a film by ALESSANDRO COMODIN I TEMPI FELICI VERANNO PRESTO

Transcription

1 a film by ALESSANDRO COMODIN I TEMPI FELICI VERANNO PRESTO

2 Tommaso and Arturo are on the run in a remote forest. They hunt for food, trying to survive and find their way through the lush nature. It s quiet, almost peaceful, until the sound of gunshots Many years later, this forest has a wolf problem. It s here where Ariane discovers a strange hole in the ground. Could she be the woman referred to in the valley s legends? The reason Ariane ventured into that hole remains a mystery. Nothing more was ever discovered, and everyone tells the story in a different way. But all agree that Ariane surely met the wolf often talked about that few have seen.

3 What was the first impulse, the desire that originated this film? It was a very simple desire: to film people on the run. And actually a very complicated desire: what does it mean to film people on the run? This became an important part of the writing process. I saw young people running, fleeing from something very concrete - a first motivation, essential - and abstract. As I am wary of cinematic artifice, I realized upon seeing our shot footage, that their threat was not from pursuers but something more universal: the primitive gesture of running, escaping, which also has a more narrative charge. I think the film is a variation on the theme of flight, this instinct to want to break away from the world, from social structures which contain us and constrain us. The film is metaphorical staging, in the broadest sense, of the human condition. There is an autobiographical dimension in this choice. It s my way of reacting to the world. I spend my time hiding out, close to my friends and to whatever pleases me. It s an exploration of my freedom. For me, making films is also a way of learning. For this issue of flight, I was also inspired by two film sequences that always struck me with their basic simplicity: Diamonds of the Night (1964, Jan Nemec) and Black God, White Devil (1964, Glauber Rocha). The figure of Dino Selva is also very important. He s a friend of my grandfather and he experienced an amazing adventure. He wandered around the USSR for several years after World War II. He learned Russian, he worked, he even settled down with a woman for two years. And I completely forgot one fundamental thing, which nevertheless ends up in the film s epilogue in the prison: he realized he wanted to go home, and to do that he gave himself up for arrest. And I m sure that s what saved him. At least, it allowed him to return to being free, alive and Italian in Italy - where for political reasons he could not tell what he had seen and experienced. In the film, it seems to me Ariane and Tommaso return to the world via captivity. Are there similarities between your new film and the award-winning L estate di Giacomo (Summer of Giacomo)? I like the forest and water a lot, and I like shooting people in them. So I don t think I can be accused of remaking L estate di Giacomo if I film a girl in a river. That s what country living is about. There is always a lake where we can swim. There s always hunting, because there are animals. There are trees and forest because we haven t destroyed them all... But seriously, that s where I feel good. That s where something comes alive inside of me. I cannot make any film in any place. I like time suspended bodies, imperfect figures, withdrawing from the world. I will probably end up telling more or less the same story several times. I make films to offer the viewer the chance to move somewhere.

4 Is the screenplay a mixture of various storylines? Yes, I wanted to include the different elements that resonated within me. There were a lot more, but not everything found their place because there were no connections. Beyond the heterogeneous side, there are physical, tangible bonds between the various elements of the story, even if parts seem intentionally irrational... What Tommaso and Arturo go through, we Europeans experience the same, if we have any sensitivity to the world as it is. I think that allows us to interiorize conflict inside and to not make it into a form of something different. Here we know that we are in Italy in the past (because of the costumes) - even though the chronology is intentionally not specified. The absence of geographical and temporal references has to do with the way I like to work. I knew I would want to film the scenes I wrote: the moving bodies in the first part, sometimes having fun, sometimes looking for food, and then end up being randomly executed. Are the different parts of the film united by a universe of tales and wonder? This was the starting point. I connected to the experience of my previous films, Jagdfieber and L été de Giacomo, where there is the idea of a fairly raw cinematographic capture of situations that lead us to something beyond reality and head toward a sort of wonderland. Documentary filmmaking has this ability to move reality in the direction of something else than what it seems like initially. I mention this especially for the first part. The second part is different because it involves an actress in terms of a more traditional narrative. I even allowed myself to do pretty much everything by using bits from great stories since the dawn of time: the hole to the descent into the underworld, the wolf, death, etc. I bothered these commonplace elements and staged them with my very personal idea of a primitive, pure cinema.

5 The locations are important in the film, and they seem to function as characters themselves. How crucial was your scouting? I wanted to take the audience on a sensory experience. Cinema allows that with basic means: sound, composition, photography. During assembly, the discovery of the rushes led us to move forward into this sensory direction. With two shots and some expedients, we can slip into another world. The locations brought the writing together. The film needed an environment in which it could come alive, and probably vice versa. There s a conventional part of location scouting - looking for places where we would shoot - and the other less conventional part a documentation, a collection of stories, a journal of encounters. I associate this even more with documentary filmmaking. I didn t search for the perfect place to bring together the basic elements: the forest, the mountains, the lake. That s not very difficult to find in Italy. But I did want a location where we could shoot comfortably even if sometimes it s interesting to shoot in uncomfortable places. Location scouting for me is similar to empirical anthropology, which must gather all human criteria. Not all the places that I visited are in the film, but the scouting nourished the project through encounters, stories, impressions, legends, pieces of history... Location scouting was a long road as every place had possibilities. I needed a geographical proximity to invest in, an element from which it would be possible to bring everything together. A local bar is central for encounters, exchanges, getting a feeling for an area, hearing gossip. That s incredible material which I have used a lot! We shot in this great bar with a special name: La Cornacchia (The Crow). A very special place, with a lot of people, a very diverse clientele - young and old, loud, quiet, brawlers... The film was shot in the Cuneo province in the Aosta valley, in a valley around a village called Valdieri. It s a place that can easily access Friuli, where I come from and where I did the first location scouting. It s a region of northern Italy, a place steeped in history - notably with the partisans during the Second World War. A place swaying between religious belief and something pagan. The pond in the film is very commonplace. It s not the kind you see in a commercial or Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. What I like about filmmaking is that any location you want can become wonderful. I think about my childhood, when I lived extraordinary adventures all in my grandmother s yard. There were no limits to the imagination. Behind a bush, there could be another country, a monster...

