03/09/2023 - VENICE 2023: The Italian director talks about the initial idea for his film set in the Cinecittà studios in the 1950s, and the movies that inspired him

After shooting two seasons of My Brilliant Friend [+see also:
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film profile], the story of young Mimosa (Rebecca Antonaci), a timid and clumsy girl in 1950s Rome who is “kidnapped” for one night by a big US star of that period (Lily James). We talked to the director about his idea for the starting point and the movies that inspired him.

Cineuropa: The movie shows an Italian film scene that no longer exists and a certain nostalgia for the US stars of that period.
Saverio Costanzo: My starting point was a news story – the murder of Wilma Montesi in Rome in 1953. A girl was found dead on Capocotta beach, and it was a murder that represented a watershed moment, as if the innocence of the Italian population had come to an abrupt end right then. A new era was beginning, which we’re still living through today. The press speculated on the fact that some of the people involved in the murder belonged to the worlds of politics and showbusiness. It created this morbid curiosity about the possible killers, yet no one thought about the victim. That’s what’s happening to us today, as we’re now indifferent to everything – there’s nothing left. The initial idea was to paint a successful portrait of who Wilma Montesi was, the day before her death. The writing process was leading me towards an ending that I thought was not suitable, so I created the character of Mimosa, a girl who follows the same path trodden by Wilma: she also loves film, is an aspiring actress, and comes from a middle-class family who stifle her and who want to deprive her of all of the opportunities that life has to offer her. Through this character, which leads to a different ending, we remember Wilma Montesi in a dignified fashion. I then found myself telling a story about cinema, and I had fun piecing together fragments of so many different films. It’s not a nostalgic movie; it talks about what Italian cinema is today. Cinecittà is still there, and this film is also an ample demonstration of that.

In the movie, we have Hollywood and we have Fellini. Who served as the biggest inspiration?
Yes, there’s certainly all of that. But more than Fellini, it was Giulietta Masina – the main inspiration for the character of Mimosa is Masina. In other words, it reconjured this idea of sophisticated, zany, unpredictable, unexpected, unconventional femininity. Even as a viewer today, I found it to be a breath of fresh air compared to the female characters from series and films, all with the same androgynous nature, all monotone. There’s a more challenging, more elusive femininity, which Fellini brought to light. More than La dolce vita, Nights of Cabiria was the source of inspiration. When I met Rebecca Antonaci, I glimpsed one of her “granddaughters”, a person who resembles her even in her sophisticated womanliness.

And then there’s a frustrated actor, an art expert and a fickle Hollywood star.
The characters who spend the night with Mimosa work hard to present themselves as what they are, because people ask them to be someone else. Mimosa does not judge them at all, and when they meet, she is a blank canvas on which each person manages to project their own story. They see themselves reflected in her, and they see what they truly are. It’s something that also happened on set. Willem Dafoe told me that in the final scene, when he reads the poem, Rebecca’s mere presence really helped him: he was moved by her openness and her lack of pretentiousness.

What was it like working with a cast that included US actors?
It was a privilege to have actors of that calibre listening to me. An orchestra is easy to conduct when you have nothing but excellent musicians, who have a specific technique and pour their hearts into it. It was a very simple process – everyone trusted in the story, and they were very forgiving with me. The young Mimosa was the lead character, and everyone agreed to take a step back. That’s proof that actors from all over the world are out to make art. I understand and support their fight, but it makes me very sad that they couldn’t be here in Venice to present the film.   

The film was endowed with a bigger-than-average budget. Did that afford you more freedom?
I made Hungry Hearts [+see also:
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(Translated from Italian)