{"id":153475,"date":"2025-08-17T15:59:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T15:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/153475\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T15:59:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T15:59:12","slug":"paolo-sorrentino-talks-cinema-ahead-of-venice-premiere-la-grazia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/153475\/","title":{"rendered":"Paolo Sorrentino Talks Cinema Ahead of Venice Premiere ‘La Grazia’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAcademy Award-winning director Paolo Sorrentino<\/a> (\u201cThe Great Beauty\u201d) is readying the world premiere of his latest film, \u201cLa Grazia,\u201d\u00a0which will compete for the Golden Lion at this month\u2019s Venice Film Festival<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut as for future plans, the Italian auteur was non-committal during a masterclass Sunday at the Sarajevo Film Festival<\/a> \u2014 although he braced the audience to expect the worst. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t like to have objectives. I don\u2019t love the idea that I have to do new things,\u201d the director said. \u201cI stay at home without doing anything, and then suddenly something comes up in my mind that becomes an obsession, and I say, \u2018OK, let\u2019s do a movie about this obsession.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAbout where those obsessions might lead next, Sorrentino stayed mum. But his advice to moviegoers was simple: Don\u2019t get your hopes up.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cProbably I am going to do worse, like many directors,\u201d he said, drawing laughter from the audience.<\/p>\n

\n\tSorrentino, who appeared in conversation with Serbian filmmaker Ognjen Glavoni\u0107 (\u201cThe Load\u201d), is attending the Sarajevo Film Festival this year to receive an Honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award<\/a> in \u201crecognition of the great beauty that he gave us with his films,\u201d according to festival head\u00a0Jovan Marjanovi\u0107. The director will also be feted with\u00a0a retrospective of his films as part of the festival\u2019s \u201cTribute To\u201d program.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis latest feature, \u201cLa Grazia<\/a>,\u201d is\u00a0a love story that re-teams the director with \u201cThe Great Beauty<\/a>\u201d actor Toni Servillo, who stars opposite Italian actor Anna Ferzetti (\u201cDiamonds\u201d). The film will open the Venice Film Festival, which runs Aug. 27 \u2013 Sept. 9.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s the latest chapter in Sorrentino\u2019s long-running love affair with the prestigious Italian fest, where he premiered his debut feature \u201cOne Man Up\u201d in 2001 and launched the first episodes of his groundbreaking series \u201cThe Young Pope,\u201d as well as his 2021 film \u201cThe Hand of God,\u201d which won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking in Sarajevo, Sorrentino recalled his first visit to the Lido a quarter-century ago.\u00a0\u201cWhen I went the first time in Venice, I didn\u2019t know anything about the movie world,\u201d he said. \u201cI remembered the first time I did a meeting with journalists \u2014 with 10 journalists. I didn\u2019t understand that they were journalists, and why they were sitting in front of me. It was a complete shock the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJust a few months later, the director got a phone call inviting \u201cOne Man Up\u201d to the inaugural Tribeca Film Festival. Sorrentino was convinced he was the victim of a prank.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy producer was always doing games with difference voices,\u201d he recalled.\u00a0\u201cAnd the guy said, \u2018Robert DeNiro wants your movie at the Tribeca Film Festival!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u201cLa Grazia\u201d opens this year\u2019s Venice Film Festival.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAndrea Pirrello\/Courtesy Venice Film Festival<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director fielded questions from the audience for much of Sunday\u2019s freewheeling 90-minute session, opening up about why he refuses to direct other people\u2019s scripts (\u201cI understand only the things that I write\u201d), why Fellini\u2019s \u201c8 1\/2\u2033 is his favorite film (\u201cIt\u2019s a great movie because it\u2019s not perfect\u201d) and why producers are lining up to work with him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t love to work on set. I\u2019m very fast, because I can\u2019t wait to go home,\u201d he said. \u201cProducers love me because I save money, but only because I am eager to go home to watch football matches.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRecounting pivotal moments throughout his career, which has produced more than a dozen feature films, Sorrentino discussed some of the larger-than-life personalities that have both inspired and populated his movies, such as former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi \u2014 the inspiration behind his 2018 dramatic comedy \u201cLoro<\/a>\u201d \u2014 and Argentine football god Diego Maradona.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was Maradona\u2019s arrival in Naples to play for the local club in 1984, when Sorrentino was a young teen, that serves as backdrop to the director\u2019s deeply personal \u201cThe Hand of God<\/a>,\u201d with the filmmaker crediting the flashy footballer\u2019s showmanship for sparking his \u201clove of cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I was 14, and Maradona arrived in Naples, for the first time I understood what a show was,\u201d the director said. \u201cMaradona told us \u2014 told me, told the Napolitan people \u2014 what is a big, unbelievable show. And I found out the same thing through cinema \u2014 the opportunity to put on a big show.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director said he\u2019s largely driven by curiosity about \u201cwhat happens in the mind of people who are very far from me,\u201d offering up the controversial politician and mogul Berlusconi, a three-time prime minister who wielded outsized influence over the Italian political scene and sat at the helm of a vast empire that included media holdings and one of the largest football clubs in Europe. The disgraced billionaire died in 2023 at the age of 86.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI am very lazy, and I am exactly the opposite of Berlusconi. So I was very curious to find out how the man is so full of life, so full of enthusiasm, so full of objectives in life,\u201d said Sorrentino. \u201cIt was a sort of challenge about how to approach life. The characters that I always fall in love [with] are always characters that are very, very different from me. In a hidden part of me, I would love to be them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom his days as a self-confessed \u201cdepressed\u201d teenager \u2014 when he\u00a0was \u201cat home, alone, watching movies on TV\u201d \u2014 Sorrentino said he\u2019s found refuge in cinema, insisting: \u201cMovies saved my sad life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEven now the artform offers an escape, with the director saying: \u201cEvery time I feel that I am too sad, I think, \u2018Now it\u2019s time to do a movie.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSorrentino won an Academy Award for \u201cThe Great Beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked by an audience member for his definition of wisdom, the 55-year-old filmmaker channeled Jep Gambardella, the journalist played by\u00a0Servillo in \u201cThe Great Beauty,\u201d whose monologue in the film\u2019s closing moments tries to make sense of a lifetime of unfulfilled promise and ennui.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLife is a sort of blah, blah, blah. And under the blah, blah, blah, we are living,\u201d said Sorrentino. \u201cWe are the heroes of our own life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Sarajevo Film Festival runs Aug. 15 \u2013 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Academy Award-winning director Paolo Sorrentino (\u201cThe Great Beauty\u201d) is readying the world premiere of his latest film, \u201cLa…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":153476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2961,224,5337,30988,89809,30989],"class_list":{"0":"post-153475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-losangeles","13":"tag-paolo-sorrentino","14":"tag-sarajevo-film-festival","15":"tag-venice-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115044939575644525","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}