Amelio, homosexuality is not deviance, the film gives courage

"The word plagiarism now reminds us of Al Bano and Michael Jackson fortunately, but in '68 it wasn't like that":

, competing for the Golden Lion and in the hall with 01 from 8 September.

The lord of the ants, that is a passionate myrmecologist, was Aldo Braibanti, poet, playwright, writer, artist from a town in the Po valley, Fiorenzuola d'Arda, who was put on trial in Rome on charges of 'plagiarism' and sentenced to nine years for this, where plagiarism stands for homosexual history (which was not a crime, however) with a young student who was given electroshock and treatment in a psychiatric hospital at the behest of the family.

A case that made history and led to protests under the court of Piazza Cavour especially of the first radicals.

Gianni Amelio: 'In my film there is resonance in today, in the violence against the rights of the person'

Luigi Lo Cascio plays Braibanti, "which I certainly do not want to sanctify - says Amelio - he does not seek sympathy, he is arrogant, he is not empathetic", but the story that this film tells tells a lot about an era in which homosexuals were "reversed by cure, as I was also told in Calabria when I was 16, something that in the Calabrian dialect I make a character in the film say ".

The 'plagiarized' student, the newcomer Leonardo Maltese, is called Ettore, not the real name of the boyfriend with whom Braibanti went to live in Rome.

"It is a choice - explains Amelio to ANSA - because her family wants to be a symbol of that time, the mother is not a monster, for her, electroshock is healing, she lives within that society, I don't want to justify it but I want to understand it for its time ".

Elio Germano is Ennio, a young Unity journalist who wants to tell the trial of Braibanti without censorship, whatever the cost, at a time when the PCI was a decidedly bigoted party in terms of personal relationships.

"On individual freedoms, the PCI has been overtaken on the left and continues to be so even today, what remains of that party is far from certain issues, the people are more mature than their political representatives. The Italians, according to the numbers of the polls, were for example, opposed to sending weapons for the war to Ukraine - observes Elio Germano - but they did not have political representation on this, a serious matter for democracy. contemporary things.

The story of the film, which Amelio wrote with two young authors, Edoardo Petti and Federico Fava, takes you back in time, removing from oblivion a sensational case now forgotten, the persecution of an intellectual and his partner for sexual reasons.

Incredibly, it all seems very close to us.

"In the electoral campaign, a candidate - Giorgia Meloni ed - said be satisfied with civil unions, too bad that - continues the director - on the same day the video of a woman calling the police for having seen two homosexuals kissing is shot, and let's not talk about what still happens in schools today Even today homosexuality is considered deviance that can upset children, unfortunately the mentality is to confuse homosexuality with pedophilia which is the worst possible crime while homosexuality is love.

I very much hope that The Lord of the Ants will give courage to those who cannot have it, I would like it to be an optimistic film despite the fact that it speaks of one of the darkest pages of Italian justice ". Amelio is worried about this electoral campaign" so hasty in which there is no time to explain the programs, but everything is based on sympathy and dislike.

I feel great embarrassment, I have always known who to vote but today I admit I have less clear ideas ". The film, for Germano (who is working on a project on Enrico Berlinguer)," is incredibly contemporary.

In my character, that of the communist journalist, there is one thing that is central today: the terrorism that is done in the workplace in order not to think for oneself, to be approved, everything is based on competition, passion is something unseemly,

The cast also includes Sara Serraiocco and opera singer Anna Caterina Antonacci, making her debut as an actress.

The film, admits Amelio, was proposed to him by Marco Bellocchio who produced it with Kavac Film, with Ibc Movie, Tenderstories and Rai Cinema.