Detours, the Italian Giacomo Abbruzzese made some before entering the school of Fresnoy, in Lille, in 2009, and devoting himself entirely to cinema. Born in 1983, looking like a young man with brown curls, the director comes from a popular background, grew up in Taranto, in Puglia, lived in Canada, in Germany (Berlin). Then he settled for two years in Israel and Palestine (Jerusalem, Ramallah, Bethlehem), working as an assistant director, photographer and even programmer in Palestinian public television. “This trip completely changed me. All my cinema comes from there »he tells us in a Parisian café.
This stay sowed the seeds of his first feature film, bewitching him disco boy, discovered in competition in Berlin in February and produced by Films Grand Huit: the haunted story of a legionnaire, Aleksei (Franz Rogowski), who came from Belarus, dreams of France and Bordeaux wines. In Nigeria, Aleksei will cross the path of a young revolutionary, fighting against oil industrialists, Jomo (Morr Ndiaye) who, in secret, wants to become a dancer. The film received the Silver Bear for its “outstanding artistic contribution”, a prize that rewards the work on the image of Hélène Louvart, a great director of photography who followed the first steps of another young Italian shoot named Alice Rohrwacher (Wonders2014 ; Happy as Lazzaro2018, and most recently The Chimerasoon to be in competition at Cannes).
“Disco Boy” brings together several events that have marked your journey: growing up in a polluted city (in Taranto), living in a land of conflict (Israel, Palestine), etc. Can you put the puzzle back together?
I was the first in my family to go to college. My parents dreamed of me doing medicine, architecture… Me, I wanted to make films. The compromise was communication and journalism. But as soon as I could, I took film lessons, and since the age of 16, I have made one short film a year. I remember a trip to Cannes where I arrived with my little script under my arm! I was looking for a producer, but obviously no one called me back…
If I’m honest, it was in Israel and Palestine that it all started. Already, there was something in the faces, the colors, the smells, which reminded me of southern Italy. There was this disorder of feeling at home, but not really. I also understood that I was missing a whole part of the history of the conflict, the daily life of the occupation, the armed struggle. The boundary between resistance and terrorism is something that moves, it’s not fixed. How far do we carry ideals, when do we fall into violence? This seesaw line interests me.
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