For the third time in competition at the Cannes Film Festival with Fuori [+lee también:
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Cineuropa: How was the idea for Fuori born?
Mario Martone: It has been a long journey. It was my co-writer Ippolita Di Majo who suggested the idea of working on Goliarda Sapienza, whose books she had read. We first thought of adapting The Art of Joy, then five years ago, of making a biographical film with Valeria Golino in the role. Then we produced her novel l filo di mezzogiorno on stage and we eventually got to Fuori. What Sapienza has written is very cinematically stimulating. We didn’t want to make a film full of information about her, but rather a portrait of her with the summer in Rome in 1980 as the background. A portrait of a writer with her literary creatures who are characters that have really existed, but who would take an altogether different dimension in Goliarda’s novels. And all of this came to life with the intention of having as much lightness as possible.

Films with female main protagonists are relatively rare in your filmography, and Goliarda Sapienza is a major feminist figure. Was that a challenge?
It’s true that my filmography is mostly masculine, with a few exceptions. First, what I like is to make films that are always different and to start from scratch each time. Then, to my eyes, Goliarda is a little like the protagonist of my debut feature Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician or like the hero in Leopardi [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], an artist uncomfortable in his time period, in his society, and who’s somehow looking for an exit. These are also, of course, somewhat autobiographical since I myself, through cinema, am looking to escape and bear life. But this isn’t only true of artists, for I think every human being can feel trapped and only our imagination can free us, even if only during a simple hike in the mountains.

How did you work to recreate Goliarda’s offbeat perception of the world, its strangeness and difference?
I tried to make it so that the entire film would be through her gaze. When we see trees, bits of buildings, architecture, Roman ruins, I always filmed as though it were seen by her. She had to look because that is her main activity, that of a writer who observes. The entire film is oriented that way. Then, from time to time, as in the scene in the perfume shop, the spaces move all of a sudden, they expand. Because if we read this episode in her book, she who was talking about something realistic suddenly gets into gear and starts fantasising. It was fascinating to work so that everything around her would always be a reflection of her perception.

How did you recreate 1980 Rome?
As always when I am reproducing the past: without reconstituting the decor, but rather by working on the real. Every city keeps strata of its own past. It’s about managing to see them, knowing how to recut them with the camera and show them. Out of this comes out a city from the past that is in the present. I therefore shot everything in today’s Rome. We also shot in the 1.66 format, which was the one used at the time, in order to recall the cinema of that time. The same goes for zoom-ins: usually when I use them, I hide them, whereas in this film, I did zoom-ins like in 1970s Italian films, like in French films of the time as well, for instance in François Truffaut’s work. And since Rome is large, like a forest of cement and nature, I really liked that the film would go to areas that tourists aren’t familiar with. This is also related to the fact that the character of Roberta (Matilda De Angelis) takes Goliarda to the outskirts where the latter, who lives in the bourgeois Parioli neighbourhood, would not go on her own initiative.

Cinema already has plenty of famous road movies centred on two women.
Thelma and Louise is a film that I’ve always loved very much because it is a reference. But references, for each film, are like a constellation. But I’m thinking in particular of John Cassavetes because apart from Valeria Golino, I can only imagine Gena Rowlands being able to embody Goliarda Sapienza.