Interview with the Oscar-winning director, guest of the first edition of the Film Impresa Award. “My film for Esselunga was an absolutely unconventional experience and also a lot of fun”.
“The tale of Italian cinema in crisis is not true and of American cinema which, on the other hand, has no problems. American cinema also has problems. Our cinema, despite the great difficulties created by the pandemic, defends itself very well“. So the Oscar-winning director Giuseppe Tornatorein an interview given to Adnkronos on the sidelines of Company Film Awardwhere he was the protagonist of a conversation with the artistic director of the event Mario Sesti and received a Special Award, presented by Alberto Marenghi, Vice President of Confindustria for Organisation, Development and Marketing.
The director talked about the post-pandemic situation of cinema: “I see it a bit as everyone sees it. There is a cinema that resists strongly and there is a difficulty in bringing back some groups of spectators who have put aside the good habit of going to the cinema. They must be reconquered and cinema will absolutely make it. As for the relationship between Italian and foreign cinema, I don’t think much has changed. There has always been this problem. But just look at the new David di Donatello five for example to see that they are five of a very strong cinematography, there is an embarrassment of choice and the difficulty of voting for the best because they are all extraordinary films “, he added.
The short “The Wizard of Esselunga”, shot by the Oscar-winning director for “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso” in 2011, with the executive production of Adnkronos. “The making of the film for Esselunga is a particular memory for me – Tornatore said – because it was an absolutely original commission. Being told ‘I want to make a film that will go absolutely nowhere’ is truly almost antithetical to what is concept of the commercial film The commercial film is made because it has to be disseminated. Instead, in this case, Caprotti told me ‘no, I want to make a film that doesn’t have to go anywhere’. So I said, ‘excuse me so what do you need it for?’ He replied: ‘I have to give it to my clients’. So it was an absolutely out of the ordinary experience and also a lot of fun because I didn’t know the world of Esselunga well. I met him thanks to him who took me around the spaces of his large company and explained to me the philosophy on which his idea of a supermarket was based, in quotation marks. It was extremely interesting. It was easy for me to combine those concepts in a very simple story as a commercial film usually has to be”.
Do you think it is an opportunity for young talents to be able to express their art through these shorts or medium-length films freely, albeit following the instructions of the client who wants to tell their company? “I think so – replied Tornatore – It often happens that you meet young people who started out with a commercial film. Sometimes they are extremely interesting experiences from the point of view of maturation in the use of the technical means. It’s a very interesting world, even if for a few years now, the style of the advertising film has been impoverished. But there are always some extremely interesting and attractive exceptions, therefore the spaces to allow young people who want to tackle the audiovisual language to find opportunities to test their skills”.
In the end, a joke about returning to the set by the Oscar-winning director. After the experience with Ennio Morricone and in Tim, when will you go back to making fiction films? “Very soon“, cut short a smiling Tornatore.
Source-www.adnkronos.com