Gianni Amelio, the last Italian director to win Venice's Golden Lion in fifteen years for his film, "Cosi Ridevano ( The Way We Laughed)", in 1998. He returned this year with his new film, L'Intrepido (Intrepido- A Lonely Hero), a film that addresses Italy's unemployment matters with a sense of humor. Amelio stated that the reason he was drawn into making a film about Italy's problems was because he was drawn into speaking about the problem but he added humor so that the film wouldn't be so depressing. It reminded him of two other films that did the same thing, Miracolo in Milano (Miracle in Milan) and Ladri di Biciclette (The Bicycle Thief). He also talked about his actors, about mixing experience actors with amateur actors together and found it to be "an interesting alchemy". After being told that Marco Bellocchio thought that Venice didn't treat Italian directors well, he said, "Maybe Bellocchio was onto something. Maybe. But it’s hard for everyone. There are -- how many? -- 20 films in competition and one gets the Golden Lion. Anyway, I like to think cinema is without borders and that films are Italian films or French films or whatever. They’re just films." Gianni Amelio also said that it is not all about winning the prizes at the festivals, that a film was a form of art and, "it’s wrong to look at it like a horse race."
The thing that caught my interest about the article was that Gianni Amelio knew what he was talking about and like to experiment, for example with his actors, combining the experienced and newcomers to work together and in the end it all worked out for him. As a student and future filmmaker it showed me how some directors think and why they do the things they do and how it is in film festivals.
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