24/05/2003 - A meeting with the Italian actress after her directorial debut, Il est plus facile pour un chameau..., won the Tribeca Film Fest

The blue sea of Cannes is reflected in the blue eyes of actress and director, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, who’s seated on the terrace of the Italian Pavilion. She’s here to present her directorial debut entitled Il est plus facile pour un chameau... (It’s easier for a camel...) in Cannes Market.

The film was seen by close on 400,000 French filmgoer and earlier this month it won the Tribeca FilmFest in New York. The film will be released in Italy in October, following an appearance in Toronto. Curiously, it was made without any Italian money: “but the problems I encountered only encouraged by creativity,” confessed Bruni Tedeschi.

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She is fresh off the set of Francois Ozon’s new film, the enigmatically entitled Ah! Si j’étais riche. But today, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi is wearing her director’s hat: "I don’t feel any distinction between these two crafts, I just want to go forward.”

The name of the driving force that made Bruni Tedeschi decide to direct is Mimmo Calopresti, both her director and former companion. “I decided to direct a film after working with Mimmo and also because I wanted to carry on writing,” she reveals.

Il est plus facile pour un chameau... is by-and-large the autobiography of Bruni Tedeschi’s family – Italians living in France and a family that was “divided in two.” She calls this “an actors’ film” adding that she wanted to give precedence to the things that happen to people. “I held auditions for a year: it was like choosing myself, find the person who would do what I would have done were I the actor. I tried to unify myself: becoming both the director and one of the protagonists... All of my films have been somewhat autobiographical because you are always portraying yourself. You work on the things you have experienced in life. But I am only interpreting a world that became a film.”