It’s like a scene out of a Greek tragedy – or maybe out of a flamboyant Sergio Leone spaghetti western. In an ancient auditorium, two Italians confront each other. On this occasion, they don’t have guns or swords, just insults. The two middle-aged women, Imma and Luisa, one with red hair and one with black hair, are both close relatives of filmmaker Gianluca Matarrese – and they simply can’t stand each other.
Their enmity is one of the driving forces behind Matarrese’s new feature documentary I Want Her Dead (an international premiere November 16 in IDFA’s Envision competition, and sold by Mediawan Rights).
The new film, supported by Rai Cinema and Swiss RSI, is the latest – and most personal – in a series of documentaries made by Matarrese that incorporate dramatic elements, following on from previous works such as The Zola Experience.
“The three ladies…the one with glasses is my mother and the sisters are my aunties. Then, we have my cousins [the women in the stand-off, Imma and Luisa],” the director explains that this documentary is very close to home.
Matarrese likes his films to have strong narratives. In The Zola Experience, he was working with actors whose work spills over into real life. In I Want You Dead, his protagonists may have been paid, but the antagonism is genuine.
“What happened was that I built a set around reality,” the director explains. “The concept, the structure, is like a fictional film, but what happens inside is reality.”
Matarrese spent several weeks with the family in their home village of Contrada Viscigliette, in Calabria, over the Christmas period. They shared many meals together. The director would spend time separately with Imma and Luisa – and then, toward the end of the filming, he brought them together for their explosive verbal confrontation. This stand-off is used at the beginning of the film to set the tone.
“What happens between them is not scripted, it’s all real,” he says of the two feuding women. And, no, it wasn’t cathartic or healing for them to have the chance to yell insults. “They still hate each other,” the director laughs. “It wasn’t therapeutic at all…but they’re expressing everything they wanted to express.”
When the two cousins turned up for the film’s Venice Film Festival premiere, they more or less behaved themselves. They both appeared on stage after the screening without starting a row. Both liked the film, which treats them even-handedly and gives them a platform. The only tension came when a photographer asked them to hold hands. At that point, Luisa angrily pushed Imma away.
The one upside is that having expressed their mutual loathing, they know exactly where they stand. There is nothing false in the relationship. Of course, they could sell the house, move away and get out of each other’s hair – but they’re too proud for that. Besides, they both like living in the village.
“In TV today, everybody is crazy about true crime. I wanted to explore what happens before [the crime happens]. There is this pornography of crime. Everyone wants to know how it happened…but I just wanted to explore what brings you there.”
Matarrese adds that if he was telling a story about, say, someone who hits their partner, it would not be the hit that would interest him but how the couple arrived at the point where violence became inevitable.
What did his mother think of it all? “She really wishes there would be peace [between the two women]. But she is really a good ally of mine. She has already done a film with me, Everything Must Go, which I filmed over seven years about the fall of my family’s shoe empire in the north of Italy.”
Matarrese’s mum takes direction well. He had written a structure for the film and she would intervene just when he needed her to. Matarrese’s mum takes direction well. He had written a structure for the film and she would intervene just when he needed her to. “I knew if there was a moment, like a dinner or a lunch, if I said the key word, she would start the monologue…she and the others knew and understood what we were looking for.”
The director’s relatives clearly enjoyed playing themselves – and sometimes taking on other roles too. Sharp-eyed viewers will notice that the policemen to whom one of the women goes to complain are actually portrayed by members of the family.
The film is expertly edited by Jacopo Quadri, who has worked on drama projects with directors like Bernardo Bertolucci and Mario Martone. “We moved sequences back and forth and we were really editing with our emotions as well,” Matarrese says of his collaboration with Quadri.
Matarrese has been asked often in the past (including by Business Doc Europe) whether his films are documentary or fiction. He generally gives the same answer. “I always say that for me documentary is maybe an illusion – it doesn’t exist. And maybe fiction doesn’t exist either. It’s more this laboratory of life, this big workshop, that’s what I like to film.”
The director is very prolific. His previous doc Gen_, about a doctor providing transgender healthcare, premiered in Sundance in January this year. He credits his loyal producer Donatella Palermo of Stemal Entertainment with sticking by him. If Matarrese has an idea, he will almost always go on to make it.
I Want Her Dead was shot last December…so just a few weeks before Gen_ had its world premiere in Park City. “Now I am here in IDFA with both films. Also, I am holding a masterclass in the IDFA Academy. Now I really have the recognition of the industry and I feel I can keep going,” he says.
In Italy, as elsewhere, it is generally not done to “wash your dirty linen” in public. “But it’s actually very liberating in a way,” Matarrese suggests of the family secrets and feuds that he exposes in I Want Her Dead. He also argues that the film is a celebration of women.
“It’s a very matriarchal kind of family. Men are really not very important in this film. It shows how important women are in our society…even if it’s [about] hate, it’s not all negative!”
I Want Her Dead will be released in Italy in February. It will also play at several other festivals including Marrakech.
