Claudio Giovannesi studied film directing at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Italy’s national cinema school. After graduating, he sneaked onto the sets of Matteo Garrone, the director of “Gomorra,” to see how he worked. Giovannesi believes in taking a documentary-type approach to his fiction projects. Through that he attempts to learn as much as possible about the real-life setting that he explores in his features.
What it’s about: Winter in the outskirts of Rome. One morning, best friends Nader, whose family is from Egypt, and Stefano steal a scooter and do a hold-up before going to school as if nothing happened. It is a film about the multicultural society that is Italy today.
What else should audiences know?: “‘Alì Blue Eyes’ was shot with non-professional actors, people who bring themselves, their vision of the world, their life and their own feelings to the role. Almost nothing of what you see in the film is invented.”
On the challenges: “Achieving the highest possible impression of reality in every single scene is always hard. I tried to make fictional aspects and the staging as little noticeable as possible, trying to shadow the boys like a war correspondent would shadow the troops.”
What he hopes audiences will walk away with: “It would be great if the audience would feel empathy with the characters. Even though the protagonists of ‘Alì Blue Eyes’ are involved in crimes and have a set of morals that may be difficult to share, I would like viewers to like them, to feel for them and not watch them as you would fish in a fish tank.”
Films that inspired him: “I very much like Larry Clarks films and photos, all films by the Dardenne brothers, Pasolini’s first movies. Those were the points of reference I had in front of me when I worked on the script and prepared the film.”
Indiewire invited Tribeca
Film Festival directors to tell us about their films, including what inspired
them, the challenges they faced and what they’re doing next. We’ll be
publishing their responses leading up to the 2013 festival.
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