Saverio Costanzo Discusses IN MEMORIA DI ME
by Andre Soares
Boyd van Hoeij interviews director Saverio Costanzo, whose Private was Italy’s submission for the 2005 Academy Awards. (The ever finicky Academy, however, sent the film back because it was not spoken in Italian. Italy submitted another film, La Bestia nel cuore / Don’t Tell, which did get a nomination. Last year, the Academy changed its rules for foreign-language films. In other words, had Private been submitted in 2006, it would have been eligible for the foreign-language film Oscar.)
Here’s Boyd’s intro to his Costanzo interview:
"Italian director Saverio Costanzo shot to fame with his first film Private, which was filmed in Italy but told the story of a Palestinian family locked inside their own home by the Israeli army. It won the Golden Leopard at the 2004 Locarno Film Festival, considerably raising expectations for his second film, which was released in Italy last Friday. The intriguingly titled In memoria di me (In Memory of Myself) looks at the young Andrea, who enters a Jesuit novitiate because he wants to "become a person". It had its world premiere at the recent Berlinale, where Boyd van Hoeij, the editor of european-films.net, sat down with the director for an in-depth discussion of the themes and transformations that make this apparently religious tale really a story for and about everyone."
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Thanks for the post, André!!
It is funny that you mention the Oscar “snub” on language grounds… it was part of my introductory two paragraphs in my first draft but finally got tossed out because it made everything way too long and I wanted to fit in some information on his father as well (which is in the current second paragraph) so that readers outside Italy get an idea of where he comes from, literally.
My pleasure, Boyd.
Thank *you* for all those excellent interviews you’ve been conducting.
I’m looking forward to watching “In memoria di me.” I’m just not sure when it’s going to reach U.S. shores.