Francesco CostabileAn Interview with Francesco Costabile Gary M. Kramer November 2024 Interviews Issue 111 Director and cowriter Francesco Costabile’s Familia, which premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival, is an intense drama inspired by true events. Licia (Barbara Ronchi) lives with her two young sons, Ale (Stefano Valentini), short for Alesandro, and Gigi (Francesco de Lucia) short for Luigi. The boys’ father, Franco (Francisco Di Leva), is away serving time. However, shortly after Franco is released from prison, he pays a visit to his kids. As Licia has filed a restraining order against him, the cops arrive to escort Franco out and relocate the children. Familia then jumps ahead a decade. Gigi has joined a fascist group run by Fulvio (Enrico Borrello) and is dating Giulia (Tecla Insolia). When a rumble turns deadly, Gigi is sentenced to nine months in jail. While incarcerated, his father visits him, hoping to renew their relationship. When Gigi gets out, Franco insinuates himself back into his old family, eventually moving in with them and continuing the cycle of abuse from before until it is broken. Costabile presents all of these events in a series of dramatic tableaus that emphasise the fear that each character experiences. The exchanges between Licia and Franco are especially stressful because Franco could explode at any moment. (And in one nervy elevator ride, he does.) Yet, Gigi also seems to have inherited his father’s hot-headed temperament. When he follows Giulia at a local carnival, she tells him that she is afraid to be near him. A car ride the couple shares in a later scene is equally unnerving. Familia examines the sins of the father by showing how each character navigates a fraught situation. When Licia bemoans to her sons about Franco, “We’ll never be free of him,” her angst is palpable. Costabile has crafted a claustrophobic thriller about the ties, which bind also sometimes strangle. With the assistance of an interpreter, the non-binary director spoke with Senses of Cinema about making Familia. – G.M.K How did you learn about Luigi’s story and why did you want to make a film about it? My first film, Una Femmina: The Code of Silence (2022), explored gender violence. In this film, Familia, I wanted to get more in depth with the treatment of this same topic. The first film was more relegated to the context of mafia, where the violence happened. In Familia, I tried to widen the context to make it more universal and place it in the family. I discovered the book that Luigi wrote and found the story very powerful. I wanted to explore that. I found that within his story there were several elements that reminded me of Greek or Shakespearian tragedy. This archetype was very interesting to explore in my style of cinema. Familia How did you work on presenting the family dynamic in the film? The scenes between the brothers, and their mother, and with Franco, as well as those between Gigi and Guilia all have a different tone to them. Can you talk about how you approached the relationships narratively and visually? I started from reality – from a real story and from real research I conducted in antiviolence centres. I transformed this reality into a cinematic vision. In the film, I was able to unify different genres and cinematic languages – melodrama, psychological thriller, and horror – and that mix of tones balances the realism, so it has a strong emotional impact given these tragic elements. The film balances and blends realism and genre to ‘read’ reality in a different way. Familia is about the sins of the father and the possibility that they will be handed down to the next generation. What observations do you have about the cycle of violence? The film is about patriarchal violence and how that generates other violence. It’s about exploring how a kid will react and absorb this kind of violence – not only physical violence, but also the psychological violence that lives in the family. Gigi is a victim of this violence. He finds another ‘violent father’ in the fascists, whose patriarchy is seductive for young kids. The violence is strong; it feeds anger and rage. Even the relationship between father and son is a conflict, but it’s also seductive and manipulative. How do you free yourself from this patriarchy and violence? Gigi is a victim of the system of both the patriarchy and institutional violence. This family is also a victim of institutional violence. The moment Licia decides to report Franco to the police, the first trauma happens – they take her kids away from her. In order to break this cultural system, we need to provide institutional support and education. When Gigi was able to write his book, he had this opportunity. Gigi’s involvement with the fascist group is revealing. Fulvio appears to be a surrogate father figure for Gigi. What can you say about that element of the story? Actually, we live in a time where fascists are back in our culture, our politics, and our streets. People seem to forget the past trauma with the fascists in our world. This is a tragic thing that is happening in Italy, but also throughout the world because now there is a politicisation of society. Everything is very politicised and polarised – Blacks against whites, feminists against men. This is a consequence of a political and patriarchal culture, which generates men who are raging and angry. This extremism develops, and men need to find their enemy and express their anger. In my research, the enemy could be your neighbour, a homosexual, a transgender