici: It’s a acutely aware technique to indicate these beginnings that perhaps don’t go ahead. For me, these are all signs of one thing that he has. For instance, after the nosebleed he’s a bit apprehensive about the necessity to management his physique and his well being. And, you realize, I used to be impressed by actual life, and in actual life it occurs that there are some themes that aren’t on the finish resolved into one thing. But I used to be interested by all of it as a normal sickness of himself, and all completely different signs [illustrate] decline in numerous methods.
Filmmaker: Could you inform us about working with Luca Guadagnino as a producer and the influence he had on the movie?
Tortorici: There was an enormous affect as a result of he allowed me to be free, 100%. He stated to me, “Don’t have compromises because with them you will ruin your film.” For instance, there was one other producer who was saying, “Oh maybe you’d like to shoot the London scenes in Paris?” And as a result of it was my first characteristic, I felt like a little bit bit in debt to my producers as a result of they had been permitting me to do that film, and I hadn’t a [filmmaking] background or one thing. They put a whole lot of belief in me, so I used to be a little bit undecided. I used to be speaking to Luca, and I stated, “Maybe I could [shoot in Paris].” He was like, “No, you have to do what you want. Compromises are the beginning of the end.” So, he was tremendous useful when it comes to ensuring that each one I needed was completed.
Filmmaker: What was the toughest a part of the shoot?
Tortorici: The hardest half was perhaps Siena, as a result of it’s a really darkish metropolis, very gloomy. It’s medieval, and the gates of town are very thick and really, very excessive. You see simply small items of sky. There was a whole lot of fog and rain, even in May. And I used to be capturing in my very own house, the place I [lived when I] was a pupil in Siena, 10 years earlier than. So, it was a bit spooky.
Filmmaker: You’re engaged on a brand new film?
Tortorici: Yes. I wrote one other script, and I’ll have casting on October. I like style motion pictures, and I used to be interested by making an precise horror film. But, ultimately ,I learn this script that I wrote 4 years in the past. It’s a private story of my 16th 12 months, about this friendship with this lady of a low social class. I used to be studying all these items about social dynamics – issues I’ve forgotten 1742253722. I used to be a little bit bit anxious about forgetting these items, so I assumed, I ought to do that film as a result of it’s a really peculiar world that’s going out of reminiscence. I’m going to rewrite the script, however I like many issues about [the original draft].
Filmmaker: So, one other autobiographical film, this time set three years earlier.
Tortorici: The good factor is that it’s very completely different as a result of at a sure level I had a giant change in myself. When I used to be 16, there was no literature, no mental stuff. It was all about social life, soccer and medicines. And, you realize, my metropolis, Palermo, just isn’t effectively represented [in cinema]. Whenever there are motion pictures about Sicily or Palermo, they’re all about crime, the mafia, and so forth., however it’s like a standard, center class, common life [there] that’s very fascinating, and, I feel, value it to [show].
Filmmaker: In phrases of fashion, will it’s equally expressive in its cinematic gestures?
Tortorici: That’s query. I’m interested by it loads. I need to get higher and do one of the best that I can for telling the story in the easiest way, so I don’t know. Because I prefer to be on set and rehearse with the actors after which after the rehearsing to determine the pictures. So, I feel I will probably be impressed by the state of affairs. I really feel like I’ve vary of means of expressing issues. I really feel that I improved loads after capturing Diciannove, so I feel I will probably be higher.
Leave a Reply