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Me for a small part of the filming
of Malena I reinvented one

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slice of Sicily in Morocco, but it is not
been particularly difficult and I have to

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say that reinventing an environment elsewhere
perhaps it is the simplest and most

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funny that this can happen in the
cinema, but it had already happened to me before

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times, even when it reinvents itself in
theater an environment that in reality is

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not very accessible.

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Here in Morocco we have reinvented it
Malena's house because

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we needed an environment from the point
from a milder climate point of view than in

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Sicily today is winter.

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And it was very easy and also a lot
funny because we rebuilt

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everything from scratch, the house, the plants, the
trees, leaves, vegetation.

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For me it's almost a superior result
to the idea of finding in reality a

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village in Sicily near the sea,
full of modern electrical cables, full

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of modern signs that you never get to
delete. But here there was nothing,

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clean slate, and I was able to make a
fishing village perfectly

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identical to how it was a village of
fishermen in the 40s.

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But almost never, but this is also when
I really ride.

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When you go anywhere in the
Sicily and start removing signs,

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start covering the windows
aluminum, start covering the cables

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electric with the clothes, me when I look
I always see these things in the car, I have

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I'm afraid it's not credible, but I'm trying
to do the impossible to make it so.

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But unfortunately my eye is
spoiled by all this.

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So sometimes I can't, but I
I like it, I like verisimilitude.

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We built at some point a
level crossing, indeed

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completely ex novo, in Sicily
we did, that was an environment

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quite expensive, but he won't get it
none that was expensive, because

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it looks like any level crossing,
I found it somewhere, I have it

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resumed.

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Reality taken as it is often on the
screen is not believable.

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Invention is often much more so.

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But he who does this is spoiled by the fact of
knowing, from awareness, therefore

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it is not the most suitable test.

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All this is of course said online
general, but in the specific case yes

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it's about recreating the 1940s.

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I can also tell you something.

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I found them much more credible
extras I found in

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Morocco than the ones I found in
Sicily. Why?

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Because today in Sicily it is very difficult
find the people who put on the screen

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become credible people of Sicily
of the 40s.

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Because in any way there is a certain
well-being, people are well.

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Here you still find thin people,
immaculate, dark.

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They seemed very much from that era to me
more credible, much more true than

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that kind of era.

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Then more and more it sometimes comes to me
think that kind of

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era actually would really go
rebuilt ex norm. If I tomorrow

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I had to make this film all over again
I would totally rebuild elsewhere, not

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I would shoot just one frame of the film.

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But I want to clarify that I didn't shoot
a film set in Sicily, in

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Morocco. I did a sixth of the film in

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Morocco, that is, a small part.

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And so having to do this little one
part I necessarily had to bring

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here all the characters from the film,
obviously except the crowd, except the

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extras.

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It is essential that the actor is
Sicilian or what...

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you learn gestures and ways of speaking
at least the music of the way of speaking

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Sicilian, which for example he did
Monica Bellucci who is not Sicilian

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even if it's southern but it's not
Sicilian, well, she studied and is

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managed to return a certain
musicality of the Sicilian language e

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this is important because maybe for
the international audience is not

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fundamental but for the Italian audience
who can distinguish the Roman accent

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from the Milanese one, from that
Neapolitan, from Sicilian, if

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attends the screening of a film that
takes place in Sicily wants to hear,

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he wants to smell the scent of that
language there and you can't

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pass off another.

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Finding a little boy from the street to
being the protagonist of a film is not

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a simple thing.

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Even though I already had this experience
done other times.

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Generally I had thought and had
searched for the boy in the schools. For

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a new cinema from paradise I sent i
my collaborators around the schools

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to look for all the kids from seven to
nine years.

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But when it came to looking for the
Malena's boy, the schools were

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closed, we were already at the beginning
of summer.

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Then these collaborators were
fanned out around Sicily a

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search on the beaches, in the squares, in the
shops, in institutes, in

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boarding schools, around in short, really for
road.

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And when they met guys who
they were the kind of age I was

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described, they stopped them and asked him
if they felt like having their picture taken

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to be considered for
a possible film.

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Thanks to this system I had the
possibility to view approximately 3,000

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guys really taken by the whole thing
Sicily.

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Of these 3,000 I selected one
thirty.

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I then met him personally
these 30, I tried to understand theirs

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ease, their ability, their
intuitions, their sensitivity,

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their characteristics.

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so to speak, expressive.

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Based on these meetings I have
selected seven or nine, I don't remember

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well, I then summoned these, I have
did a long job and brought them to

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do a film audition, shooting
bits of scenes, also doing

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exercises to help them understand which
they were the basic elements of

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technique.

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And based on this experience I have
pulled out two or three more awake, more

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interesting.

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Then I saw them, watched them in projection
for a long time, seen and reviewed, seen and

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magazines, and I tried to figure out which one
it might be the right one.

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And out came Giuseppe Soffrano.

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It wasn't fair because there were few
elements...

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which agreed with the historical period
of Sicily and it wasn't as credible as

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Sicilian market in a small town like
the one I depicted in the film.

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There were some baskets that weren't
Sicilians, there were some pots that all

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The era did not exist, there was some
fruit that didn't exist at the time.

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As these elements were
predominant I preferred not to turn the

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scene although maybe I put with the
trouble the production for a day.

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and ask them to rebuild
the former norm environment.

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No, this is not true, because when you do
a film, now you know, this is mine

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seventh film, but I have some about Sicily
just made three.

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When I make a film and face
an era, a period, the most beautiful thing

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of making that film and dealing with it
that era, that environment, is there

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documentation, trying to study.

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through all the means you want
have available in such a way as to

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understand that era in such a way as to
get to a place and even if you're

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making a film that takes place on a
ship at the beginning of the century where you don't c

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'had you ever been know if that object
of the ship was there or not or if that costume

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it was there or not, that's the beauty of cinema
being able to always feel in any situation

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environment in which you walk like a Sicilian
who is also shooting a film in Sicily

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when this is not the case