The winner of the Audience Award in the Solothurn Film Festival, Quir [+lire aussi :
critique
interview : Nicola Bellucci
fiche film] by Nicola Bellucci depicts characters who are fighting for their right to happiness in a patriarchal society which would sooner crush them. Icons of Palermo’s LGBTIQ+ community (and beyond), Massimo and Gino welcome wounded but never resigned human beings into their little leatherware shop, who have decided to come out into the open and reveal their multifaceted identity. We chatted with the director about what this film means to him and about the importance of being ourselves, in spite of everything.

Cineuropa: Joy pervades each and every frame of your film. What does this joy mean for you and your protagonists?
Nicola Bellucci: This is a film which doesn’t respect norms. It’s a film which inspires joy, but pleasing the audience isn’t its sole purpose. When we were creating it, we focused as much on the content as on the form; we wanted it to be a film with depth. That said, we also wanted audiences to leave cinemas buoyed by a feeling of happiness and solidarity. After The Stone Eater [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film], which is a fiction film, I wanted to shoot a liberating and empowering film like Quir.

The body is central to your film, an object both aesthetic and political. Could you tell us a little more about this?
The protagonists in this film have had some very difficult, sad and violent experiences, but they never give in to self-pity. On the contrary, they spend their lives fighting to claim the happiness they’ve been denied. My film follows in their footsteps, seeking out stories of death, old age and bodies which are wasting away but which still refuse to give up. The body, and its on-screen representation, are central to the film. Quir depicts a whole range of bodies, because the body is a political object. As Massimo says, they’re zombies reemerging from the past and from their graves, bodies which are given back their dignity. What’s important in the film is lending visibility to these bodies which are rebelling against the stereotypes society forces onto them.

Despite being palpable, any violence which occurs takes place off-screen, as if it’s not worthy of being shown. Was this a conscious decision?
The backstory to my film is the murder of two boys, Giovanni and Antonio, in Palermo in 1980, the events of which have never really been cleared up and which sent shockwaves at the time, ultimately giving rise to the founding of the Arcigay group by Massimo and Gino, on a national scale. But I didn’t want to place this chilling tragedy centre stage in my film; it’s more of a symbolic reference because, sadly, homophobia-driven bloody events like these are still a regular occurrence. What I wanted to throw light on was the fact that there were people who fought for these boys. Massimo and Gino’s story is political, involving struggles which have gone on for 45 years, struggles which have seen pain successfully transformed into acts of joy.

What kind of relationship do Massimo and Gino have with younger generations?
In Palermo, Massimo and Gino are icons of the political struggle for LGBTIQ+ rights, and what’s fantastic is that they’ve managed to attract faces from the past as well as the future. Young people in Palermo go to them, they hold them in high regard, they respect them, and they appreciate the fact that they’ve never hidden themselves away. There’s something about them, a willingness to take care of others and of people, which helps anyone visiting their shop to open up. These days, just taking care of people and loving them rather than hating them is queer in itself. Sometimes, the people going into their shop are totally different from one another, but Massimo and Gino are open to all kinds of encounters. Each of these people speak their minds, give their opinions, just like in real life, and they welcome everyone. Sometimes they even play a therapeutic role, offering a kind of “street” psychoanalysis. I found it totally fascinating; an entire world revolves around this little shop.