‘Filmmakers around the globe are fascinated by India’
Italian filmmaker Salvatore Allocca speaks to Murtaza Ali Khan about the screening of his recent film Taranta on the Road in Guwahati, and his attachment to the subject of migration.
jected to prejudice of some kind or the other, despite Italy being a multicultural, liberal country.
Q. You have had the experience of making both feature length as well as short films. How different is one from the other, from the storytelling point of view? A.
For me the process is really the same. It starts with research followed by writing the screenplay. However, the major struggle while making a short film is to be able to tell the story in just a few minutes. Also, capturing the audience’s attention can be a bit tricky with a short film as there is hardly any breathing space in the narrative and so you either have the audience with you or you don’t.
Q. You have been in India a few times now. A lot of filmmmakers from David Lean and Richard Attenborough to Wes Anderson have tried to capture India though their lens. What according to you makes India a fascinating subject? A.
I share a very interesting relationship with India. My wife Maya Gili who is also the costume designer on my films is actually half-Indian and half-Italian. Her mother is an Indian hailing from Kerala. One of the things I really like about India is that it is deeply rooted in its traditions and yet it is very modern. It is perhaps for this reason that filmmakers and artists all around the globe are fascinated by India.
Q. What are your thoughts on Indian cinema? Who are your favorite filmmakers and actors? A.
In the recent times I have been studying Indian cinema very closely. I have been fascinated by the variety on offer. Some of the films that I have really liked are Chaitanya Tamhane’s Ritesh Batra’s The and Anurag Kashyap’s
Also, I have found the work of Nawazuddin Siddiqui really fascinating in almost every film that I have seen. I also adored him in I am in awe of his work and just can’t seem to get enough of him. I have learned so many Hindi cuss words just from watching him play Gaitonde.