Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background in filmmaking? What inspired you to pursue a career in the film industry?
I'm an Italian film editor based in London since 2014. From a very young age, I had a great passion for cinema. As a teenager, I used to organize cine forums at home and watch all the movies that came out at the cinema. When I finished high school, I decided that my life would never be in a small town in southern Italy, so I decided to move to Rome as long as I went to university. So I started studying film communication and film criticism, saw hundreds of films, especially films that we were not taught. I was hungry for films, rented them, bought DVDs and went to the movies every week. One day I realized that I wanted to be a filmmaker. But I didn't know what. Being passionate about something and actually make it is something very different. So through family connections I went to be a trainee on various movie sets, then I did second AD which in Italy is a job between directing and producing. I didn't like the set though, although it is very useful to know all the professions that work in film. Writing was something I understood I was interested in, building stories telling stories. But after a while, I realized how difficult it was to develop and write something that someone would read. One day, a very close friend told me that there is another way of writing in the industry: Editing. So this is how everything started. I bought an Apple computer, and I began to learn, and I learned working on every kind of small format, from film school shorts to promos and video clips. In 2008, I found an ad on a website from a young director who wanted to direct a movie entirely for the web, free to watch, in HD. So, I edited that movie for free, and this is how I learned how to edit a longer story. I was 23. Since then, I have never stopped. In 2014, I moved from Rome to London, and I am always looking for new challenges. I am a member of BaftaConnect, British Film Editors, AMC and Women in Film and TV.
What does being part of Berlinale Talents mean to you? Is there something about the city that resonates with your creative process?
Berlinale Talents is a spectacular achievement for anyone like me who wants to make films that have a cultural and social impact, and that are also entertainment. With this program I hope to meet and encounter like-minded people to collaborate with and that sharing will lead us to enrich each other. I have attended the Berlin festival 3 times before this year and visit the city often. I have a lot of friends who live there so it will be wonderful to balance the festival activities and meet them.
How do you balance expressing your unique voice and creating something that can be recognised globally?
I work primarily in documentaries, and so I find ways to tell true stories from around the world and make them exciting and understandable for all cultures. The documentary editor is a writer who tells the filmmaker the story he/she found within hundreds of hours of rushes. I identify the best structure and make FLM with a subjective angle. This is why there are so many documentaries on the same subject, but they are all different. It is the style and angle of storytelling that makes them unique. My job is to support a filmmaker in making the best film possible with the rushes available, and to suggest unexplored and alternative paths. There is always a lot of me in all The films I have edited, but the balance in its universality depends on the work of a whole team.
How does this year’s theme, "Common Tongues: Speaking Out in the Language of Cinema", resonate with your work and creative process?
Being an immigrant and living in one of the most diverse places in the world, I communicate every day with people of all cultures. Respect is paramount to me, both professionally and personally. My passion for cinema runs deep, with extensive education and continuous learning. Cinema, like all the arts, is a universal language that reaches straight to the heart of the viewer or listener sharing from the particular to the universal is the basis of good cinema i.e. making something that expresses universal emotions and situations while maintaining the identity of a people or nation.
That is why I think knowing everyone's cultures is important to better communicate and share experiences. This year's theme "Common Tongues: Speaking Out in the Language of Cinema" is one that I feel very close to because the world today needs unity, not conflict. Of confrontation not of ignoring or turning away. And cinema and art are an incredible tool to raise awareness.