«Those gay boys in Sicily are a hymn to the freedom to love»- time.news

by time news
Of Valerio Cappelli

Stranizza d’amuri is his directorial debut at the cinema. I reworked a violent story from the 80s. The omert? He is part of the older generation. And on the children of same-parent couples: Not a kidnapping but a search for love






Giuseppe Fiorello says that Sicily now violent now silent no longer exists, at least in young people. He considers his first film in the cinema as a director, Strangeness of love, born from a news story, a hymn to life and freedom. Two boys (Gabriele Pizzurro and Simone Segreto), in a small Sicilian village in the early 80s, love each other. They fall into the trap of violence, abuse, macho prejudices, a mentality. Were they killed or committed suicide, it was never made clear. The epilogue that. An episode that gave the impetus to the birth of Arcigay, the association for homosexual rights.

In Sicily, rebellion and omert coexist.
They are leftovers from older generations. I speak of today and of the future. The Sicilian boys are quite another thing, a fresh Sicily, of denunciation, the arrest of Messina Denaro is ideally due to them, they have created a world that has uncovered many things.

But were those two boys killed or did they kill themselves?
a film freely inspired by a news story, no one has the truth in their pocket, not a political film but a poetic one, not an investigative or denunciatory one but a pure imagination: mine. Which rests on elements of the news, in a summer in which two boys collided on a moped and knowing each other they loved each other. There’s the social context around it, and the ’82 World Cup, because I moved the facts two years back.

What’s your idea?
I say they were killed because they loved each other. They were dead before the shots. When evil surrounds you you are already a dead man. They were killed by anti-gay graffiti in their homes, by barbaric narrow-mindedness, by domestic bullying….

There is little talk of this.
Because more complex, what happens between the walls of the house is what we don’t know. I am the father of two teenagers, I felt a paternal transport for those two boys. They told me they were brave, but it’s absurd that it takes courage to love each other. As a young man I was shy, introverted, withdrawn. Before, I would not have felt up to telling this story. Which is non-transgressive, the transgression in normality, the simplicity that displaces

The women in the film are entangled in silence.

I didn’t want to make a historical film of how we were… But in the film the friend of the boy who is beaten reacts and tries to screen the physical violence.

Lucio Dalla in 1979 wrote, thinking about the future: everyone will make love as they please.
“The year to come”… I hadn’t noticed, incredible, he wrote it right before this story. The musical signature gives me the opportunity to talk about the title of the film, which is the verse of a song by Franco Battiato, the soundtrack of my adolescence. Being a Sicilian outside his land, knowing that Franco had remained there made me feel protected, Sicily was in good hands. My film (which has music by Giovanni Caccamo) comes out on Battiato’s birthday, the 23rd, and is completely by chance.

The children of same-sex couples: the topic of now.
I am for the total expression of love. What, a kidnapping or rather a search for love? I heard the deputy Fabio Rampelli talk about drug dealing of children who are not theirs, you cannot use certain terms, you need politeness.

You, a TV actor, make your debut as a film director.

In reality, I don’t belong to any storytelling property, I’m ready to tell stories, but I had always thought of this one for the cinema, so much so that I’m reflecting on whether to one day give up broadcasting, the most comfortable sofa in the world not comparable to the hall.

What did your brothers, Fiorello and Catena, say about the film?

Ah, family emotions are top secret.

March 21, 2023 (change March 21, 2023 | 20:50)

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