email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

Davide Ferrario • Director

"An exception"

by 

- The technological trickery of the cinema to come and the bewitching visions of the first moving images... Dopo mezzanotte Buster Keaton and high definition

Buster Keaton and high definition: the technological trickery of the cinema to come and the bewitching visions of the first moving images, from the time when people were still happy to see moving pictures of places, without any need for stories. Or stories that were inspired by places, like the Turin we see in Dopo mezzanotte. A surprising, nocturnal Turin, spanning from the Falchera to the Mole, the national film museum. Inside the Film Museum, inside the cinema. The self produced and somewhat risky film has brought Davide Ferrario back to fiction so to speak, five years after Guardami wooed the Berlin Forum.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Why Turin, apart from the Museum and the Film Commission's participation in the production?
Because I live there and it's already the third film I've shot in the city, along with Tutti giù per terra and the comedy with Luciana Littizzetto, Se devo essere sincera. Turin is an extraordinary set, with its multi-layered feel, stretching from the industrial suburbs to the Mole, a building initially conceived by Antonelli (the Renzo Piano of his time) as a synagogue but never used as such...a dream which was met by more dreams —it is now home to the Film Museum.

Your film is a tribute to silent movies (which it actually shows) and a proof that you love Truffaut's Jules and Jim.
Even if I used to be a critic, I hate to show off my film-pundit's konwledge. Yet, I must say the love triangle in Jules e Jim is an inspiring archetype —I should ask my shrink...

Did digital give you freedom?
Digital is a tool that allows you to do certain things, like working with very little light or reducing the down time. Then when you edit the whole thing, no one notices it anymore. This work is the exact contrary of what the Dogma filmmakers do with their voluntarily dirty images.

Why did you define Dopo mezzanotte as a non-governmental film in the closing titles?
Now I don't want to become a symbol of cinema produced without any subsidies and I don't think Dopo mezzanotte can be a model: actually it's an exception. Any ministerial commission would have refused me. But I really think that in Italy there are too many films made without thinking of the audience. Even though Ciprì & Maresco's films may not make a bomb at the box office, they're art, and they make one film a year; but how many completely useless films are there around? I would only fund works of art: it's not as if the State asks opera to give back money.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

See also

Privacy Policy