“You have Asia Argento, why instead of humiliating and criticizing her didn’t you support her, like we did in France?”. This is the question asked by Laetitia Casta, a model and actress who distinguished herself at the age of fourteen, so much so that she began working in the world of fashion at a very young age, then moving on to cinema in 1999 with Asterix & Obelix vs Caesaralternating national filmography with world authors, including the Italian Giovanni Veronesi for A woman as a friend and the Taiwanese master Tsai Ming-liang with Visage. Not to mention the work-love relationship with Louis Garrel, her husband since 2017 and director for The faithful man (2018) e The crusade (2021).
Among the muses of Yves Saint Laurent and Jean-Paul Gaultier, the interpreter born in 1978, originally from the French municipality of Pont-Audemer, is the protagonist for another Italian director, Leonardo D’Agostini, in her second film after her debut The sample of 2019, in which the young Andrea Carpenzano returns to direct.
In A dark story, Casta plays the role of a woman mistreated by her husband, now ex, who reaches the extreme consequences after having suffered years and years of abuse – the work is written by D’Agostini together with Ludovica Rampoldi and Antonella Lattanzi, as well as taken from the novel of the same name by the latter. A film that inserts current events into the codes of the thriller genre, for a portrait of gender violence that has not yet been overcome, neither in everyday life nor in the entertainment industry.
A dark story mixes noir and everyday life. What was the aspect that fascinated you most?
That in France we make a lot of films like this. We create more projects on political and social issues that use genre to tell the news, including black news.
Do you see an Italian shortage?
Yes. Especially after MeToo. How is it possible that in France they open an investigative investigation into harassment in the film and TV industry, that films dealing with the topic are screened at Cannes, and yet in Italy they continue to invite certain characters or leave space for them? I remain amazed.
Lack of consciousness?
I would say fear of not being able to work anymore. We, fortunately, have found an alternative. Without MeToo, for example, a film like this would never have existed The Permissionsreleased last year, a story about pedophilia and consent.
Last year she also told of a meeting she had in Cannes with Harvey Weinstein in which he asked her some personal questions, but she immediately put a distance. Among other things, it is news in recent weeks, the trial of the producer has also been reopened.
I want to clarify something about that meeting, which I forgot to specify. When I met Weinstein I was already thirty-five years old. I had been working since I was fourteen. It’s important to underline this, because I was aware of how the entertainment world worked and I already had my own career. He’s not like many victims who were at the beginning. But the thing that shocks me is that you, here in Italy, have Asia Argento. Why didn’t you support her instead of humiliating and criticizing her, as we did in France? For us she is an example. She is a woman of great courage. She is an injustice. France supports it, Cannes supported it, but Italy no, it didn’t.
According to director Leonardo D’Agostini and producer Matteo Rovere it seems important not to associate A dark story to the possibility of becoming a film-manifesto. She is sorry? Don’t you think that, instead, it should have a similar status, while keeping the idea of gender at the center?
The way I see it, as an actress, it is. It’s a manifesto. It’s the reason why I chose to participate in the film. I wasn’t interested in playing a character who was just a victim. It was something we had already seen. I find my Carla strong, she is a woman who rebels and it is the most stimulating side. Furthermore, doing it in Italy acquires greater value given that, as I was saying, there is still a lot to shake up. So the message is welcome: why do we always have to wait, when we know that sooner or later it will end in tragedy?
A scene from A Black Story
A film to activate consciences?
To lead to reflection. Don’t caricature the characters. The fact, then, that in the work the protagonist is a foreigner, without anyone from her family, without financial freedom, makes the dilemma of deciding how to protect her children even more intense, whether by dying or deciding to resist.
How does he protect his people? He once said that for her the most important notion is not “being a mother”, but first of all “being”.
And it continues to be that way. It’s not about educating children, it’s about educating yourself. Be careful how you behave. This is how they learn from us. I am a lover of my work, so the thing I wish them more than anything is to have a passion to commit to. Also leaving him the possibility of making mistakes, without ever being moral. I have a lot of faith in my children.
Also because they will be the citizens of the future. Do you think they will be part of a world where gender equality will finally be achieved?
I look at my grown-up children, then the three-year-old, and I think that they are individuals who in the future will no longer need to get married, for example, because the new generations are bringing forward an unprecedented way of relating, understanding that the most important thing it’s respect. You are different from me and I accept it. They don’t even have to think about certain labels anymore. They will invent jobs that don’t yet exist, as is already happening. They are more sensitive and spiritual than us. And I’m optimistic precisely because I have them. Otherwise, what sense would there be in all the effort that women today are putting into changing the world? We have to get somewhere.
Do you think we’re getting closer?
Meanwhile, there are more women directors, more women in power, more women in departments, including cinematographic ones, where they were not previously contemplated. Things change slowly, despite everything going very fast. And Italy must follow these transformations, which are impossible to ignore.
