Keeping It Real with Giacomo Faenza

As I’ve gotten older, it has become increasingly more important for me to understand the methods, processes, and systems of organization involved in bringing something to fruition–you know, how to make things happen–because I plan on making things happen for the remainder of my earthly life. It’s not because I want to overlook large-scale industrial processing plants. Like everybody else I just want to bring to life what lives in my mind.

I’m not the only one, especially when it concerns producing works in the world of cinematic art. One day after class, I got to interview a director and talk about this very topic, and what to do when there’s a kink in the hose. 

Giacomo Faenza is a bona fide free-spirit, Italian film director, screenwriter, novelist, and my former film professor. He has worked on TV shows, written and directed short films, and written a giallo (a mystery novel). 

You have a long career in TV and Film, your name comes up under a lot of different projects online, but I also saw that you have a law degree. I couldn’t imagine that you would want to be a lawyer.

In Italy, we have to choose our high schools. I chose classical studies. It’s a tough school where you study ancient Greek, Latin, classical literature, history, and philosophy. It was a lot for my brain; school always felt like a big riddle that I had to train to know how to solve. I didn’t want to pick this school because it is really difficult, but my grandpa, who is a famous journalist–Luigi Barzini–told my mom that this was the best school on earth. So she signed me up and I went. I struggled for five years, I have to admit, but that was worth it because it trained my brain. So when I got out, I was just 18, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and nobody was pointing me in the right direction. Most people who do classical studies go to law school and become lawyers or judges. I didn’t know what to do, so I just signed up for law school. I did it in 4 years.

But I don’t regret doing it because I know much, much more than I did before. I learned how a state works, how laws are made, how parliament is supposed to work, and stuff like that.

When did you start pursuing your creativity?

After that, life began in a way, working life anyway. I started working in journalism, writing articles. And then, when I was 24, I wrote myself a novel. Nobody published it. But writing was the beginning of my brain inventing stories. I found out that I had that option. I had learned so many things, but now is the time to bring to life what is in my mind and start working with those things. 

I have to say that my father is a director; he has a production company, but he never told me to be a director. Since he lived in Rome and I lived in Milan when I was young, I thought that path was not for me since he never pushed me towards it. So slowly, I was already writing stories, and I started thinking, why not translate these stories into images? I had written some short stories, and I decided to make a short film. The script was one of my short stories, made to fit a film format. It was a surrealistic story, but a metaphorical one, about what happens when there is a dictatorship and everyone ignores what is happening because the dictator says it’s not. It was black and white, made with film–it wasn’t digital. I entered it in a few festivals. It didn’t win, but it came out in the top five of a Sony festival. I started that way. But afterwards, there is another problem, which is the movie business in Italy.

I’m aware that film/TV production in Italy means dealing with a lot of different people because funding is all publicly resourced. How does this impact the production process?

The money that you receive is all public money. You don’t have many options because you have the Ministry of Culture, which gives you a little bit of money, and Italian television gives you money. So if you mix both, you can find the money to make a movie. 
The problem is in the Ministry of Culture, the commission is made up of 90% journalists. They know nothing about movies. So they’re called by the major production companies, they tell them which films to vote for, and that’s how it works. 
And only 10 movies are financed out of, let’s say, 250 people who try and ask for money. Only 10. And this happens three times a year. 
So you have only 30 movies a year financed. Let’s say, 20 companies that really work to get their votes, those companies get everything. So, for funding, you need to go to these major production companies. Either they take you or not. You need to be friends with them. Otherwise, you don’t make a movie, that’s all. If you’re in, you work. If you’re out, you don’t work. You’ll never be financed.

In Italian television, of course, it’s the Italian parliament that decides who works on Italian television. Basically–I’m making it short, but this is how it works–the parliament decides who is the president of Italian television. So this whole process is basically up to the politicians.

So, what happens if you want to make a film or TV show that provides political commentary? This is exactly my situation. I’ve just written a project, and it’s a political project. 
I mean, politically in a way that I point out things that are not working in my country, for example. And I would like to talk about it. Now, the films that are being financed here are movies that do not talk about Italian problems. And when I say problems, I mean, for example, we have public hospitals, right? And they’re trying to destroy them to give money to private hospitals. In America, you have to pay when you go to the hospital; here, you go and they cure you for free. It is a good thing for people; you don’t have to worry about money.

And not only this, they are trying to destroy culture.

Since I want to talk about these things, I prepared a first draft version of what I would like to do. I have a friend who works in television, and I am trying to work with her to produce it. She has contacts with production companies that might be interested. This is the path that I can follow, because I already tried asking for funding from the Ministry of Culture, but I wasn’t one of the top 10 projects. And I don’t call the journalists in the commission to ask for favors. If you don’t do that, you’re out. 

It sounds like there is, if not officially implemented, a great deal of censorship surrounding Italy’s TV and film industry nowadays.

