Savouring success at the Mid-August Lunch

Shot in the apartment of leading actor Gianni Di Gregorio Pranzo di Ferragosto looks at some splendid old ladies in their fourth age.

After years of foreign film successes, the prestigious Luigi De Laurentiis Award for Best First Film at the 65th Venice Film Festival went to the Italian dark comedy gem Mid-August Lunch (Pranzo di Ferragosto). Kodak donated $55,000 worth of film as part of the prize.

The unique $684,000 feature was selected for Critics’ Week at Venice and additional screenings were required to satisfy the long queues of journalists and spectators keen to see the celebrated screenwriter Gianni di Gregorio in his directorial and acting debut. The film also won the Satyajit Ray Award for Best First Film at the London Film Festival and the Grand Prix for Best Film at the Bratislava International Film Festival.

Mid-August Lunch takes a charmingly engaging, respectful and humorous look at our short-sighted, guilt-ridden attitude towards the elderly. Do-goodism and rhetorical content are determinedly thrust aside in favour of sweet and surreal undertones in this irresistible exposé of an unemployed middle-aged son, his elderly widowed mother and the fast-approaching August bank holiday.

InCamera discussed the background to the semi-autobiographical film and its subsequent visualisation with the screenwriter, director and leading actor, Gianni Di Gregorio; and the director of photography, Gian Enrico Bianchi.

Q: Gianni, how did the idea for the film originate?

A: It stemmed from a situation in my own life. I am an only child and my mother wanted me at her home, even though I already had a family. I decided to move in and lived with her for ten years. During that long period I came into contact with a very special world which can be defined as the ‘fourth age’. I discovered 90-year olds full of vitality, passion and the will to live. I also got to know their vulnerabilities and fears, such as abandonment. It was a true lesson for me. During the first summer, the administrator of my mother’s condominium suggested that I look after his mother during the August bank holiday in exchange for the cancellation of utility debts. I said ‘no’, but began to think what could have happened if I’d accepted...

Q: Tell us about your scriptwriting experiences.

A: My passion for cinema began in my youth. I started as assistant director before passing on to scriptwriting and have since written many films. I met Matteo Garrone in 2000 and was so struck by his way of seeing cinema that I asked if I could be his assistant director. As a result, I collaborated with him on all his films and wrote the script of Gomorra, the best cinematic experience of my life. I used those experiences in Mid-August Lunch.

Q: Did you encounter any obstacles?

A: The main difficulty was the search for a producer, as everyone had told me that a story about the elderly would be of no interest. However, Matteo liked the script very much and helped me to realise my ambition by becoming its producer. I decided to shoot the film in my apartment to save location costs and was fortunate to secure a top-notch crew including DP Gian Enrico Bianchi, editor Marco Spoletini and others that Matteo and I had worked with and knew very well.

Q: Why did you choose Super 16?

A: I love this format very much and it was also the most appropriate for the film. Although my apartment is large, there were still problems in terms of space. In addition, we often shot with a camcorder.

Q: How did you manage with four elderly amateur actresses?

A: The woman who plays my mother is a family friend of 93 and another is my 90-something year old aunt. The other two responded as a result of posters I put up in old people’s homes. They obviously did not learn the script by heart. They simply understood the meaning of each scene and improvised, and their acting was spontaneous and very natural. At the end of each day they were asking for the next day’s schedule. It was a life lesson for me.

DP Gian Enrico Bianchi.

A: We did consider that possibility, but it was natural to proceed with 16mm as I have a special relationship with the format. Shooting in film disciplines you and focuses your attention on what you are doing. Digital is completely different. There is a great deal of shooting – perhaps too much – and the certainty of being able to take decisions at a later stage. In actual fact, one finds oneself with a lot of material and this disorientates. In any event, film is still unbeatable from the point of view of quality.

Q: We are especially pleased that you won the Kodak prize at Venice. Did you expect this success?

A: I didn’t expect it, even though I was proud of my project. However, it gave me much motivation to go forward. I am currently travelling a great deal and knowing that the film is still in the auditoriums makes me even happier.

Q: Mid-Summer Lunch is your tenth film. How do you compare it to your previous productions?

A: It belongs to a sector that I’ve been able to understand very well over the years. Although Estate romana, CapeGira and Riprendimi were very different stories, they also had a super-low budget. They embody a kind of fight against the laws of nature that allows films to be shot; a dedication beyond normality and an incredible freedom to create an entirety that overcomes all the challenges.

Q: What kind of images did you create for the film?

A: From an aesthetic point of view, we drew our first inspiration from the work of Georgian director Otar Ioselani. His images are incredibly lifelike and he is a master of scrupulously narrated stories in which there is a glimpse of the real and surreal. Gianni, production designer Susanna Cascella and I took great care to use colours that reflected a lost sumptuous past and shades that provided a 3D aspect in the restricted environment. My apartment is bright, so we used natural light as much as possible and ran a strict shooting schedule. We gained a richness and, above all, a photographic continuity that makes me happy in view of the initial difficulties we faced.

Q: Why did you choose Super 16 for a cinema film?

A: It was fairly automatic. Despite the tight budget, we knew that the format would immediately guarantee us a ‘visual poetry’; a type of image from that reality which was necessary for our narration and which could not be found elsewhere. 16mm also permitted us to shoot our splendid old ladies with ease.

Q: Which Kodak films did you choose and why?

A: I chose KODAK VISION2 250D 7205 and KODAK VISION2 500T 7218. I have become familiar with them over the years and they allowed me to experiment with great calmness.

Q: Did the scenes require a special approach?

A: It was impossible to use a traditional approach with such elderly inexperienced actresses, so we often used a shouldermounted camera. I attempted to be as smooth and as ‘invisible’ as possible in order to capture the best results in one take.

Q: Tell us about your post-production experiences.

A: I knew that Maurizio Iacovella and Giancarlo at Augustuscolor could undertake the 16/35mm blow-up with great care and attention in the traditional way, without the need to run any D.I. correction. In my point of view, we have achieved an image that is more effective, less artificial and closest to the nature of the film.