THE DEBUT OF THE D’INNOCENZO BROTHERS

The film “Boys Cry” (La terra dell’abbastanza) introduced the twins to an international audience and earned them critical acclaim. And despite this being their directorial debut, the twins Fabio and Damiano have clear ideas about what they want to capture

The D’innocenzo brothers were born in 1988, in Tor Bella Monaca (a suburb of Rome). They were hotel industry students and grew up helping their father, a fisherman. If these lines were part of their references no one would place the brothers, Damiano and Fabio D’innocenzo, in a setting like the Berlin International Film Festival. Yet it is there that they went in February 2018. Their first feature length film was selected for the Panorama section and praised by both foreign and local critics. The story is set in the suburbs of Rome, where best friends Mirko and Manolo unwittingly get caught up with a local crime family. They get in over their heads and don’t realize the seriousness of the situation. The real debut for the two brothers is the one behind the camera. In fact, Damiano and Fabio have been ghostwriters for screenplays. For years they alternated between ghostwriting, their passion for photography and working as gardeners. But now their time has come. The release of their film (produced by Pepito Produzioni and distributed by Adler Entertainment) in Italian cinemas has put them in the spotlight. They have been praised for the lucid way they reveal the realities of today. Their film alludes to some great filmmakers of the past. The winners of three Silver Ribbons (awarded by Italy’s film critics) the D’innocenzo Brothers (credited as such) are now propelled towards a future that will surely see them as trailblazers in the film world. They have already met with Paul Thomas Anderson and have projects in pre-production (a female western and a “mixtape” film). Fabio and Damiano tell us about the origins and themes of their directorial debut film.

Even if it looks like you’ve come out of nowhere, you’ve worked as ghostwriters for years (as well as sold a script in the U.S. at age 21). How did you manage to emerge from the shadows of the scriptwriter and get to direct your first film? Perseverance. We went through school without religiously studying. The path to directing a film was full of obstacles, we were rigorous and we created our own system. We met the right teachers.

Your education was not film studies. What led you to embrace this industry?

We combined our skill in drawing, photography and writing. We let the images and words meet. Easy to say, very easy in hindsight, but the reality is that since we never said ‘let’s make a film’ all that happened to us was part of ‘making life’.

In “Boys Cry” there is no desire to extort, to have a lot in a simple way. There is no pomp or vice.

The Roman suburb is often at the center of your work. What is the reason? Is there a “wrong” way to describe it? When you stop to tell a story it’s clear that it replaces actually living life. There are so many films about the suburb, as in every ‘genre’, some remain cornerstones, others are lost in the chaos.

But how many films are made about the bourgeois middleclass? All the rest. Yet as soon as you see a periphery suburb, here we go again are the moans, yet another film about the suburb. In the suburb there is more reason to bring drama together, there’s more heat.

The screenplay for “Boys Cry” was written well before before it was produced. Did you already have it in mind it be directed by yourselves? Is there a difference between writing for others and writing for yourselves? Yes, we always thought we would direct it, and we always believed it would only be a matter of months after we wrote it that we would direct it. Writing for ourselves is much more liberating and freeing. When you write for someone else you have to fulfill their wishes, and to do so, you first have to identify with, understand them. Often the main difficulty is to try to capture what the director sees, more than what he tells you.

What inspired you to write this story? Nothing. Inspiration slows down the imagination.

Did you expect to be in Berlin and receive such a positive reception from the critics?

We managed to finish the film in time to submit it. The reviews have been lavish. We did not expect it but we

hoped for it. Above all, whether the response was generous or not, we hoped our intentions and the bones we wanted to pick were recognized.

Making a film in Italy from as young unknowns: how difficult is it today?

Tremendously difficult. At 18 you can drive a car but not shoot a movie, not drive a story. Clearly, films cost money and this makes anyone more cautious, but films need strength and energy, a thirtyyear-old will never have the same energy as that of a twenty-year-old.

As “devourers” of films, who most impressed you, and from whom you, perhaps, took inspiration from for your work? Robert Aldrich, Jan Svankmajer, Michael Snow, Otar Ioseliani, Marco Ferreri, but also writers like Kenneth Patchen or Carlo Cassola. Every day there is a different teacher. Working as a pair and as brothers, does it make things simpler? Absolutely. The set time doubles. When on the set, you know, it’s an assembly of consecutive decisions. You have four eyes, four hands, two voices, two hearts, one right and one left to keep an eye on things.

The meeting with Paul Thomas Anderson, “Travel Well Kamikaze”, the western “Ex vedove”. In which direction are the D’innocenzo brothers moving?

Towards absolute disaster. Paul Thomas Anderson is connected to the western, “Travel Well Kamikaze” is our mixtape film, which we could finish tomorrow or in 50 years. We also have many more barriers to break. We’ll see. With two of us as accomplices the risks are more interesting.