29/11/2016 - Nisimazine had a chance to talk to Italian director Stefano Amatucci, whose debut feature, Caina, had its world premiere at the Black Nights Film Festival

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Nisimazine sat down with Italian director Stefano Amatucci, whose first feature film, Caina [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stefano Amatucci
film profile], had its world premiere at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Nisimazine: Why did you decide to adapt a novel for your first feature? And why this exact story?
Stefano Amatucci: I have not turned the book into a movie; I was inspired by it. The book tells a whole different story, even though the main character is a racist, xenophobic woman. Caina is an original subject for me because it is not similar to the book at all. I think there isn’t any specific reason why you would take a story from a book; it just so happens that you find themes that matter to you and that you are passionate about, and then you use and develop them in a totally different way.

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The idea of working on the theme of immigration came about in 2009. I was in Sicily shooting a TV series and had my first meeting with the immigrants, but in those days, the phenomenon wasn’t of global interest at the media level. So when you find yourself in such a situation and you have the chance to tell it through a film, it's important because the movie can be, and should be, an information channel as well.

For the film, you cast the same actress, your sister Luisa Amatucci, who played Caina in the stage play, and kept a lot of theatrical solutions in the mise-en-scene and dialogue. Why did you decide on this approach?
We wrote the film for Luisa because I know my sister’s potential. For me, it could only have been her, even in the theatre. The theatrical staging of Caina is totally different from the movie: the only action taken from the theatre version is the first scene of the film. 

I had no intention of making a naturalistic, realistic or hyperrealistic film; I wanted it to be a representation of reality, not a picture of reality as it is. That is the role of the documentary or docu-fiction, and cinema has a different meaning to me. We have not drawn the script from the play, but the theatricality comes from the script. As for the fact that the dialogue may sound theatrical, the answer lies in what I said before: we moved the dialogue to the metaphorical plane.

Caina encountered some strong reactions at Tallinn. How much of it did you expect?
If the film has had a strong impact on viewers, it means I’ve made the right movie. I expected this reaction here at Tallinn, as in any other place, because those who do not see a cathartic process in the main character identify themselves with her, and this shakes their consciences. And then, I've noticed to my great surprise that here in Estonia, only a few people knew about the refugee drama, and so that’s why it was even more shocking for the audience. It must be clear that my film is a dystopian, surreal tale. I like to call it a “dark fairy tale”: almost all fairy tales are dark, but they always have a positive moral.

What is your personal view on the refugee situation in Europe and European society's treatment of migrants?
There are international and political treaties relating to immigration policies, but the most important thing is the human side of the matter: we should have the obligation to accept, to host, to give hope to those who flee from wars and dictatorships, from places where they are repressed without any respect for human dignity, places where freedom is seriously lacking. I have a feeling we're going back to the Middle Ages. 

With this film, I want to emphasise the wave of racism that is both European and global. Let's not forget that now with Trump's election, we should be paying close attention to what happens in America, as the choices made there always have a domino effect on the rest of the world.

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