by Federico Greco

The Love Factory, Luca Guadagnino's portrait of his friend, Tilda Swinton, is presented in New Territories in Venice 59

"Well you don’t expect a conversation that you have with an old friend to end up as a film in the Venice film festival so I feel a little vulnerable at the moment, but it’s a Socratic thing that we did here tonight. The truth is you could put a frame round anyone’s conversations and it would be fascinating..."

"People are pretty interesting. So you go and make a film. It took us 45 minutes to make this film so more than anything.... He didn’t have to convince me, it was an idea that tickled me because it felt like a challenge to try and... well, you’re doing it again, you’re making another film now.. Just, you know, one is so sick of the artifice and so, to try make something authentic out of inarticulacy. That’s what it is, that’s the key".

"Well, yes I mean practically speaking, if you were shooting with a 35mm camera now, you would have a cacophony around us. And you wouldn’t be able to re-film as you’re doing, talking rubbish, we’d have to be much more precise. Unless we’re Tom Cruise who can turn it like it’s easy, I think, yes, it’s very different. There’s something very intimate about, not, not the camera itself, although the size does help, well no, maybe it would be good if it was that size".

"Maybe it would be better if it was bigger. It’s just one person here so, I’m looking into the lens as I’m talking to one person. It helps. There were about three people asleep on the sofa behind Luca. All the people whose names appeared in sort of regimental formation at the end of the film, they were all kind of snoring at the back of my hotel room in Cannes. Very organised..."