The Lido moved by Cupisti's "mothers"
Emotion was palpable this morning during the screening of Madri, first Italian title presented in the Horizons Doc section. This work directed by Barbara Cupisti, ex-muse of Italian horror-film directors Dario Argento and Michele Soavi, depicts true horror: the tragedy that tears the Middle-East apart.
In a land of agony where the list of victims extends every day, maternity appears to be the only antidote to the hatred that divides the Israeli and the Palestinians, and femininity seems the only presence capable of defusing the constant violence, at least as long as there will be such people as the mothers and fathers who form Parents’ Circe, an organisation which unites parents of victims from both sides in the name of a grief that has no flag. In Venice, the press conference (held in the presence of two members of this association, Robyn Damelin and Ali Abo Awwad) rekindled the emotion felt by all during the screening. In Israel, stories like theirs are appallingly common. Elsewhere, the unspeakable horrors they experience every day are staggering : the home-videos, photographs and mothers of the movie tell the tale of entire generations which have been decimated, from Tel Aviv to Gaza, Jerusalem, and Jenin.
Madri, which opens with Gila Katsav's appeal (she is the wife of former Israeli president Moshe Katsav), is a road-movie born backstage, during another shooting, as the director reveals : "Rai Cinema was shooting a documentary on the life of Jesus and I realised that, over there, the condition of the mothers had not changed in 2000 years : all this time, they have been living with the idea that they might lose their children. Later, the producers asked me to work on the theme of maternity to tell European mothers what their Middle-Eastern peers' reality is like".
Shooting a movie in between checkpoint s was not easy – "we needed two teams, and sometimes six hours were not enough to shoot a single interview because the place made things so difficult" – but the difficulty of making a film in a warzone (which could have made for "a subplot") was left out of the screen "as a sign of respect for the suffering of these mothers".
Madri, produced by Rai Cinema and Digital Studio and sold by 01 Distribution, will not have a theatrical release. After this world premiere in Venice, it will be broadcast on television and shown at festivals.
(Translated from Italian)
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