Cinecittà Personaggi

people

20/8/2002

ENNIO DE DOMINICIS

AN ALBANIAN'S AMERICA

[by Stefano Stefanutto Rosa]Ennio De Dominicis has chosen an uncomfortable and difficult theme for his debut as a filmmaker, with L’italiano. It’s that of illegal immigration in our country, a subject which the director feels is more relevant now than ever. He comes from the De Dominicis theatre: for 4 years he was assistant to Antonio Calenda, then he worked for experimental drama. He tried his hand at some cinema with the medium length film, Niente stasera, featuring the surreal and dreamlike story of a philosopher, played by Eduardo Sanguineti.
L’italiano is the realistic story of an Albanian immigrant who may be half Italian, searching for a grandfather in Abruzzo. It’s a tale of existence without salvation, set in the Abruzzo mountains and the outskirts of Rome. The film will be shown first in some cinemas in Abruzzo, in placet such as Sulmona, Avezzano, Roseto degli Abruzzi and then a week after, 30 August, its will be shown in the main cities.

When did the film come about?
I started to write in’92, driven by a feeling of “pity" when I saw the pictures on TV of the biblical arrival of the Albanians at the port of Bari. The story came from the emotional participation in the drama of this people. In ’97 I received government finance, but I waited two years to start shooting, because I wasn’t sure that the story should be set purely in the mountains of Abruzzo. So, together with Varo Venturi, who plays a Russian gangster in the film, we starter re-working on the screenplay to make it closer, more suitable for a contemporary theme. And this is how we wrote the metropolitan part of the story.

Why did you chose a scenario for Abruzzo?
The film is also inspired by an actual story, which an old man from Abruzzo remembered. I was born in a small village in the Gran Sasso region, Macchia Vomano, which has no more than 20 houses and where only 2 people live. It was in these places I understood the saying “village madman" who had taken part in the invasion of Albania.

Why did you give the part of the main character, Giorgio, to a non-Italian?
The choice of a foreign actor also represents a gesture of solidarity towards those people. It’s a way of stressing that the Albanese don’t exists, or those who are seen as “bad, ugly and dirty".

But you didn’t chose an Albanian actor, but a Turk, like Mehemet Gunsur.
At the beginning I looked for an Albanian, so much so that I went to Tirana for screen tests, then in the end I found a young Albanian here in Italy, but after the first few lines I could see his fragility. And so the decision to give the part to Mehemet Gunsur came about. I had appreciated him in Il bagno turco by Ferzan Ozpetek. It was the right choice for the figure of an immigrant, who doesn’t have the soul of a delinquent, and who gets swept up by events.

Why does a film by the Istituto Luce about the Italian invasion of Albania during the years of fascism, give the last word on the tragedy to this immigrant?
The Albanians come to us because there’s a story behind them. They feel Italy is a bit like America, a place where dreams can come true. I put these images of the time at the end, but they actually represent the beginning of the film.

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