20/08/2012 - Searching for oneself, faith and a sense of community are the themes at the centre of Giorgio Diritti’s latest film, There Will Come a Day.

Searching for oneself, faith and a sense of community are the themes at the centre of Giorgio Diritti’s latest film, There Will Come a Day [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Giorgio Diritti
film profile]. Jasmine Trinca is Augusta, a young woman who, following tremendous suffering, leaves for the Amazon and discovers majestic nature combined with the simplicity of the Indios. A journey to the essence of life.

Cineuropa: In what way do you have to leave one day?
Giorgio Diritti: The title is an invitation to free oneself of a dimension of weight and angst, to go beyond pain by risking, to find a renewed faith in life through simple things. This film is an opportunity to travel. The spectator accompanies Augusta and shares her pain, emotions and encounters. The occasion to look at reality in a different way and rediscover what really is important: affection, love, social relations, freedom, smiles, the gift of life.

Why the Amazon?
I was there ten years ago to make a documentary and I was struck and fascinated by it. I arrived just a few days after my mother’s death and I too had to deal with pain and that element inserted itself into the film. The power and simplicity of that kind of nature make you feel good. There is a great energy in Brazil: it is a country full of children, of young, penniless couples, for whom life is the greatest gift. We should learn from them.

Your message is destined towards women. Why?
The Man Who Will Come [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Giorgio Diritti
film profile] already had a female chorus, starring a little girl. Men have a great sense of pride, which have brought on disasters and wars. Women are naturally welcoming, they are the temple of life, their eyes signal openness and faith in life.

At the centre of your films, there is a constant, great sense of community.
This is true. It is an element that accompanies my film. Here, I wanted to show the extraordinary value of living together and how progress, with its fake commodities, takes away from the natural: piling people up in cement, in situations resembling concentration camps, forcing them to lose their roots, and sell their children for money.

Your film asks questions but doesn’t give any answers.
It would be presumptuous to give responses to such macroscopic themes. I am suggesting points of view. On the church, for example. Here, there is an almost incredible parallel with reality. The church that I talk about, and that I am supporting, is definitely close to the new pope. The priest who lives in barracks, one of the inspirational figures for the film I met during my time in the Manaus favelas, is a Jesuit, just like Bergoglio.

The film alternates between scenes from the forest and urban images, under the snow.
The rigour of the mountain suggests Augusta’s psychological state when she left. Her mother and grandmother tell the story of the greyness of her previous life. We tried to find the location in the Alps, in Piedmont, in Val di Susa, but in the end Trentino combined all the elements we were looking for. The castle we see in the film is on the brink of being a fable, with the nuns who are old-fashioned but modern, and in which there is something loving but off-key.

How did the coproduction with France come about?
Bim, the company distributing the film, knew this company (Groupe Deux), they presented the project and a synergy was born. It was an expensive film to make, around €5 million. Shooting the other side of the world meant complicated logistics, the cost of petrol to move the boats backwards and forwards along the river. Then there were the weather problems. A storm that blocked us for days, the difficulties of creating rapports with very isolated populations. It was stimulating and hard work.

How are international sales coming along?
The film has been sold across South America and in Australia, and we are in advanced stages of talks with American companies. In Europe, the film will come out in France. We hope to conclude agreements with other countries, among which Germany and Benelux, in Cannes.