TERAMO. «All my short films tell of characters crushed by the weight of love, some come out victorious, others not. Through these films I discovered that the experience of desire is always a coming of age”, says Simone Bozzelli of his early works, short films that launched the talented director and screenwriter of Silvi as one of the most interesting and promising voices in Italian cinema . The 32nd MaggioFest dedicates a solo exhibition to Bozzelli, 30 years old on 10 August, author of courageous and research-filled cinema crossed by desire, self-discovery and the exploration of power relations in relationships, screening today at the Smeraldo in Teramo his award-winning shorts and feature films Patagonia, winner of the Ecumenical Prize at the 76th Locarno Film Festival, starring the Sulmona actor Andrea Fuorto and Augusto Mario Russi. The candid twenty-year-old Yuri (Fuorto), who lives in a coastal town in Abruzzo, meets the histrionic Agostino (Russi), a children’s entertainer, who enchants him by promising him a freedom that Yuri didn’t know he was looking for. Dreaming of Patagonia, they set off on a journey that will transform into a frenzy of control and imprisonment.
Bozzelli, how much is autobiographical in your films?
«Everything I do cannot help but belong to me personally. But we need to distinguish between the themes and the things that happen in the film. The former touch me personally, they touch the questions I ask myself about relationships, about the paths of desire. The stories, on the other hand, are inspired by things that happen around me, to people close to me, or that I read in newspapers or on social media, situations that have to do with contemporaneity. Up until now I have represented the world of teenagers because that is what I know best.”
How useful is the short film as a training ground? Is it a form of expression congenial to you? Do you plan on seeing her again?
«The shorts were certainly a training ground and at the same time a more contemporary language than we think. Today we are increasingly used to seeing short stories, think of videos on social media. As viewers we need short stories. It’s an experience that I hope to bring back into a feature film that tells multiple stories, a multilinear film.”
In the first two shorts there was Andrea Arcangeli from Pescara, who had not yet launched the series Romulus. How did you choose it?
«I already knew Andrea. I went to school in Montesilvano, he went to Pescara and in the evening we went out to Corso Manthonè, we exchanged a few words, more than once we talked about doing something together. Andrea is very good, he is the one I appreciate most of his generation, he has intensity and discipline in preparing for the role. He was like that already when he was young.”
For the interpreters of Patagonia chose Augusto Mario Russi at a rave. However, how did it go for Andrea Fuorto?
«With him the choice happened in a classic way, he was introduced to me by the casting director, then he did an audition in which he was very good and convinced me. He brought a very interesting idea of character.”
From Patagonia Much has been written about his staging a love relationship based on dependence, power, submission. Fassbinder was brought up. Although in the end between Yuri and Agostino, the latter seems to be the one lost.
«Very correct interpretation. All dependent relationships are also co-dependent relationships. It is always thought that the submissive is the most dependent, but in reality the strongest is also dependent on the weakest, because without it he would not have that power. It’s a game of reflexes. I read in a book on masochism that the sadist is also a masochist, because the other is a mirror and it’s like hurting oneself.”
What do you like about Fassbinder’s cinema? And what are his other references, even non-cinematic ones?
«Fassbinder has been able to narrate this theme in a thousand different films by carrying forward a discussion, like a philosopher in images, on the balance of power, on the micro and macro violence that we do and suffer in love, family and work relationships. I have other more peripheral inspirations in cinema, the main one being photography, a medium that I like and practice as an amateur. The authors? Nan Goldin and Larry Clark.”
Do you work with peers, is it a question of common feeling or democracy on set?
«I really like working with actors of my generation, with people like me who are in an initial phase of their work, there is all the joy and purity of doing something beautiful in a moment of life in which cinema is not has still become just a job. And it is important to think about the worlds of young people and therefore a cultural background and common experiences are important. It was right and nice to continue and do the first things together after having all attended film school at the Experimental Cinematography Center.”
In the director’s notes of Patagonia wrote: “When we arrive at the rave camp, Agostino is nothing more than one of many dazed, sexually fluctuating and psychologically indeterminate young men. What moves them is not ambition but the precipitation of a desire that serves to make ends meet and get to tomorrow, where everything starts again the same as yesterday”. Is his generation like this, crystallized in the present because it is difficult to see a future?
“Exact. In the director’s notes I referred to people who frequent the rave scene, but I universalize this to a contemporary feeling of youth, in which the present is so important. The technologies themselves greatly reflect this feeling and influence it. Instagram, for example, allows you to make stories that last 24 hours, the absolute present, and so it is important to tell these 24 hours well. The present is more important than the past and the future.”
Where does he live?
«I live in Silvi Marina. After living for a long time between Rome and Milan I decided to return here because it is a place that offers me the tranquility necessary to write. Maybe I miss the cultural opportunities, many films don’t arrive here.”
Patagonia it is filmed between Silvi, Montesilvano and the rave quarry in Lazio, but the Abruzzo towns are unrecognizable, Teramo is just a sign… Did you want to represent a universal suburb?
«Yes, it was important to set the story in a suburb but I didn’t want it to be a discussion linked to this land, the intention was to universalize the discussion, to make a film not about a place but about a relationship».
To the Davids, Patagonia it wasn’t in the top five first works. Was he disappointed? The feeling is that the Davids ultimately reward those who are already known and established, without really looking at new authors. Aside from Giacomo Abbruzzese, there were five actors making their directorial debut, Paola Cortellesi, Micaela Ramazzotti, Michele Riondino, Giuseppe Fiorello.
«It’s been a very sad David this year, not just for me but in general. I wasn’t surprised, because perhaps it makes me think that it’s the David voting system that needs to be re-established. If we see known people awarded, it is because other known people are voting. It’s really difficult to show your small first work to people in the trade.”
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