“From Shy Assistant to Successful Film Producer: Gabriella Buontempo’s Story”

To the then boyfriend Italo Mouthpiece, who later became a husband, made him make an appearance in the role of a waiter in her second film as a producer, “La bruttina seasonata”. She tells amused Gabriella Buontempo: «It was 1992, we had just met. At that time Italo was not yet a deputy, but worked as an assistant to Pinuccio (Giuseppe) Tatarella in the MSI. The curious thing was that, when we got married in 1995, it caused a sensation!».

Why?
«In the party of the National Right, the followers married each other, while I, who belong to a notoriously socialist Neapolitan family, was not part of it: in short, it was the first time of a couple, so to speak, “anomalous” for Italo’s party, and even Lucia Annunziata wrote in an article about us. In hindsight, it’s really funny…».

In retrospect, because many years later, the marriage ended…
“Yes. At the beginning it was a devastating experience for me, a very painful process before arriving at the separation, but luckily the passage of time untied all the knots. We are two people with common sense, and above all we have two daughters, 21-year-old Antonia and 20-year-old Eugenia, so we share parenting: we didn’t do well as husband and wife, but we do well as parents, a task that we continue to carry out scrupulously and on which we are very united. We have found our balance, a civil relationship also of affection».

Let’s rewind the tape: how and why did you start being a film and television producer?
«Since I was a teenager I was passionate about the world of cinema, but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. Being very shy by nature, I had no talent for acting, I absolutely didn’t imagine myself as an actress, if anything as a director: being behind the camera didn’t expose me, but it allowed me to express myself. I attended a directing school in New York, but I am the daughter of a visionary entrepreneur: my father, now ninety years old, was not only involved in construction, but also worked as a publisher, founding two newspapers, in Naples and in Puglia, and then created the first private alternative airline to Alitalia, Airblu. So I have the spirit, the imprinting of an entrepreneur in my DNA and that’s what I do, also because, in my training, I was lucky enough to meet Lina Wertmüller».

How did you know her?
«She was a friend of the family and, in one of the meetings with my parents, I told her that I was attending film school and that I spoke English well. Lina proposed to me: why don’t you come and be my assistant? I was only twenty-two and my father said: go ahead, Lina can be your training ship. And in fact she was my great teacher, in work and in life, because just standing next to her I understood that my real interest was not in directing, but in production, i.e. the construction, behind the scenes which leads you to make a film project. I started by assisting her in the production of her film The tenth illegalthen in what was the first AIDS film, On a moonlit night, shot in London, Paris, Venice… And then I accompanied Lina on numerous spectacular trips around the world. She sometimes knew how to be very tough, even violent, to get the result she wanted from an actor».

Aggressive?
“More than aggressive, violently apprehensive. One time, we were shooting a scene where an actor didn’t do what she was telling him to do. I was sitting next to her, as always, and she starts pinching me on her arm. I understood that there was tension, but I didn’t know what to do, whether to react to those ferocious pinches or not. I decided to keep quiet, but in the evening, while we were having dinner, she notices my arm full of bruises and asks me worried: What did you do? What happened to you?’

What did he answer?
‘Quite simply: it was you! And Lina, very worried, took me to the pharmacy and bought me creams, ointments, a mountain of stuff: she felt guilty. When I then decided to leave to start my career as a producer, she experienced it as an abandonment and she set me a sort of trap».

Really?
“Lina knew I hated being in front of the camera. With a touch of sadism, she proposed that I go and see her in Naples, where she was filming Saturday, Sunday and Monday, from the comedy of the same name by Eduardo De Filippo. I went to the set with pleasure and then… he forced me to make an appearance in the film, he demanded it as a sort of proof of love: for me it was like throwing myself into the fire, but I didn’t escape: a gesture of affection towards of a person who was and remains a very important point of reference».

Another very important point of reference: his aunt Graziella Lonardi Buontempo, art collector and patron of the arts.
«Fundamental in my professional growth, prior to Lina. I was 12-13 years old, my parents were separating, I was afflicted by the collapse of my family and my aunt, to distract me, took me with her to Paris, where she was setting up an exhibition at the Beaubourg: my first trip abroad! TO”.

What do you remember?
«We went together to the Center Pompidou, full of artists who were arranging their works for the exhibition, obviously directed by my aunt: I discovered the world of creation, I was struck by it, I realized that a museum is not a boring place, but full of ideas, of life, of madness, of art. At that moment, I understood that my aunt had a fascinating job, which I enjoyed very much. And to think that, when I was younger, together with my three brothers, we called her Cruella Demon».

Why?
“We were four naughty, we combined all sorts of things and, when she came to visit us at home, she found our toys thrown everywhere, the dogs running amok everywhere, a crazy mess that she – an elegant, beautiful, haughty lady – could not accept. Having no children, she was not used to that mess. She yelled at us to tidy up, I ran and hid. But then I became her favorite mascot of hers. After her death, I found in the house a dedication that she had written to me, I don’t remember on what occasion: “To Gabriella, wishing you to surpass me” Â ».