L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 10 THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2021 L'Italo-Americano S o u t h o f I t a l y , 1958. Olive trees and fields are all y o u c a n s e e a r o u n d . C i c c i o (Riccardo Scamarcio) is a 40 years old sharecropper with a dream: changing the status quo and fighting with his m a t e s a g a i n s t t h o s e w h o e x p l o i t t h e w e a k . I t m a y sound like a distant past, but the ancient duel between f r e e d o m a n d o p p r e s s i o n , justice and abuse make the story very modern. Capola- rato, the illegal recruitment of workers, didn't disappear, it just changed its target vic- tims, especially in the agri- cultural world. That old fashioned South, the one that considered hard w o r k i n t h e f i e l d s a s t h e essence itself of nobility and pride, is a childhood memory for many. A landscape etched in memory, a place millions o f m i g r a n t s c a l l e d h o m e , before leaving for Turin and its factories, for Switzerland, Germany, or even the New World. Those who remained saw that archaic world, with its scent of olive oil and its colors of stones blanched by the sun, change its looks but not its substance: the land of opportunities was, and still i s , s o m e w h e r e e l s e . S t i l l t o d a y , i t ' s t h e N o r t h , i t ' s abroad, in the US, where many Italian-Americans arri- ved in the 1950s and 1960s, l e a v i n g b e h i n d t h e " L a s t Paradiso:" family, memories, the land. Because leaving means, of c o u r s e , h o p e f o r a b e t t e r future, it means not to "die here," as the movie's main character — who wants to believe in change, redemp- tion and dreams, including the forbidden ones he makes with his lover Bianca, inter- p r e t e d b y G a i a B e r m a n i Amaral — says. But it also means loosing your roots and feeling eternally homesick, an emotional wound that never heals. I n t h i s i n t e r v i e w w i t h L'Italo-Americano, direc- tor R o c c o R i c c i a r d u l l i t e l l s u s a b o u t l ' U l t i m o Paradiso, The Last Paradiso, t h a t r e c e n t l y d e b u t e d o n Netflix, and is produced by L e b o w s k i a n d S i l v e r Productions. Ricciardulli is author and screenwriter with Riccardo Scamarcio, as well as composer of the main music theme, along with his brother Pasquale. On the backdrop, the sunny, r u r a l a n d b r e a t h t a k i n g Puglia. Your movie offers a portrait of Italy not too distant in time, but diffe- rent to what the country is today. What are the d i f f e r e n c e s b e t w e e n today's Italy and what w e s e e i n L ' U l t i m o Paradiso and what, on the other hand, remai- ned the same? "L'Utimo Paradiso descri- b e s a r e a l i t y , t h a t o f t h e South of Italy, which seems not to have changed much in the past 60 years. I mean, dynamics have changed, but t h e S t a t e k e e p s o n b e i n g a b s e n t a n d f a i l s t o g i v e answer or job opportunities. It seems a paradox, but in the South capolarato, an ancient form of oppression, s t i l l e x i s t s . A n d w h o e v e r d r e a m s o f m a k i n g i t , o f improving his or her socio- economic status, is forced to leave." L'Ultimo Paradiso has been inspired by a real event that took place at the end of the 1950s in the South of Italy, where you were born and rai- sed. You depicted it per- fectly, both in the out- doors and indoors sce- nes, highlighting the cul- tural and social charac- teristics of your people. Is today's South still like that? " T h e m o v i e h a s b e e n inspired by real events, but they've been romanticized to better fit the narration. The aim was that of showing the s o c i a l c o n t e x t t y p i c a l o f many communities of the South. Today, our Meridione is in full cultural turmoil. The younger generations have a great entrepreneurial spirit, the same that brought their forefathers to other lands to m a k e t h e i r d r e a m s c o m e true. They want to valorize to the maximum a resourceful area of the country, but often they fail because they are not sufficiently supported by our institutions." After high school you moved to LA, where you f o l l o w e d a c t i n g a n d directing seminars and got acquainted with the world of American inde- pendent cinema. What did this experience give you, from a creative and p r o f e s s i o n a l p o i n t o f view? "It allowed me to witness how a movie is born, its gene- sis from an idea and the way it evolves, step by step, into a visual work. I got to know cinema through different, let's say a bit subversive, len- ses, that led me, sometimes, to take risky paths both from the point of view of narration and direction." How much does your experience in LA influen- ce the cinematographic portrayal you make of Italy? "In LA, I had the opportu- nity to meet up with people f r o m m y o w n r e g i o n a n d o t h e r I t a l i a n - A m e r i c a n s . Their attachment to their own roots, to a world they got to know through the words of their parents and grandpa- rents, truly struck me. In many of them, I found the same values my parents tau- ght me: friendship, loyalty and, above all, generosity. Values I tried to express in the movie." How important is it, to you, to rediscover your own motherland and its past through new, more mature eyes, after having been away from it? "I think it's fundamental. Spending part of your life away from your own country h e l p s y o u a p p r e c i a t e a n d value where you grew up. The South is magic, but you r e a l i z e i t o n l y o n c e y o u leave." California has a large Italian-American com- m u n i t y . H o w d o y o u think the West Coast will r e c e i v e a m o v i e l i k e y o u r s , t h a t d e s c r i b e s Italy the way many peo- ple left it, years ago? It m a y b e a f l a s h b a c k t o them, also visually. "I think they'll feel "at h o m e " d u r i n g t h e m o v i e . They'll feel a connection with Ciccio and Bianca and, with them, they'll live again that dream of change they them- selves experienced. What Bianca says in the movie: 'let's go to Paris, and we'll even learn some French'… Well, Italian-Americans did it for real!" I n " A m m e r i k a " y o u tackle the topic of immi- gration with a subtitle that says it all: "we're just a mirror to the past, to the present, to eter- n i t y . " B u t w h a t ' s t h e price of living your own motherland? "Albeit with other images and words, this idea is pre- sent in this movie, too. The highest price of all I expe- rienced it first hand: it's lea- ving the people you love, the people who've been with you since childhood, behind." Y o u w e r e b o r n i n B e r n a l d a . D o y o u f e e l connected — and how — t o h o n o r a r y c i t i z e n Francis Ford Coppola, w h o c a l l s i t " B e r n a l d a b e l l a " a n d whose family hails from there? "Yes, I was born and bred in Bernalda and I have fanta- stic memories of the place. I w a s v e r y y o u n g a n d I remember my father used to talk about a Coppola who moved to America. But it wasn't Francis, it was his father Carmine, a great musi- cian. Later, he started talking about his son Francis, who worked in the movies. The Godfather brought Francis into the Olympus of cinema and made an entire genera- tion, me included, dream about making movies. When I arrived in LA with a friend of mine and 400 dollars in my pockets, I tried to meet my icon, but I never mana- ged. To me, Francis Ford Coppola is Cinema." Rocco Ricciardulli at work (Photo: VanDam Netflix) LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE Los Angeles, a never-changing Italian South and Rocco Ricciardulli's "Last Paradiso" BARBARA MINAFRA

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