Following the screening of Paolo Sorrentino’s latest film Youth, the audience had an opportunity to talk to the film’s producer Nicola Giuliano. Giuliano is also a professor at Scuola nazionale di cinema in Rome.
The producer first told the audience how he met the director 20 years ago on the set of a low-budget film. Sorrentino was working on set and had given Giuliano some of his work to read. At one point, Sorrentino, was so dissatisfied with the odd jobs he was doing, that he wanted to leave, but after the producer told him that he liked his work, he decided to stay. This was the start of long-lasting collaboration and friendship.
Giulianо talked about the challenges of a large coproduction. The film was made on four different locations – the majority was shot in two hotels in Switzerland, while fragments were filmed in Venice, London and France. The first part of the film was originally supposed to be based in London. However, it was too expensive and too complex to do this. The start of the filming was almost late due to Oscar campaign for Great Beauty. Regardless of that, the majority of the cast, including Michael Caine, had already accepted the parts.
When asked what advice he would give to aspiring filmmakers, Giuliano said that “they need to do their best; they should fight for, believe in and love their films. They should also be prepared to run some risk if they really want to do the film they like.” He said that he watches films from the point of view of the audience – and tries to make a film that he would like to see.
The producer also gave his personal view of the film saying it is “about life. Paolo’s films are less tied to structure in terms of the story since he wants it to resemble life as much as possible – life is not a story, random things happen every single moment”.
In the end, Giuliano said that film is facing a challenge because of television and the Internet and that both directors and producers should film stories they love and believe in, but have to target a large audience.