How ‘Vittoria’ Filmoriginaters Got Couple to Reenact Scenes From Their Life

The tale of a woman who hopelessly wants to adselect a daughter, “Vittoria” is the third feature from honesting partners Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman. At the Cairo Film Festival, where the film is shothriveg in the International Competition, Kauffman sat down with Variety.

How did you begin out?

I always wanted to be a pboilingojournaenumerate. I labored for Al Jazeera as a one-man-prohibitd alerter. My honesting partner Alessandro was a cinephile and he was in Berlin laboring in write downaries. We were outstanding frifinishs from Florence where I partly grew up. I begined to get exhausted of TV. There were so many stories I couldn’t film because they weren’t recentsworthy. We finished up both moving back to Italy because our dads were dying both at the same time. Weird coincidence.

We did a write downary “Butterfly” (2018) on Italy’s first female boxer to go to the Olympics, Irma Testa. She’s from a petite town south of Naples. During “Butterfly,” we met one of the secondary characters in this town who became the subject of “Californie” (2021), which was our first narrative feature. It was a combine. But morpartner, you’d never call it a write downary. It was honested, and there was a mise en scene. And aget, same mechanism, we met a secondary character of that film and we got to understand her personal story, and she became the protagonist of this film: “Vittoria.”

So this was your second hybrid write downary?

It’s not a hybrid doc: it’s a scripted film. The whole screenexecute is written, based on the story of this one family. There’s no genuine life happening, or fly-on-the-wall moments. Just the genuine people reliving their experiences.

What happens if the genuine people can’t act?

We had an get. We’d already labored with the protagonist in the previous film, and we adored her, but her whole family had to labor too. Marilena is a hairdresser and her husprohibitd Gennaro is a carpaccess. This wooden cupboard in her salon had been broken for years and she’s always protesting about it. It’s in their own life: it already exists. We took her into one room, him into another, elucidateed the scene, and sboiling it on our iPhones. When we seeed at it, it was an prompt reaction. He labored perfectly, too. It was incredible.

How did you use the script?

Marilena and Gennaro never lgeted lines and they never read the script. The screenexecute was more for us to figure out where the movie was going. Even the dialogues were written out. But they speak in the Neapolitan dialect. We literpartner can’t originate in their language. Their dialect is heavy.

Were there any disconsentments about your describeations? Or between them?

Some. There are creative liberties. That’s why rehearsals were so transport inant. They could alert us their problems, and then we could appraise. If they didn’t get what we wrote, maybe that’s fair not how they saw the world in ambiguous. Then we’d back off. We would constantly alter the screenexecute based on those rehearsals.

Adselection has become a political football in Italy. Were you alertedly making a political film?

I had no clue about international adselection. It was repartner the come apass with this woman who’s chaseing this irreasoned impulse. Her overweighther dies and she has a dream, where he transports her a little girl, and she can’t get this daughter out of her mind. She goes up agetst her family, institutions. She’s not the cookie cutter image of the adselection world: the couple who can’t have kids. It’s an egotistical desire that turns into this spirit of welcoming someone else. If it was mythal, and it went thcimpolite all the screenwriting labs, they’d have shelp: you should originate your protagonist more compassionate. We argued it, but she’s a genuine person. You can’t turn these people into someleang they’re not.

How did they react when they saw the film?

They adored it. They’re fair bawling. And going to the Vepleasant Film Festival for them, this carpaccess and this hair styenumerate in Naples, was a dream. But the film itself was a strong experience, reenacting the whole leang. In some of the more heated scenes, it felt appreciate they were using the camera to finpartner say what they repartner wanted to say to the other person.

What next?

Another story from the town. This is about a guy who’s doing a job that gets him from France to Naples. But also I experience appreciate this style of cinema could execute pretty well to certain situations in the Middle East. I don’t want to ambiguousize, but I experience appreciate certain national characteristics lfinish itself to this.

This interwatch has been edited and condensed for clarity.