6 You re not only the director, but also the cameraman of your film. This is fairly common for a documentary, but rare for a narrative feature. The camera is my only instrument to direct actors. Everything is related to the way I film. If I don t frame, then I don t know what to do, or I get stuck in a process that does not interest me - rehearsing a scene 15 times, psychological exchange... But I embraced this for the work of fiction it is, and I enjoyed composing long shots, tracking shots, wide shots. But what interests me is to focus on the search of a spark. I want to capture that little moment of grace. When looking at rushes, no two shots were identical. This can be a danger, but it allows me to discover what I am unconsciously doing. It widens the first impulse and makes possible a multitude of stories that I would not have written - at least not in detail, but on the whole, the basic screenplay is respected. It can be beautiful when there s a feeling that something has slipped away. Tell us about your choice to shoot on 35mm. This is a question of desire. Visualizing a shot, giving it value, it s celluloid that helps me with that. Of course, there are constraints. A battery life of only four minutes per reel, the necessity of camera assistants... But these are actually positive constraints which help me. There s something chivalrous even quixotic, but also a contradictory excitement: it triggers something, more concentration. I would say that it even makes interesting something that is not. And let s not forget the photographic result. It s simply not the same. Tell us about the casting and how you worked with the actors. For the non-professional cast, I worked with Alexandre Nazarian, who taught me many things, especially how to overcome my shyness in approaching people. I hate bothering people, but this is obligatory for narrative filmmaking. Cast must also be convinced to participate. I was quite against this approach but I ended up having fun, and I also now understand the necessity. We enter someone s world, and each person can nourish your own world, offer you things. We worked a lot with the young actors. Sabrina Seyvecou arrived late in the project, and she does not speak Italian. The film bears a trace of this and I find it interesting, another heterogeneous aspect. Sabrina was able to take the script and find herself in it; Erikas Sizonovas too. Luca Bernardi did not know any details except for the shot list. As with L été de Giacomo (Summer of Giacomo), you edited with Portuguese filmmaker João Nicolau. And we edited together his last film, John From. There is something very beautiful and perfect between us: we speak the same language even without speaking! While making things very different from each other, we have a big affinity in terms of direction. We both have misplaced exigencies that drive us. I have the feeling that my energy is channeled by his editing. He played an important role here. The shoot really tired me out. We started editing right away and I was feeling disappointed by the rushes. But his enthusiasm revived me, and he saw things invisible to me. He helped me discover and understand what I had made.

7 Born in 1982 in the Italian countryside near Udine. After studying in Bologna and Paris, he graduated in cinema direction from Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle (INSAS) in Brussels in His first short film Jagdfieber was presented in Cannes (Directors Fortnight) in In 2011 he directed summer of giacomo (L estate di Giacomo) for which he won various awards at international festivals, including Locarno s Golden Leopard (Filmmakers of the Present). HAPPY TIMES WILL COME SOON (I tempi felici verranno presto) is his first narrative feature. He is also a cinematographer and film editor HAPPY TIMES WILL COME SOON (I TEMPI FELICI VERRANNO PRESTO) 2011 SUMMER OF GIACOMO (l estate di giacomo) (documentary) 2008 jagdfieber (documentary)

8 OKTA FILM SHELLAC SUD RAI CINEMA ARTE France Cinéma present Ariane Tomasso Arturo Massimo Dino Friend at the bar Friend at the bar Prisoner-philosopher Director Screenplay Cinematography Sound Music Casting Set designers Costume designer Editor Sound editor Mixer Executive producer Sabrina Seveycou Erikas Sizonovas Luca Bernardi Marco Giordana Carlo Rigoni Paolo Viano Marinella Cichello Santo Gioffrè Alessandro Comodin Alessandro Comodin and Milena Magnani Tristan Bordmann Mirko Guerra Drache, Dupap Alexandre Nazarian Valentina Ferroni and Mario Scarzella Patrizia Mazzon João Nicolau and Alessandro Comodin Félix Blume Fred Bielle Adriano Bassi I TEMPI FELICI VERANNO PRESTO a film by Alessandro Comodin 2016 Italy/France Aspect ratio 1:1,37 Sound min o.v. Italian an Okta Film (Paolo Benzi) and Shellac Sud (Thomas Ordonneau) production with RAI CINEMA in coproduction with ARTE France Cinéma with the participation of ARTE France with the support of Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism General Direction for Cinema (MIBACT) Film Commission Torino Piemonte Friuli Venezia Giulia Audiovisual Fund developed with the support of Italian-French Co-development Fund (MIBACT/CNC) Région Provence-Alpes-Côte d Azur in partnership with the CNC Prix ARTE International - CineMart 2014 OKTA Film Paolo Benzi phone zero@oktafilm.it World Sales: THE MATCH FACTORY Thomas Ordonneau phone toma@shellac-altern.org SHELLAC SUD Francine Cadet phone francine@shellac-altern.org

9 International Press RICHARD LORMAND FILM PRESS PLUS phone World Sales The Match Factory GmbH Balthasarstr Cologne/Germany phone fax