On the occasion of Pillow face selection at 75th Locarno Film Festival edition (August 3rd-13th), we interviewed Apulian director Saverio Cappiello, born 1992, who told us about his last work and about his cinematographic education. The short will premiere at the prestigious Swiss Festival as the only Italian work in competition in “Pardi di domani” International film section, with works by emerging filmmakers from all over the world. The short is an Intervallo Film production, together with Bari International Gender Festival and Apulia Film Commission Sponsorship.

Tell us about your cinematographic education and your experiences in this field.

I graduated at Civica di Milano as a Film Editor. It was the most complete study experience I’ve had in the cinematographic field. I already knew I wouldn’t have become an editor but I was interested in studying the language and constructional editing. The most important part of my education though was in artist residencies. Particularly the first one, Finestre Buie, with Martina Di Tommaso and Leonardo Di Costanzo’s tutoring, that brought me back to just three kilometers away from my home, Bitonto. With them I realized My sister‘s short movie foundation. It goes without saying that an important part of my education has also been travelling through various Film Festivals and watching several movies.

How was Pillow face born, and by which desire? 

Pillow Face is the final step of a path lasting one and a half year, whose aim was to focus on Bari suburbs, particularly on Libertà quarter. Intervallo Film and Big Factory ran a training course and gathered stories of people living there. I arrived at that moment. I took inspiration and found a fertile ground to develop a story that was going through my mind more and more during the months I had spent away from Apulia.

 How did you find and choose the short’s protagonists? Was the acting work more guided or spontaneous?

The short’s young protagonists have been chosen through a peculiar casting. In Redentore’s parish, Libertà quarter’s landmark, we stopped from time to time young people playing Saturday afternoon football matches and asked them questions, as if those were sideline interviews. I had just a couple of seconds to understand who could have been the right kid for the story I had in my mind, because while playing none of them would have given me more than a minute. With the three chosen kids I realized a writing project more than an acting one. I tried to understand which were the less comfortable script’s passages for them and we rewrote them together. It was a guided-spontaneity, in a way.

Pillow Face came after the realization of other works, I’m thinking about My sister in particular, which tells about the new Apulian generations. Have you always wanted to create a work like this last one, about early adolescence? In what way is it similar, or different, in your intentions, from the previous ones? 

It’s not a story I’ve always dreamed of making. With My sister I put on a story about a familiar life condition, to me and other peers living in a suburbs context. With the passing of time I thought I would have continued being interested in my generational reality, but it happened the opposite instead. I think it happened because I was gradually losing faith in the present which I used to consider as a good time to fight and to get a payback from. I went back to my memories of the early adolescence rituals instead, which are strongly bound to me and my personal vision of the suburbs. When an image comes back to my mind frequently, I think it means I have to deal with it using the magnifying glass that cinema is.