Italian director Dario Albertini discusses his latest film, Armony, presented on the Piazza Grande at the Locarno Film Festival.

Cineuropa: How did the idea for the movie arise, and why did you choose to portray these “chosen families”, which are formed beyond blood ties?
Dario Albertini: The idea came about many years ago, inspired by a neighbour of mine who really fascinated me. In some respects, he was similar to the protagonist, albeit for different reasons, and what struck me most was his determination to live his life while keeping feelings and emotional attachments at bay. It wasn’t simply about living on the margins, in a geographical or social sense; it was more an existential condition: staying slightly outside, in a sort of in-between space. Then, with Pamela Schettino, who was a friend of mine and a trans woman who, for many years, lived in a reality shaped by prejudice, I had the chance to keep questioning many of my convictions. She was crucial in deepening and enriching the whole project. I also realised that I, too, in my daily life, spend a lot of time with people who live in this kind of in-between space. And perhaps, subconsciously, I had also chosen to keep certain kinds of affection at a distance. During the making of the film, I found out I was going to become a father, and that completely changed the way I looked at the story.

The protagonist, Armony, seems to be the polar opposite of the stereotypes that many associate with people who choose to live on the margins. How did you shape this character?
That was precisely the idea. I wanted to portray a simple person, a fragile person - but fragile in a positive sense. My life brings me into contact with many people like this and, through cinema, whenever I find myself telling someone’s story, I am inevitably drawn to certain stories and certain characters. Armony represents exactly that: someone who has found their own place and who, in a way, feels comfortable in their in-between space. But that in-between space does not necessarily have to be a passage towards something else. And that is where my “cruelty” as an auteur came in: I wanted to unsettle that condition because the problem arises when, within that in-between space, you build a shield around yourself and keep affection at a distance.

The female characters are also very important in the film, and they are far removed from conventional ideas of what a woman should do or be. What role did they play in shaping the film?
The women in the movie are fundamental. Each of them embodies her own story and her own idea of identity. Clara Tramontano, for example, who plays the young, pregnant neighbour, really struck me. What interested me about her character was that restlessness of hers and, at the same time, her ability to be part of that chosen family, which for her was reassuring, made up of Armony, his little niece and Pamela. She wasn’t the person outside the group asking to be understood; she blended perfectly with the others while maintaining her own way of being. For all of the characters, the body becomes a tool for transforming one's identity. I wanted to show how these people get ready, smarten themselves up and make themselves beautiful to go to certain places or to face certain institutions, as in the case of the meeting with the social worker. There is something extremely moving about that attention to detail. Above all, I wanted to preserve this ambivalence between social expectations and their desire to remain true to their own identities.

There’s a literary reference that seems to carry particular weight in the film. I’m thinking of the final quotation from Pier Vittorio Tondelli.
He has been very important to me. Whenever I need something, I go back to his books, particularly Pao Pao. He’s an author who has touched me deeply, and I found that passage perfect for the film. It is about a lad who, at a certain point, finds himself wondering what his life will be like from then on. He doesn’t know what will happen, but he understands that if he has a territory, a place where he can express and experience affection, then he will be safe. That really struck me, and it seemed perfectly in tune with the film.

In the movie, you tackle a very concrete reality, at times a harsh one, but you always do so with a certain tenderness and without ever falling into miserabilism. How important was it to strike that balance?
It was essential. I wanted to portray a reality that could also be very harsh, but without judging it and without turning it into something sad. There was always the desire to maintain a certain degree of tenderness and, above all, a great deal of respect for the people I was portraying. Perhaps it’s precisely this balance that allows the film to stay close to its characters without looking at them from the outside, without turning them into something other than what they are.