There are themes that remain eternal: in Ratataplan, the candidate for a job who is rejected for his creativity, remains the symbol of a certain worldview. Yet it is dated 1979.
The actor in a film who suddenly becomes a cartoon, or the shadow who wants to escape from the body, or the girl in a commercial who moves inside the film: these are ideas that have made the history of a certain type of cinema "out of the box" Italian. Since Maurizio Nichetti he's done a lot of things, he has a lot of projects and, as he announces in this interview with FIRSTonline, he's getting ready to return to the scene with a new film. Let's hear it.
Maurizio Nichetti, we miss the madness of his films, unique and trend-setting. Does he not want to go back to the big screen?
“If you had asked me even just a couple of years ago, I would have said no. But now I think the time has come. I'm working on it. And I think I can leave next year."
Ratataplan, Thieves of soap bars, Volere Volare, Stefano quantistorie, Ho fatto splash, Domani si balla, Luna e l'altra are some of the films that have marked his career, but also his audience: they are the films that reflect his nature a bit visionary, aerial, absurd and surprising so loved by his fans. You were the only one making that kind of film in Italy, weren't you?
“Actually there was only me in Italy doing those movies: there were some other clues, but then they got lost. I was born into the generation of Nanni Moretti, who had had ironic and surreal ideas in the very first films, even if deeply rooted in society and politics. But then he specialized as a playwright. Then there is Carlo Verdone who was in the footsteps of Alberto Sordi, but carried on the Romanesque Italian comedy. Renzo Arbore made a crazy film, "Il Papocchio", son of that certain madness also present in "Alto gradimento" and in "L'altra Domenica" which I also made. But even Arbore cannot consider himself a film director. And then there's Roberto Benigni, also with his own surreal dimension. But then everyone took other paths.
Looking beyond the Italian borders, are there any directors who have made a cinema like yours? Someone compares her to Woody Allen. Someone to Charlie Chaplin…
“I partly recognize myself in Woody Allen's very first films, I would say the first 6 or 7. Then Allen became a screenwriter of dramatic plots, of very articulated psychologies. The reference to Chaplin is linked to the fact that I too have often used silent. Mine is a kind of mad film to which it was difficult for a producer in the official world of cinema to give carte blanche. People preferred comedies or even other movies. And in fact, apart from the first two, I then produced my own films. It is the condemnation of those who do eccentric choices. Jacques Tati did the same in France: to be faithful to his way of making cinema, he produced his own films for as long as he could. Eccentric careers: The film industry couldn't make money off our films. You pay for the privilege of doing what you want by staying a little outside the official nature of the production, but also from the group in which you recognize yourself”.
Then the trend stopped. What happened? Had an era ended?
“Yes, indeed, there has been a great turning point in our sector that has made me change professionally. Those films of mine, as well as some of my commercials, were conceived between the 80s and 90s. They were characterized, as we said, mostly by the interweaving of reality and fantasy. Then, between the end of the 90s and the beginning of 2000, the first "special effects" arrived and very soon they became prevalent in films: if you had a good digital camera it was relatively simple to make the characters "fly".
Is that the only reason he stopped making those kinds of movies?
"No. There is also another reason: another epochal turning point with a precise date, 11 September 2001. With the videos that we have all seen of the attack on the Twin Towers, we understood that reality had surpassed even the fiction of the films most catastrophic in Hollywood. From that day we started talking about the Taliban, Iraq, Iran. This is how curiosity for the world's problems was born and grew, which are an inexhaustible source of very interesting stories and characters: from the beginning of 2000 I moved from fantasy to reality and started producing documentary films. For three years I have also been the artistic director of Visioni dal Mondo, the International Documentary Festival founded by Francesco Bizzarri”.
In September there will be a new edition of the festival. What will be the leitmotif of this year?
“The eighth edition of the Documentary Festival (to be held in Milan between 15 and 18 September, editor's note) will have the subtitle “More knowledge, More awareness” and will intertwine real testimonies with personal life stories. Science, medicine, geopolitics, climate and environmental conservation are topics that we would never stop talking about: to understand, to prevent or even simply to have less fear, more awareness of reality, that reality that cinema sometimes manages to represent us in honest way. An image is always worth more than many words”.
In recent years he has continued to cultivate another passion of his: corporate cinema and advertising. How has this sector changed?
“Even in the world of corporate communication there has been a big change. Once upon a time everything was channeled only in the TV. Now, however, the message passes through the many social networks creating fragmentation: for a single product it is necessary to know how to create a transversal storytelling that accompanies a person through different channels and with different languages until it is brought to the company website, which in turn is made of images. The online image has become absolutely central to all communication”.
Advertising is believed to be a forerunner of economic development. According to the Internet Media Observatory of the Milan Polytechnic, the online advertising market at the end of 2021 grew by 24% compared to the previous year. And a positive trend is also expected for 2022. From your perspective, do you see signs of a recovery?
“The past years, with the closure due to the pandemic, have been crucial in bringing about a change in company-customer communication. We have learned to use online and technologies to expand the catchment area, developing in 2-3 years a process that was already underway, but it would have taken 10 years to grow. Now it is understood that with audiovisuals you can reach whoever you want, wherever you want and with the message you want: they are indispensable for business communication and no longer the audience as when there was only TV. There is a huge demand for this type of advertising. And since it is true that advertising has always been an anticipator of an economic trend, it is to be hoped that there will actually be an economic recovery”.
Now he also teaches it in a school: what should anyone involved in advertising be able to do? What do you study in your course?
“Since 2014 I have been the artistic director of the Milan office of the Experimental Cinematography Center, specializing in advertising and corporate communication. Right from the start, my idea was to merge skills that had hitherto remained rigidly separate and were actually thought of as antagonistic to each other: students, on the other hand, must know how to handle direction, screenplays and production in a transversal way. This is true in cinema as in a company and in many other areas: after years of extreme specialization, now the contamination of different experiences is the real winning formula. All the great directors, especially from abroad, have also been producers of their films.
In other words: a creative must know how to make estimates and respect the client's budget and deadlines and, conversely, a producer must know how to read a script in order to be able to make a concrete proposal. In fact, now we are talking about creative producer or producer director. About seventy young people who can be co-producers or assistant directors have already come out of this school”.
