“I had to give up a piece of my body” – Corriere.it

The director is in Venice with “The immensity”, an autobiographical story: “It’s the film I’ve always been chasing, now I’m ready”

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VENICE – «What did it matter that it was a woman? What matters is what I do today. Am I a man and a woman like the others? No it’s me. I made films in the hope of one day telling this story ».

Emanuele Crialese returns to the competition at the Lido with “The immensity” (out 15 for Warner) and a muse called Penelope Cruz. He was born – he says it – Emanuela: he became Emanuele. In the environment a little was known, he tells it today, this story that could not be more intimate and personal: that of a girl who feels male.

His own story. “Yes, it concerns me very closely. But it’s not a film about transition and coming out, it would be misinformation to say. It is a strongly autobiographical film“.

Rome, 1970s, a serial traitor husband who beats his wife, she suffers him, he says of his eldest daughter: her name is Adri. “They have a strong connection – says Penelope – the house for the two of them is a kind of prison, her daughter says you created me badly, and that she comes from another galaxy, she invokes an extraterrestrial to take her to a other dimension. I made this film also for the theme of domestic violence ».

Crialese, why now?
“It’s the film I’ve always chased, the most desired. I’m ready now. If I had done it before he would have been pallid and didactic, a poor guy who uses the gender crisis. I waited to become aware of myself and the language of cinema. You can tell a story when you are able to express yourself. A rebirth. I was ready to be reborn with this story ».

He was very brave.
«I am what I am, why do I have to reassure? Do I need to say I am male or female? I am what you have in front of you, isn’t it enough? I am and am not, to be or not to be … I hope not to threaten anyone. I want to say a political thing: this country is changing, we are afraid, anything can be done except to have courage. The woman is the best part of the man I am, she is the one inside me, she is the object of my desires, she is the one I listen to most willingly. The woman is a battlefield, she gives her life, breastfeeds, renounces herself, she has struggled to emancipate herself. Describing a man would be boring. ‘

His mother?
«He was hiding with me, we experienced the immensity. She didn’t know where to turn. Times have changed. The mentality is the same. The character of the father (Vincenzo Amato) never grew up, he remained a child, his mother authorized him to behave in that way with women ».

Her on the passport …
«To change the A to the E of my name, I had to leave a piece of my body, the pledge that the company asked me, otherwise I could not have changed it in the documents. I was talking about it with the director Inarritu, there is no film that is not autobiographical. They tell about their obsessions and passions. From “Terraferma” to “Nuovomondo”, I have always made films on migrations, on transitions even from one place to another. There is a lot of transfiguration, I don’t shoot documentaries, it’s my life experience. The heart of the film is freedom, how we can change, how identity is a relational fact. The house is a kind of spaceship, it is the body there is nothing realistic, inside there is the heart and the heart is sick. The children take us beyond our borders and the three children express the discomfort through the body, they eat too much or do not eat… ».

His alter ego in the film is Luciana Giuliani: how did you find her?
«She is 13 years old, it would have been a mistake to look for her in those who experience that discomfort, I thought of a male sports discipline, Luciana is a champion of mini motorcycles. She competes with the males. It is difficult to manage a teenager on set, they are treated like gods, she had to look for her space of freedom ».

Penelope Cruz?
She is the female archetype, she is a woman of the past, present and future. You speak Italian with a Spanish accent, a bit dirty, you could have spoken in Roman dialect but I preferred it that way “.

At one point, she overlaps in the images Patty Pravo and Raffaella Carrà, two icons of the gay world.
«Raffaella is a myth for Penelope, whom she never met but in Spain she danced her songs in the park for her grandmother’s friends. We wanted to invite her to the set, she died a few hours earlier. From 18 to 60, she has always remained true to herself, but always modern. Patty Pravo… I saw her in Rome coming out of a white Rolls Royce with eyes that frightened me, it’s a daze, a whirlwind. It is better not to meet the people who love each other the most ».

Emanuele, did you speak to your family of origin?
“If it had been my debut the reactions would have been broken. Since this is my fifth work there was no panic, but curiosity and concern with respect to the likelihood of the characters ».

What would you like to see with this story?
«That I made a film, facing a great test of courage. I exposed myself, not from a sexual point of view but in my privacy, in my human dimension ».

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