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| Here is an exclusive report from the Trieste Film Festival by Alan Jones. Alan Jones writes: "Hi Nick, just returned to the UK after attending the Sitges Fantasy Festival and being a guest at the Trieste Science Plus Fiction Festival in Northern Italy. I accepted the latter offer of introducing the Brit Invaders season solely so I could meet up with Dario and watch him accept his Urania D’Argento Lifetime Achievement Award. Trieste is a rather lovely little seaside town and it’s the home of one of the longest-running film festivals in Europe. Older sci-fi fans may remember the poster for Roger Corman’s The Man with the X-Ray Eyes in 1963 proclaiming it had won a major award at the festival. Dario arrived on the unseasonably warm Friday of November 28th and took up residence in the Jolly Hotel where he was constantly being asked for autographs by the staff and other guests. The festival itself took place on the outskirts of the town at the 7-screen Cinecity multiplex, part of a huge three-floor shopping mall. The place was a bit faceless in truth even though the Pop Art foyer design did give the proceedings a Barbarella-cum-Diabolik atmosphere.
However the Dario season was well attended with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage being the favorite. (All the tickets were free thanks to funding by the local council). The Urania D’Argento Award is one given by the top Montadori Publishing Group to filmmakers, celebrities, directors etc. who have had a major impact on the Italian movie scene. Last year director Pupi Avati (The House with the Laughing Windows) got it. This year, at 8.30 pm on November 29, Dario took to the stage with his Il Cartaio star Stefania Rocca to receive his. (I didn’t recognize Stefania at first because she looked so different to her character in the movie).
The introduction by Montadori sci-fi expert Guiseppe Lippi went something like this: “Our dream was to have Dario here in Trieste when we started this award. Now this little dream has come true. His films reach out across the world and show them our fantasy tradition. He unites realism with fantasy and is as important to Italian genre cinema as Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava. In the 1970s Italian movies were seen as being imitative. But Dario took the genre into new, weird and exotic places with his own special alchemy. We should all be grateful for that. And we are also illuminated by your latest starring actress, Stefania Rocca”.
After that intro Dario and Stefania took to the stage. His acceptance speech: “This is a big honor because Trieste was the very first SF festival and is important to all lovers of cinema. It is an immortal festival and vibrant in its many facets. So here I am, and because of the name of the award (Urania D’Argento) it will remain mine in name no matter who else gets it!” Stefania added: “Dario is a maestro and a great person. It’s my first time in Trieste and I came here because Dario deserves this award”. (Incidentally, in the latest copy of CIAK magazine Stefania interviews Dario about his career) Then Lippi asked some questions. The first was about Stefania and why Dario chose her for Il Cartaio. He answered, “I taught her at film school and she was the best student. She embodied cinema. In Il Cartaio she plays a sad and disoriented person better than anyone”. The second was about the planned Suspiria remake. “It will be shit but that won’t be my fault. I’ve read the script they’ve sent out to three directors and it’s awful”.
Lippi then asked for questions from the audience and they pretty much followed all the obvious lines, regarding Goblin, violence against women, censorship and Zombi. But while his answers were the formula ones, there were some surprises. For example Dario revealed that Phantom of the Opera only runs 80 minutes in Singapore because of local censorship. And when he was asked who the worst actors were he’s ever worked with, along with the usual Tony Musante and Cristina Marsillach answers, came Anthony Franciosa who Dario said was drunk throughout the entire making of Tenebrae. He was also asked his opinion of Asian cinema and said, “I like oriental movies, especially Korean ones. I thought The Ring remake was good too. But I like Spanish cinema most at the moment because it exploded from a Fascist era and they do really mad things”. The answer to the question, who is the best director of photography you’ve ever worked with was predictably Benoit Debit in a plug for Il Cartaio “It looks like a film fit for a Festival”, he said. (In fact, it was chosen for Venice this year but wasn’t ready). Stefania was asked what her favorite Argento film was and she said The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. Then the Q&A session was wound up, Dario signed a few autographs in the lobby and it was all back to the Jolly Hotel for a celebration buffet.
During this time we chatted about everything. He asked me about the Dawn of the Dead remake which I covered on location in Toronto for Empire magazine – on which he gets no credit. I asked him more about the Suspiria remake but he didn’t have any other details than the ones he mentioned on stage. On November 27th, Il Cartaio had its first screening for the cast and crew. Dario said it played extremely well, the people who didn’t know a major plot point gasped when it happened and everyone is very upbeat about its future. I asked Stefania if this was true and she said the screening surpassed her wildest dreams, that she loved it and thinks she gives her best ever performance. (Nick and I will be in Rome for the first press show on December 29th, and I will post my review here on its January 2 premiere day). That’s when Dario told me the big news every Argento fan has been waiting for. “I’m working on the script for La Terza Madre/The Third Mother now. We will start shooting in August 2004 and a major Hollywood studio may possibly get involved. It’s about mysticism, alchemy, terrorism and Gnosticism (a religious movement characterized by a belief in intuitive spiritual knowledge, regarded as a heresy by the Christian church). So many heretics were tortured because of the Church and I’m living all that at the moment and sleeping with difficulty." "It will be set in Rome where we will first see the Mother of Tears/Mater Lachrymorum in medieval times. Because she is the most beautiful and cruel of the three mothers, I’m currently looking at Russian models to play that part. Ana Pieroni (who played the cat-stroking mother in Inferno) will not be reappearing as she now has five kids! It’s been over 20 years since I left the Three Mothers behind and it’s good to go back and explore the story from a retrospective perspective. I’m discovering more about witchcraft than ever before”. Alan Jones 08/12/03 |
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