Director Ivano De Matteo is once again probing family relationships in extreme situations in his new film, Una figlia [+lire aussi :
critique
interview : Ivano De Matteo
fiche film]. We chatted with him on the occasion of his film’s cinema release on 24 April following its world premiere within the 16th Bif&st in Bari.

Cineuropa: This is the third film you’ve made exploring stories about teenage girls which parents would rather not hear about. What is it that makes you and your co-screenwriter Valentina Ferlan want to explore these themes and to shake viewers up?
Ivano De Matteo: Telling stories that everyone wants to hear would make us like the mirror in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. We already get enough of that every day from social media, where we cancel anything we’re not comfortable with and only leave the comments we like. Personally, I need someone to slap me round the face with reality every now and again. When Valentina and I write, we mostly start with the fear that what we’re exploring in our films might one day happen to us. We didn’t plan on making a trilogy. These are films which tackle the same subject, more or less, just from different perspectives, and that’s how we’ll end it. Una figlia is closer to The Dinner [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Ivano De Matteo
fiche film] than it is to Mia [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film], it’s a kind of sequel, it explores what happens afterwards, in juvenile detention. We also wanted to look at the “baddie’s” family. In some respects, Mia was easier: she was the victim so you can empathise more. In Una figlia, we tried to mess with our certainties even more.

The screenplay is loosely based on a book called Qualunque cosa accada by Ciro Noja.
The book was the driving force for something we’d wanted to explore ever since we heard an interview with Erika’s father [Editor’s note: Erika was a young woman who joined forces with her boyfriend Omar to kill her mother and little brother in Novi Ligure in 2001], the interview where he said that Erika “would always be my daughter”. It was after that that this book was suggested to me, which was really similar to Erika’s story. But in the book, the protagonist is far more violent, whereas we opted for a crime which could happen to anyone. We’re all potential victims or perpetrators in these stories we tell. And there was a lot of work required on the technical side too. There was all the legislation, the rules, the language used in the world of juvenile detention centres - female ones in particular. It was just like stepping into a parallel universe. There are two points of view in the film: the dad’s, and then the hellish journey this 16-year-old girl must embark upon.

In terms of the mise en scène, how did you approach these two strands of the story?
The young woman’s story covers the entire journey which starts at the police station and then takes us to the reception centre, the detention centre and then finally into the community. As for the part inside the prison, I didn’t look to sugarcoat or to demonise anything. I try to maintain respect for people who are spending part of their lives locked up in those places. I tried to keep the camera focused directly on the girl’s face and I worked hard on sounds. Because what’s really striking in prison is the repetitive sound of metal handcuffs and locks. For the father, I tried to convey a sense of solitude: he only speaks to his lawyer. I imagine a situation like that would be a nightmare. He tries to find a way through it all, maybe he finds one, tries it, then changes path. Basically, he’s always switching. In fact, that’s something we do in all of our films, we switch things up from what you expect.

This film is coming out at a time when we’re hearing increasing numbers of news reports about crimes being committed by adolescents, and questions are being asked about the role played by parents.
It’s clear that as the parent, you’re the main scapegoat because you’re the one managing these kids. I think that, by and large, parents try to do their best by their children, to guide them. But over and above parents, there’s another kind of education which comes from the street, from school, from sport, from friends. I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules. I’ve always said that regardless of everything I’ve taught him, I couldn’t put my hand on my heart and swear that my son wouldn’t ever mess up. We focus on reparation in this film, which is a technical term used in juvenile prisons. It means repairing something that’s broken, in relation to other people but also, primarily, in terms of what’s broken inside of yourself. It’s a challenge. And a subject we don’t often talk about.