Of Neapolitan origin, with a degree from Bologna's Dams, Antonietta De Lillo is a figure that stands out in Neapolitan cinema. Already director of films such as "La casa in bilico", of 1985, Nastro d'argento at the Taormina festival, "Matilda", "I Racconti di Vittoria", in 2001, with the film "Non è giusto", she tells about her generation, seen through the eyes of two children, continuing the exploration of new languages, fascinated by shadow zones and intimate search.What is the story told in "Non è giusto"?
It is not right to speak of my generation, that of the forty year olds who are a little mature, a little confused and a little irresponsible. All this is seen through the eyes of two kids, Valerio and Sofia, who find themselves in Naples in the summer accompanied by their fathers, because they come from families of separated parents. The camera watches these parents with them, between the two a friendship os born, thanks to which they can look at their parents in complicity with greater irony and perhaps to suffer them a little less.
Who are these two kids, did you find inspiration in anybody in particular?
They are children you can meet every day, I was inspired by life. As far as the cinema is concerned there are some beautiful films that I have wanted to watch again and I am referring to De Sica and Truffaut.
Speaking of children, what are their features which more than others stand out in "Non è giusto"?
A great solitude, the same that characterises the children of this age because they are nearly all only children, many are the children of separated parents and they spend more time with adults than with their same age group. In the game of the film the meeting between the two children represents and opportunity to finally be able to choose something.
And the parents, who are they?
They are parents who find themselves in a fake movement, that is still searching for new relationships in which however they do not give themselves wholly, they are still quite immature and incapable of growing up. In the film my attention is focused mostly on the males because they are co-protagonists of Valerio and Sofia, but in Non è giusto also the feminine world emerges through the phone calls or with rapid incursions that express, also in that context, a bit of suffering, an incapacity to substitute the old model with something new, more aware and with greater freedom.
The city where the story unfolds is Naples: what aspect of the city did you describe?
I described the Naples I live in and that I know well. A Naples made of sea and islands, but I think the city is impersonal in Non è giusto, that it only works as a backdrop, because the real protagonists are feelings and the characters that people them.
January.2002
Antonietta De Lillo (In Italian)
I bambini ci guardano (In Italian)
:: ITALIAN STYLE :: CINEMA ::
