Primavera [+lee también:
crítica
entrevista: Damiano Michieletto
ficha de la película] marks the filmmaking debut of Damiano Michieletto, an award-winning opera director who has worked with some of the biggest venues in Italy and around the world. Revolving around an encounter between a talented musician living in an orphanage and the great composer Antonio Vivaldi, the film will be released in Italy on 25 December via Warner Bros and has already been acquired in 50 countries around the world.

Cineuropa: A world premiere in Toronto, an audience award at the Chicago Film Festival and remarkable success in terms of world sales… What is it about your film that appeals to international audiences?
Damiano Michieletto: I think what appeals is the fact that it’s a broad film, which draws the public in with a direct and emotional story. And there’s also the music, which becomes a vehicle not only for conveying the era but for exploring a certain kind of humanity. It’s not a biopic and it’s not a historical film in the strictest sense of the term; it’s a film which uses a story set in the past to explore a female condition which affects us today. On an international level, I think the fact that it’s a wholly Italian tale is what makes it impactful. It’s shot in Venice and features an iconic character like Vivaldi, who isn’t actually the protagonist. It’s a film which blends Italian tradition with a concrete story relating to a female theme which I hope resonates with younger generations too.

Precisely, the character of the famous baroque composer is overshadowed by the orphan girl.
The protagonist of the film is Cecilia. It’s the story of an orphan girl who’s on her own and resigned to her fate of being abandoned, a wound which in some respects she manages to heal thanks to an encounter with a man who helps her discover her talent. Vivaldi’s character arrives at a certain point in the story, helps her with her music and encourages certain dynamics. The middle of the film is like a piece of music - music that’s never been heard before, which disrupts, creates confusion - and manages to lend her a voice. But she’s not a free woman, she’s a woman inside a system which has already mapped out her future, because the rules in the orphanage are clear, so she tries to escape its reach.

At a certain point in the story, the relationship between Cecilia and Vivaldi could have turned romantic, but it doesn’t. What is it that brings these two people together?
They’re united by the fact that they’re like two little creatures who are very different from one another, who sniff around one another and who have the same air about them. They’re both nurturing maternal wounds, they both need affirmation, to have something or someone who makes them feel valued or gives them meaning. So it’s a connection between two souls who come together over music, and that’s it. Which is no small thing; on the contrary, it’s what keeps them alive.

Everything unfolds within a sombre and troubling atmosphere. Is this also true of Tiziano Scarpa’s book Stabat Mater, which you loosely based your film upon?
The book is a kind of long internal monologue by Cecilia who writes these letters to her mother, and it has a slightly gloomy tone. She has these nightmares, but we didn’t keep any of that in the story. What I did keep was the tone of suffering and drama which pervades Scarpa’s book. But then we added characters, scenes and a plot which the book didn’t have. And we used creative licence: the film is also based on everything we studied in terms of what was happening in the orphanage at the time: how the children ate, where they slept, and what their lives looked like.

The film’s photography has an incredibly painterly quality to it. Were there any eighteenth century artists who inspired you?
No-one in particular, but my DoP Daria D'Antonio and I strived for a certain kind of style within the images, whilst also trying to avoid any rhetoric or gloss, ultimately trying to convey the reality of a poor, stripped back and unvarnished setting, like an orphanage. We often filmed with natural light and we didn’t do too much in the post-production phase: just the minimum required to do justice to the images we’d shot in candlelight or in dark settings, whilst always aiming for oblique light on faces, contrasts, backlight, chiaroscuro. Then I worked hard on editing the film with Walter Fasano in order to lend a certain rhythm to the sequences, including the musical ones. There are a lot of scenes which last several minutes without any talking. And that’s when it’s all about pacing and images.

What does filmmaking add to your already significant theatrical resumé?
It’s always been a dream of mine to make a film, it’s a language I’m passionate about. But you need to come at it with a certain level of energy and maturity. This first film was born out of a desire to tell a story with elements that I’m familiar with and which takes place in a city that I know, using all the narrative and emotional options made possible by music. I wanted to step outside of my comfort zone, and I discovered a world which helped me reconnect with my huge capacity for creativity. I can’t wait to make another film; it will be different, maybe even rawer or more unpredictable.