Antonella Di Nocera: “…My heart’s desire is to share cinema as an experience …”

"Venice in Naples" International Film Festival is a significant cultural event for Italy and the entire European space of independent cinema. We publish an interview with the film festival's director, Antonella Di Nocera.

Antonella Di Nocera:

Love to cinema?

…My love for cinema started in a moment, which I remember perfectly: I was a kid, I received a scholarship to study in Triest in North of Italy in International college – and that drastically changed my life. I was a kid of a working class family, but suddenly found myself among 200 students from all over the world. And in Triest I went to the cinema theatre for the first time on my own, because before it I only was going to cinema at Christmas with my parents, and that’s totally different experience.

While watching “Wings of Desire” by Wim Wenders I suddenly realised that I’d like to be in cinema – doing whatever it takes. Afterwards I studied literature in the university, and theory and history of cinema as well. I didn’t think about going to cinema school, because – I repeat – I was of humble background, and my parents were not so open-minded to understand what it meant to study cinema.

In the area where I lived, there was a movie theater called “Pierrot», and the authorities where planning to close it down in 1991. The movie theater had a long history, and as a matter of fact earlier it used to be a porno movie theater. So the authorities wanted to build a supermarket in its place. But we – a group of people – started a big campaign to defend this movie theatre. We founded the organization, which I was actually running for 20 years; and it still exists nowadays (it’s an educational organization, also in cinema education, screenings). So we saved this movie theater.

And in 1995 I could even bring Ken Loach there.. Actually there is a documentary – “30 years of cinema in Pontichelli”, where I’m one of, let’s say, stars – that’s a story of this organization, working in poor district of Napoli. Cinema “Pierrot» is still owned privately – it never became public property, it was never given to us – that’s the paradox. It’s a huge movie theater with 700 seats. So we could invite many people - a lot of guests, actors, directors…

     My main goal is to make people watch movies. My heart’s desire is to share cinema as an experience. And after a while, about10 years ago – I decided to start producing documentaries, and I founded a cooperative, and independent company, which is both screenings programs, and producing documentaries and running the festival, you know. The company is called Parallelo 41 Produzioni.

I have 4 colleagues and we work together. That is briefly my life carrier path: I started from just loving cinema screening, and then engaged in film education – I am a teacher, and I use cinema in teaching of literature in school, teaching cinema. And afterwards – actually producing, not mainstream - mostly documentaries, independent social portraits. We produced a documentary - that is now running in the movie theaters – which is about the communist mayor of Napoli in the period 1975-1983. Theatre release is a great thing for documentaries, especially for this documentary made with 100 000 euros – and now it’s in the theatre, people want to see it in Napoli, because it’s about their past, their life, their emotions. I’m really proud. The film is serious and important – it makes people go back to those times, think of what we missed, where we were wrong.

But, yes, I’ve been teaching since I was twenty– I was a teacher in primary school, being at the same time a student at the university. At first I was teaching kids age from 6 to 10, than I became teacher in high school – teenagers from14 till 18.

Festivals? I was going to festival since I was young – 17-18 years old. Venice Biennale - we were camping to have an opportunity to be at the festival and watch movies. It was easy to have a student pass – we could go to cinema for free. At that time there weren’t thousands of people attending Biennale. It has completely changed: you pay to get an accreditation, etc. At those times we were kids, full of passion for movies, who wanted to watch films. My first experience was Venice biennale – and after so many years we have our festival. “Venice in Napoli” – we created this collaboration. Every year we screen the movies that we choose from Venice Biennale programs. It is hard work – we have to do it very quickly: Biennale is in late August - first week of September, and our festival is in October. We need to organize everything very quickly – to choose films, to invite guests. But we are very proud that when people – festival participants – come to Napoli, they meet each other, spend time together. Venice biennale is huge – it’s complicated to meet people there. Here they dine together, they see each other - we have a different atmosphere.

Criteria of the selection? The criteria is to choose films, which are not released as mainstream. We want to show films that would not otherwise be shown in Napoli: Asian films, South African. We try to find independent films from far away countries – and mostly made by young directors. And we want to bring them to our audiences. Also we would like to introduce films by female directors.

And we invite special guests – Amos Gitaï came to us, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. There was, for example, online meeting with Tsai Ming-Liang, we always have very good guests, but not, let’s say, glamour actors.

Feed back? It’s a real question. I’ve been working in films, in cinema culture since I was 16tn, and I am 53 now, almost 40 years dedicated to this idea of expanding the role of culture in people’s lives. My main concern is to give people chance to know more – and deepen their understanding of culture.

Poverty is a big problem in Napoli. A lot of young kids don’t go to school. Poverty effects educational field. There should be an educational policy. It's not only the problem of resources, but the problem of choice – which project you choose to finance. In Italy there are ongoing debates about what projects to support. Choices…Do you give money for big movies’ production, or for independent small films? What will make people really grow culturally?

It's not enough what we do, but I'm proud of what we did. I've done what I could. And I keep contributing. My regret is not to have a real place to organize things.

Movie theater where we have festival screenings – «Astra» – that's university place, where they usually have classes. University gives us a big favor, by letting us organize screenings in «Astra». Festival pays for the guardians, cleaning, but they give it to us once a year for a week.

I would open movie theater every day from 10 o'clock in the morning till midnight to show films.

I don't have such place in Napoli, I don't have the space. Cinema “Pierrot» – it's still in private hands, as I mentioned before. That's a very sad situation. But I work with what I have. I feel regret that we are limited in our reach, but that's beyond our abilities. If only I could find a sponsor and build a new cinema…

Just recently it was another sad story – I found another movie theater, and it’s a long story. In the end it will be turned into a hotel. It was a big cinema, built in the 30s. We could find money to restore – but the authorities finally decided to transform it into a hotel. Authorities think that tourism is more important… Hotels & restaurants – they are more important. It's hard, of course, really hard to find opportunity to build a new cinema nowadays.

Cinema for me also helps to build relationships – to meet people and speak with them: I spoke a lot with Spike Lee, Amos Gitai, Ken Loach, others; that's important that I could share my ideas with them.

Another festival I found in Napoli – 1997-98-99th – at that time we brought to Napoli so many international guests: Sally Porter, Ralph Fiennes, Mike Figgis; very impressive guests. And we were providing new experiences to the city. That’s another story…

And professionally attending the festivals - Venice, Berlin, Cannes, Nyon, Torino, others – that is a big part of my life for sure. I would have been an unhappy person, if there were no festivals…

Talking about this year program, among other films I'd like to mention film connected with Italian critic and journalist Enrico Ghezzi, who has been a very important figure, a huge intellectual: «The last day of humanity». It is a unique story and unique film…and unique personality…