person, or a migrant – there is a need to find an enemy. In this way, fascism gives you a target. What about the expressions of masculinity in the film? Franco, Fulvio, Alessandro, and Gigi are all very interesting, different men. Can you discuss their functions in the film? Franco is the absolute model. He is the most dangerous man. It is not just the violence, but he is able to seduce and manipulate. He goes home and keeps the family members he is manipulating in a cage. Everything Franco does is motivated by a strategy – even the love for his sons is a strategy. That is why he is so scary. Fulvio is a more like mentor. He is a second father. He incites Gigi to violence, giving him a knife. He is a substitute father in a metaphoric way. He can be seen as a sort of mirror and represents what Gigi could become – someone who will not love anymore and be devoted to violence. Alessandro, the brother, represents the masculinity that doesn’t need hyper-macho representation. With his brother and Giulia, Gigi allows himself not to be toxic but find another side of his character which allows him to feel emotions and even cry. Gigi is the hurt kid. He has an extreme side, one that is sensitive and sweet and has a strong female component, but that collides with the cultural conflict of the toxic hypermasculinity he has been taught. He has this conflict in him. Gigi is able to find that kid at the end of the film – he feels “pure” – he frees himself from the toxic masculinity by breaking the cycle. How did you work with the actors to elicit such powerful performances? Licia is nervous, Gigi is tough, Franco is menacing, Giulia is innocent. The emotions are all very vivid. Of course, we started with a reading of the script, but there was deeper work on the characters. Each actor brings out his own character and I am open to listen to the actors’ ideas. They did a lot of rehearsal and improvisation. I like to do improv because it helps me to change or adjust the script. I do not ‘impose’ characters on the actors, but I work with the actors to build the characters together based on the sensibility of each actor. Familia The film is quite tense with various scenes depicting the characters’ fear. What decisions did you make in creating the tension? The structure of the movie is very cyclical. Everything is repeating. This cyclic approach creates a cage where you are trapped. It is only at the end that are you able to free yourself. The cycle is also about how something from the past haunts you, like déjà vu, but differently. There is a lot of things that come back – for example, the paint in the first house during their childhood comes back in the next house where they are hiding. This helps us to become involved in this stressful structure. I use this to create a sense of the uncanny in the audience – like in Freud’s analysis. The visuals in the film range from dreamlike in some of the early scenes to absolutely nightmarish with the episodes of violence. It is curious that you hold off showing the domestic abuse, but then present it later. Why did you feel the need to show it? I build tension for the audience, but I underline how violence is more powerful when it is offscreen. Like Michael Haneke, who doesn’t show you the violence, but it haunts you. Even in this way, there is a very strong reference to psychology when you remove something from your memory. This film is a journey of being conscious of what happened and having this bad memory come back. Gigi suffers from that and the tragedy of that. Do you think Gigi found the right solution to the situation he was in? Do you approve of what he did? And was your film designed to explain/justify his actions? No. I do not believe that Gigi is a hero. He is a victim. What happened is what could happen when institutions abandon you or abandon a family that does not have a lot of education or ways to fight or combat this violence. Gigi’s story is a tragedy, but it a consequence of a very hard and difficult life. Whoever is under such strong psychological stress is not aware or empowered or conscious of his actions. This extreme act [in the end] is also a gesture of protection, because what could have happened would have been another kind of tragedy. In a very symbolic way, Gigi tries to free his family from this monster, from this suffering. Film is not only realism; it is symbolic and metaphoric. In a metaphoric way, killing their father is a way to emancipate yourself and detach yourself from the patriarchy. That’s what I lived in my own life as a non-binary person. I had to go against this predefined concept of a strong father in order to be aware of who I am and find my own path. To quote Fassbinder, in one of his tragic melodramas, “Each man kills the thing he loves!” Did you identify with Gigi? Yes. In the film, the director always ‘belongs’ to it. I talked about myself and my family and my relationship with my father. Of course, my relationship with my father is very different from the one presented in this film, and with this kind of violence, but the relationship between me and my father influenced the soul and the sentiment of Familia. It was how I became involved in this story. To me, cinema is always autobiographical. You have a real necessity when you find a story that did not happen to you but makes you feel – that there is destiny at work. I found Luigi’s book two years ago, and this book and his story ‘talked’ about me using other names and other characters and in another city. That is the most beautiful path for an artist.
