Meeting with Nanni Moretti on the occasion of the theatrical release of his new film, the delicious comedy “Towards a radiant future”. An interview during which the Italian director defends cinema tooth and nail.
Nanni Moretti is back with the excellent bittersweet comedy Towards a Bright Future, which sees him slip into the skin of Giovanni, a renowned filmmaker who is about to shoot his new film. But between his couple in crisis, his French producer on the verge of bankruptcy and his daughter who abandons him, everything seems to be against him! Always on the tightrope, he will have to rethink his way of doing things if he wants to lead his whole little world towards a bright future.
On the occasion of the theatrical release of Vers un avenir radiant, presented in Competition at the last Cannes Film Festival, AlloCiné met Nanni Moretti. At our microphone, the transalpine filmmaker of course talks about his new film, shot in the legendary Roman studios of Cinecittà, but also fiercely defends the seventh art. “Platforms are for series. Films must be made for cinema”he lets go like a cry from the heart.
AlloCiné: How did you come up with the idea of ”Towards a radiant future”, a film for which you reconnect with a semi-autobiographical vein?
Nanni Moretti : Originally, the first idea was to make a film about the year 1956. As we couldn’t do it, we worked on another project which was Tre Piani. Once Tre Piani was done, I decided to ask my scriptwriters to come back to this film around the year 1956. But I told them that I wanted a little change…
For Vers un avenir radiant, I wanted to tell the life of a filmmaker in the process of making a film about the year 1956. Once it was decided that it was I who was going to play this filmmaker, I gave the character characteristics that are mine. It seemed natural to me to do so.
AlloCiné: If we define “Towards a radiant future” as a bittersweet comedy, with madness, nostalgia, a biting and disillusioned side, which speaks of life with irony, does that suit you?
That’s the bet I made with this film, as with many films. Make exist in the same space different tones, which are those of comedy, suffering… Also make coexist a realistic style and a style which is not. While intertwining different stories of films that I make and that I plan to make. And while adding elements of my life.
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AlloCiné: In “Towards a bright future”, there is a great scene in which you meet Netflix to sell your film. We feel that streaming platforms are not really your cup of tea…
It’s another way of seeing films, another relationship with the viewer. When, a few years ago, I saw in a newspaper that Martin Scorsese was making a film for Netflix, in this case The Irishman, I felt pain.
Platforms are for series. Films must be made for the cinema. As long as there are open cinemas, I will make films for the cinema. When I write a movie, I can’t imagine that I’m writing it for a 14-year-old kid watching it on his cell phone. It doesn’t come to mind.
If platforms want to finance one of my films, if they want to participate in the production, ok, as long as they don’t give me the shit. But me, the films, I make them for the cinema. I believe that a film seen in the cinema and a film seen on television are not at all the same thing. There are films that we see at the cinema from which we come out gratified, filled… I think that with cinema, there is something of the order of attention and tension.
When I think of a film, I always think of an audience of strangers, who don’t know each other, plunged into darkness, and who see images bigger than themselves. This is always the thought that accompanies me when I prepare a film.
AlloCiné: In your opinion, is the future of cinema bright?
I know that fewer and fewer people are going to theaters and that the pandemic has given the cinema a bad blow. But me, I pretend nothing and I continue my road, the one I have traveled forever.
Interview by Clément Cuyer in Paris, June 22, 2023.