Marco Tullio Giordana: «I also saw the Arabic version. On the platforms we are all on the same level, great authors and young talents “
When we say unprecedented success, at least for an Italian film born on a platform. “Yara », the film by Marco Tullio Giordana on the horrendous murder of Yara Gambirasio in 2010, aged 13, is depopulating on Netflix. It ranks fifth in the network with over 200 million subscribers in around 200 countries around the world. In first place in Italy, second in Spain, third in France, sixth in the USA and Great Britain … “I wrote the subject four years ago and nobody wanted to do that – says the producer Pietro Valsecchi -, it was considered too rough a story. In the end I found Netflix ».
«Yara», more than the reconstruction, tells the investigation that led to first find the genetic profile of the murderer, and then the sweeping investigation with the identification of Massimo Bossetti. A case unknown in the rest of the world. But femicides are not just an Italian phenomenon. «Out of curiosity – says the director – I wanted to see it dubbed in Arabic. What struck me? The musicality of the language, respect and accuracy ». Being seen all over the world at the same time? “Italian films suffer from the fencing of national borders. The ones we manage to export are rare. At the cinema, Yara would have had little chance of survival: films are dismantled soon, theaters have decreased ». On the platforms instead… «The confrontation is completely open and the public chooses. Everyone, great authors and young talents, are put on the same level; we are all the same at the starting line. To colleagues who look at TV and platforms with contempt, I say: when sound or color was invented, would you be opposed? Any transformation changes the rules ». Is there a bit of rhetoric behind the shared rite of the halls? Young people talk during films, and even adults often turn on their cell phones in the dark. “I share. Then many rooms were neglected. How many carpet with holes have I seen. Multiplexes, where not only blockbusters but films from every corner of the planet arrive, were encouraged, as happened in France. The Troisi cinema in Rome, just opened by the boys of the Piccolo America association, has created a sanitized, comfortable environment that is becoming a meeting place where the secular rite of the hall is revived ».
The Cannes Film Festival that continues to oppose Netflix films goes against history? “It’s a mistake and I told the director Thierry Frémaux. But platforms have flaws: they have to pay taxes where they have profits, then there are copyrights, and they don’t have to behave like colonizers who tell you how to make films following an algorithm ». Did you have any conditioning? “They wrote notes, one I read (there was an overabundance of music) and the other not (on the pm played by Isabella Ragonese who visualizes Yara’s presence when she reads her diary, as if it were a vision. Shtisel , the Israeli series is constructed like this. “Marco Tullio Giordana says that the drama of TV,” even of the generalist one, is the standardized product. Not to mention the impositions, caste problems or the difficulty in welcoming new talents. ” Cannes (not in the competition but in the Un Certain Regard section) went to The Best of Youth, his masterpiece. Which was born for TV. But then it was released in the cinema … “It was selected in a daring way in Cannes. From there Giancarlo Leone, who at the he was at the head of Rai Cinema, although it was destined for TV, he made it come out in cinemas, divided into two parts, like Bertolucci’s Novecento. But it was cinema, it had nothing of meatloaf, of feuilleton … “.
David Cronenberg told us a month ago that cinema is dead, that we all have good TVs, that Netflix is real cinema and a great alternative, and streaming has forced an acceleration caused by the pandemic. What do you think? “He’s made such amazing films that I wouldn’t dare to contradict him. I would like not to share it because I am an optimist by nature. Cinema has to make a great effort to reinvent itself. But it’s ridiculous that I say that at 71 years of age ”.
Meanwhile, there is the satisfaction of «Yara», a worldwide success. “I – concludes the producer Valsecchi – in this film I believed from the beginning, as for my other projects born from the news: from the White One to the Last, people, beyond the sea of articles in the newspapers, want to see how they are the facts gone, what really happened “. And you, Marco Tullio Giordana, what do you see on TV? “Nothing because I don’t have it. I kicked it years ago when I saw a prime minister saying such irritating things… I never bought it back. It’s not that he doesn’t see it. I recover it on my computer or I go to friends next door. ‘
November 14, 2021 (change November 14, 2021 | 12:44)
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