If somebody points out that there are problems and we should face them instead of pretending they don’t exist. Yeah, so as you see, since the money comes from politicians and politicians tend not to talk about the problems, I am not in a good position here. Smart people who really want to work become friends with politicians, friends with people with power, and spend their whole lives lying and denying problems, saying that everything is fine, just fine. I cannot live that way, but this is what life is all about, it’s fighting for your rights, it’s fighting for what you do. Of course, it’s full of obstacles, issues, problems, barriers, yeah–our job is to overcome these barriers. Sometimes you can do that and sometimes you can’t, but it doesn’t mean that the project you have was not worth it. 

What happens in the meantime while you’re waiting to get your work produced and distributed?

I think we should think about a wider view of life. If I can write books, publish books, and make movies about, for example, the political situation, I will be happy. Otherwise, I will be happy anyway, because I tried. And this is the big difference, I think, between Europe and America. In America, either you make it or you don’t, with the goal being to win something. In Europe, we have a different philosophy. 
It’s “I tried, I did everything that I could, and I’m satisfied with that.” Then, if things come, if things happen, the film is made and released, fine. If I can make another one, even better. Otherwise, I did what I could. I’m satisfied anyway, because I tried. You know, if you don’t buy the ticket, you never win the lottery. So I bought the ticket, I’m trying. If I win the lottery, fine. I have a daughter, and she’s studying neuroscience. I’m so satisfied with my life.

It’s no secret that you’re a satirist, so I’m curious about how you got to write and direct four episodes of Buonasera Presidente, which is about the stories of all 11 presidents of the Italian Republic. 

Okay, I was hired for this job. Somebody saw me working and sent my name to the production company. They had met with me and they thought I was… I had worked with them before, so they knew I was the right guy. I had worked for them on another docufiction about Rita Levi Montalcini. She was a scientist. She won a Nobel Prize. Italian, Jewish–she had problems with the Nazis. So they hired me to do the docufiction on Rita Levi Montalcini, and it was considered a good job. It went live on Italian television. Rai 3. We have Rai 1, Rai 2, Rai 3. It did quite well, so they thought I was the right person. There are seven episodes, and I have written and directed four out of the seven. Plus, I have a law degree. 

Anyway, that was made for Italian television. I mean, you have to be really serious, and I was serious. I tried sometime, somehow, with the repertoire to make it a bit lighter, sometimes even a bit funny. There was a president called Leone [Giovanni] who was from Naples. He was a lawyer, and he became president of the Republic. He was paid by Lockheed, they say. It was a private American company, I think.

Lockheed Martin?

Yeah, Lockheed–it was a big scandal, so he had to resign because they say he got money from that company. Anyway, in that episode I tried to be lighter than the other ones, because there is another president, Scalfaro [Oscar], he had real big problems with Berlusconi and the mafia. The mafia killed two judges in that episode. They killed Falcone [Giovanni] and Borsellino [Paolo]. With bombs. You know Capaci? Capaci is a place close to Palermo. The entire highway exploded. They made this huge explosion just to kill Falcone. He was the judge who convicted many mafia chiefs in the Maxi Trial. Their revenge was killing the judge, killing the other judges, and putting bombs all around Italy in ‘92 and ‘94.

Wow.

Yeah, I have to say they’re really interesting projects. I also did a documentary, it’s called Caro parlamento–Dear Parliament. And I interviewed 168 people–young people–talking about work. And our constitution is a beautiful constitution; it talks about civil rights, and it’s amazing. And I interviewed these young people all around Italy, from the north to the south. The documentary is made out of only close-ups of them, and they tell me all the problems they’re facing in finding a job, being paid, and all that stuff. So what I wanted to say, “Dear Parliament, you need to work much harder because our Constitution says we have the right to work and we have the right to be treated humanely,” but there are so many people dying at work because their workplace is hazardous. Many people are not paid enough.

I have heard that Italy has a problem with young people moving out of the country to places like Germany and Belgium.

Yeah, this is another problem. 
They leave. Why should they stay here? If you work, let’s say eight, 12 hours a day, and you can’t even pay rent. You can’t even make it to the end of the month, so why would you stay?

I’d like to know if you have any thoughts about how we use language and how we tell stories.

Language is very important. We have a cultural minister here who says that students should not be allowed to read and understand what they read, and form their own ideas. He’s written this stuff in a program. He wants to get rid of the capacity to think critically. This is a really dangerous idea. Words give nuance to our thoughts, and they’re powerful. And the government tries not to let people use their words; instead, they’ll spread slogans, a few words spreading hate, and they’ll win an election with just two or three words. 

It’s worth it, I think, to read. Read different stuff and put words into your head that will become an idea someday. You don’t need to be a writer or director; you can just talk to your friends at the bar. Express yourself in a good way. Convince them or don’t convince them, but say what you need to say. And in the most complete way, not just three words. If you watch movies, if you read books, and if you talk to people who don’t have the same ideas as you, that’s food for your brain. Movies are good at this. 8 ½. It’s an amazing movie, it’s a dream, it’s like poetry. And Tarkovsky. Tarkovsky has so many images without words. There are no politics in those movies; it’s just beauty. Dostoevsky says that “beauty will save the world.” I don’t know if that’s true, but it does a good job.