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Saverio Costanzo • Director

Hungry Hearts, a love story as it unfolds”

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- VENICE 2014: The Roman director is in competition at the Venice Film Festival with a film set in New York, and starring Alba Rohrwacher and Adam Driver, winners of the acting prizes

Saverio Costanzo  • Director

“I wrote the screenplay without judging the three characters, but rather with a certain sweetness and tenderness, even keeping my paternal role in mind. During the writing process, that sweetness I put in while developing them was also of benefit to me. It was a cathartic experience.” Saverio Costanzo met the Italian press on the Lido at Venice, following the screening of his fourth film, Hungry Hearts [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Saverio Costanzo
film profile
]
, which was selected in competition at the Venice Film Festival. “This is primarily a love story seen as it unfolds. I never even thought for a second that the mother could be capable of harming her child.” The mother in question is played by Alba Rohrwacher, a woman who is obsessed by all the poisons that could possibly come into contact with her seven-month-old son, whom a clairvoyant has claimed is special – an “indigo child”. 

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“Of course the world we live in poisons us, but these are sociological aspects. I have shown how certain drastic decisions can give rise to an ideology that, as we know, has been responsible for the death of millions of people. My film is not a film against anything or anyone. But if you must know, I love Big Macs, and I take my kids to eat at MacDonald’s once a month,” explains the director.

For Hungry Hearts, the Roman director drew inspiration from the novel “The Indigo Child”, by Marco Franzoso: “The relationship with the book was difficult. I picked it up and put it down time and again. Its very intense drama really appealed to me, but the high risk of morbidity pushed me away.” Within two years, the film was born, set in New York and shot in English. The Italian actress was joined by Americans Adam Driver and Roberta Maxwell. “I didn’t choose the city of New York at random; I’ve lived there for a long time and I know it well. It’s a place where people experience a constant brutality, complete isolation and solitude, and this is where the main character is putting up her fight. Rome would not have been believable. In other words, I didn’t choose New York just because ‘You Want to Be American’…”

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(Translated from Italian)

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