21/02/2023 - BERLINALE 2023: We met with the Italian director to discuss his debut fiction feature film toplined by Franz Rogowski

We met with Giacomo Abbruzzese, director of Disco Boy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Giacomo Abbruzzese
film profile] which is competing in the 73rd Berlinale. The film sees Franz Rogowski stepping into the shoes of Aleksei, an illegal Belorussian immigrant who enlists in the Foreign Legion in the hope of obtaining a much-coveted French passport. Meanwhile, on the Niger Delta, Jomo (Morr Ndiaye) is fighting against the large multinationals who are posing a threat to his village. As the head of an armed group, he one day decides to kidnap some French nationals, and it’s none other than the commando unit led by Aleksei which intervenes.

Cineuropa: How long did you spend on this project?
Giacomo Abbruzzese: It’s a project that I’d been working on for ten years; the gestation period was very long. Essentially because it was very expensive for a first film, and obviously it’s an arthouse film whose cast and artistic choices aren’t always expendable. It’s very difficult to get started these days with this kind of a “cocktail”. [..] It was a lengthy process involving four countries and four co-producers. I had to change our French producers twice so as to find the best possible combination. Then there were the two Covid years, which held us up. [..] Ultimately, the film is still faithful to the original idea. A few days ago, during a private screening, a friend of mine who’d read the treatment eight years ago said: “Unbelievable, it’s the same film!”

Many directors say they’ve had the same experience, that they’re returned to the point of departure... But what made you want to tell this particular story?
A few things. On the one hand, I met a dancer who had been a soldier in a nightclub, the Divinae Follie [Ed. a nightclub in Apulia]. He explained this “dichotomy” through his body: a dancer’s body is the same as a soldier’s body. Although seemingly opposed, they actually have many things in common: discipline, the choreography involved is almost pleasurable thanks to the extreme effort involved, you return home destroyed and exhausted. [..] That’s where the nucleus of the film took shape. But I’d also wanted to make a war film that was different from all the others for a long time. What I mean is that, in all the war films I’ve seen, the other doesn’t exist – they’re either a victim or an enemy, but either way, the other is only on screen for two minutes.

A faceless mass…
Yes, they only ever show things from one side, and that’s also the case in really well-known war films. I wanted to make a war film where both perspectives, both sides are fully explored, so that you can empathise with both characters in conflict, who don’t “flirt” with viewers. I don’t know whether they’re good or bad. One’s a mercenary, the other’s an eco-terrorist. They’re not victims, they’re characters who refuse to resign themselves to envisaging different lives.

What made you choose Belorussian nationality for Aleksei?
It’s been that way for eight years, it’s never changed. Obviously, I didn’t adapt it to fit with the current context. When I wrote the film and toured with it, lots of people didn’t even know where Belorussia was… I’d been in Belorussia myself and had had an experience of my own there. I’d been invited there by Belorussian dissidents, and I was blown away by the country and its people… I imagined a character fleeing the country. He might just as easily have been Russian; the problem in that case - aside for all the madness we’re currently seeing - would have been the fact that with Russia comes a whole world of references, it’s a far more iconic world… [..] The “Russian identity” would have been far more onerous and clear-cut.

What led you to choose Rogowski?
Rogowski has been linked to the project for almost five years now. I’d seen him playing a supporting role in Victoria [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sebastian Schipper
film profile] and I was really blown away by his ability to channel violence and energy but always a certain depth too.

Could we talk about two major technical aspects behind the film: its photography and its soundscape?
As far as I’m concerned, working with Hélène Louvart [Ed. the film’s director of photography] has been the most important collaboration of my career, in all respects. I have so much artistic respect for her work. She’s not the type of director of photography who’s continually looking to put her stamp on her work and that’s where she’s incredible. [..] Light in the film doesn’t always seem fixed, you never pick up on the set-up of the lighting. It’s always moving, which is natural but not naturalistic. [..] A great deal of work was carried out on sound. We worked on it for at least four months, maybe five. [..] All of the sound design took place in Italy, and then it was in France that we got the idea to incorporate these kinds of ultrasounds, which are almost subliminal… There are “echoes” in the film which return at different points, [..] as well as “visuals”, such as the river and the colours of the thermal camera.

Are you already hard at work on a new project?
I’m working on three projects: one international documentary project and two fiction films, both of which are Italian. One of them is set in Taranto in the ‘60s. [..] In a certain sense, Disco Boy is my political film about France, while my second work will be a political film about Italy. Obviously, I mean “political” in the wider sense of the word.

(Translated from Italian)