Interview with Costanza Quatriglio on HOLDING MY BREATH
Costanza Quatriglio, a young and promising filmmaker specialising in documentary in its different forms and with a keen eye on heavy social issues, presented her new short film Holding My Breath (Con il Fiato Sospeso) at the Venice Days selection of this year’s Venice Film Festival. Her film talks about working in unsafe environment and the struggles of finding the right opportunities as a young man or woman in Italy – although the film could just as easily be interpreted in a more universal light.
This unique style of documentary intriguingly incorporates facts into a narrative structure, which in itself has a pace dictated by a documentarian element par excellence like the interview. The story of the film is based on the case of Emanuele, a pharmaceutical student from the University of Catania who died of lung cancer as a result of his research for his theses in 2003. However, the main characters of the film are Anna and Stella, the former being the university student and the latter being a student who gives up her studies to pursue a career as an indie rocker musician.
Throughout her filmography, she has dealt with many important issues in the past and her interesting in exposing such themes came from her past experience in law. “I was studying law and I was dealing with issues that particularly interested,” she said at the meeting with 28 Times Cinema. They were issues that usually had something to do with people’s rights. These things gave me the chance to explore things that are usually unexplored. To observe worlds with hidden rules.”
What were the reasons behind the stylistic choices of the cinematography, particularly in relation to light and its wide use of close ups and extreme close ups?
In this film, I insisted on the use of the close up of the actress, who is a well-known actress in Italy. In this way, I wanted to represent the fact that this mise en scene, this fictional part, could profoundly be eradicated within a relationship with reality. It was as if the use of the close up, together with my voice off field interviewing her while she faces the camera, could be the foundation of the film’s narrative structure.
The choices that had to do with the light had to do with the fact that I wanted to make a ‘chemical film’ in all the different meanings of the term. I wanted the audience to be able to feel the dressing of the manipulation and experimentation through the use of filters and a light that painted every single environment and setting. Hence, the handling of the light was very much affected by the idea of taking full advantage of digital filmmaking. For instance, at the start of the film we see the laboratories in green. The idea behind that choice was to make it seem as if it was a war scene. I actually wanted to film it in infrared, but be didn’t have enough money to.
What is the character of the rocker Stella meant to represent?
The character of Stella is meant to represent the anger but at the same time the tenderness of young people. This is shown through her element of anger at the fact that she has a lot of will to make things happen and to do things but also a lot of tenderness.
How much of your filmmaking influence come from the fact that you come from the south of Italy?
My geographical provenience, this south of Italy that I carry with me at all times is very important to me because it has taught me that the world is full of contradictions. As a result, I am very used to looking at things from all different viewpoints and different perspectives. I also never have certainties, I’m always filled with doubt about things. I don’t know whether that is something that is eradicated within the Southern Italian culture, but the South of Italy itself is certainly full of different facets.
The film comes close to half hour in length. How can short film find a way of being exhibited and find an audience?
Well, I thing that the short film can be seen when it escapes its shorter format to espress itself within a dramatic structure and aspect that the spectator finds fulfilling. So, considering that there really isn’t a short film culture in cinemas, we should work on that. We have to work on making room for short films and making room to the other different formats of films because, for example, this film is not simply a short film – it’s a short film in its length but it’s also a short that has many elements of a feature length film. It’s thirty five minutes long simply because the narrative device of the interview could not last any longer than that.
- Matt Micucci, 1/9/2013