01/09/2018 - VENICE 2018: Graphic novel author and director Gianni Alfonso Pacinotti, aka Gipi, is at Venice with his mockumentary The Young Fan in the Sconfini section

(© La Biennale di Venezia - foto ASAC)

"I've always had a plan B. I've always got by on plan B. I worked as an illustrator in advertising and publishing, I developed films and slides, I was a dishwasher at a deli, I worked in a drug factory. But I’ve always had comics in my head. When I became an art director in advertising and started making money without drawing for four years, I seriously risked becoming a publicist for life!" 

At Venice for the second time around withthe mockumentary The Young Fan [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gipi
film profile], selected for the Sconfini section, following his film debut The Last Man on Earth [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], in competition in 2011, Gianni Alfonso Pacinotti, also known as Gipi,talks to Cineuropa about life as a director and cartoonist. His life changed in 1994, when Silvio Berlusconi won the election and Gipi sent a brutal comic about him to the weekly satirical publication Cuore, which immediately hired him to work in its editorial office. Since then, he's received a lot of awards and had a lot of success with the publication of his comic books in Spain, Germany, the United States and France, in particular.

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Cineuropa: You call yourself a conscious narcissist.
Gipi: Anyone who does a job that provides exposure to the public must have some issues. Your well-being depends on the approval of others. I grew up in a family environment where I was only loved if I was good at everything. I thought love equalled approval. But applause won’t fill the emptiness you feel. I only found my balance when I left Paris and returned to Italy, to Pisa, where fame counts for nothing.

And how did you get into cinema?
I'm not a fan of comics and I'm not a fan of cinema. I love telling stories. If I discover that I can tell a story better with plasticine, in stop motion, that's the way I'll do it. Stories tell me how they want to be told. And every medium has its own particularities. Some stories want to be written down, but I’ve also written texts for the theatre, while others tell me they're destined for the cinema, like The Young Fan, for example. I could sense that the actors’ skin and flesh needed to be caught on camera, I couldn’t just draw them. And vice versa, the story I'm working on now can only be told in comic book form.

What story are you working on?
A graphic novel about God. I'm on page 15.

But do you believe in adapting comic books into films?
Of course. It’s just like when you adapt a book into a film. If there’s a beautiful story that lights you up, a different view can supplement the original one. But it’s not worth comparing them, you eventually end up with two stories, and someone will like one form, and someone else will like the other.

In The Young Fan, which you cast yourself and your friends in, you're hunting for an imaginary fan who sends letters to Italian comic book authors, posing as a 15-year-old boy. But during filming, the plot changed.
I decided to change the plot because we would have been harming that person. The film had to have a good heart, it wasn’t a witch hunt. The atmosphere on set changed completely afterwards, the actors relaxed. And the crew was puzzled because they thought they were supposed to be doing a 'combat camera' style thing.

Does digital technology help authors like you?
Absolutely. The possibilities today are endless. You can send the most beautiful things you've done directly to Pixar. And I know that publishers and producers of animation films alike have a boundless and continuous hunger for young talent. The doors are always open, the question is, how much effort do you have to put in order to cross the threshold? I don't think cinema and comics should be supported financially. Those who beg for financial support tend to have little talent.