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| At home with Festa del Cinema Artistic Director Antonio Monda Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
From playing a role in Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, having recent Le Conversazioni with Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen Sondheim, Zadie Smith, Patrick McGrath, Isabella Rossellini, Salman Rushdie, Julie Taymor, Jeffrey Eugenides, Marina Abramovic and Daniel Libeskind, to co-founding Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, with this year's highlights including Ivano de Matteo's The Dinner (I Nostri Ragazzi) and Lamberto Sanfelice's Chlorine (Cloro), starring Sara Serraiocco - Antonio Monda has done a great deal already. Now, he is appointed the Artistic Director of the Rome International Film Festival.
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| Isabella Rossellini with Antonio Monda in the Morgan Library & Museum Green Room Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
After Antonio had just returned from the Cannes Film Festival, we spoke about the challenges he looks forward to, how Gay Talese and Jonathan Franzen surprised him, a Renzo Piano connection, Fantasia in Villa Borghese, Paolo Sorrentino, Jacques Audiard, László Nemes, and where Festa del Cinema is headed.
At his home near Central Park, over espresso, Antonio began to reveal his grand design for the future.
Anne-Katrin Titze: Congratulations. Is this the first time you function as Artistic Director of a Film Festival?
Antonio Monda: Thank you. Let me put it this way, I run, as you know, Le Conversazioni which is a literary festival. I am Artistic Director there too. And I also run Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.
AKT: Which is going on right now.
AM: Which incidentally opens tonight. I am the Artistic Director there and the co-founder with Richard Peña. So, if you count that, no. If you don't count that because it's just about Italian movies, it's my first time.
AKT (said with a smile): And you chose to work with somebody who has absolutely no experience with running an international film festival?
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| Gay Talese at Players Club: "I'm sure that he talked about La Dolce Vita." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
AM: Richard? That was my first choice. I need Richard, I need his experience, his intelligence, his competence.
AKT: He was the head of the New York Film Festival for 25 years.
AM: Yes, 25. I was not involved with the festival but I worked with Richard since '97, '98. We know each other very very well.
AKT: So what are you planning for the Rome International Film Festival?
AM: First of all, it is not going to be a Festival, it will be a Festa. In Italian it means celebration. This is what I mean: no competition, no jury, no awards, with the exception of the audience award.
AKT: Similar to the New York Film Festival.
AM: With the exception of the audience award, quite similar. A smaller amount of films. We go between 30 and 35. New York is 24, so a little bit bigger. Two, three big retrospectives and then a lot of homages, tributes, encounters. I have a reputation for interviewing people, so I want to do a lot of that.
There will be several encounters with major filmmakers and actors from all over the world, at least one, sometimes two, per day. Meaning 12 in 8 days. Let me give you a name that will not come - to make an example. Francis Ford Coppola talking about Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, whatever. But he will not come.
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| Barbetta Open Roads: New Italian Cinema lunch Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
AKT: And it will be you and your committee doing these conversations?
AM: No. Just myself. Or Richard, or someone else. I will host most of the events.
AKT: Where will it take place?
AM: At the Rome Auditorium, the one designed by Renzo Piano. It must be something with Piano because he did the Morgan Library [where Le Conversazioni is held in New York] also.
AKT: In Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, at the beginning of the movie, weren't you cast as the director of a film festival?
AM: I think it's the first time ever that someone plays a role and then becomes that role.
AKT: How many years did it take?
AM: Ten years ago, no, eleven. 2004 it was shot. I was the director of the Loquasto Film Festival, named after Santo Loquasto. Now I'm the director of the Rome Film Festival.
AKT: You should say, "hey, Wes, put me in another role," if there is anything else you would like to become.
AM: Pope, maybe.
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| Joyce Carol Oates shares Fantasia as a first film with Antonio Monda Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
AKT: Pope? Lets put it out there, so that Wes Anderson will cast you as Pope… For now, Open Roads starts tonight.
AM: In its 15th year. At Open Roads, there is something not very different from what I'm trying to do in Rome, which is variety. We have very different genres, from melodrama to comedies, committed cinema. For Rome, the three key words are: Discontinuity from the past - something completely new.
AKT: Discontinuity from the recent past, you mean?
AM: From the previous nine editions [of the Rome Film Festival]. That past, sorry. Quality, of course, and variety. The less films you have, the more you can push up the quality. You know that you can have a very high standard.
AKT: You just came back from Cannes. Did you see anything that interested you?
AM: Absolutely. After June 15, I can give you titles. I forgot to mention that we only do European premières, so we cannot do something that was presented in Cannes. But I will be happy to show something that will be presented in Toronto, in Montreal or in Beijing. In Cannes I saw a lot of interesting options. The Festa will also involve events around the city. I'm thinking of visual arts, maybe a big exhibition of costumes or something like that. The Festa will involve the entire city of Rome.
AKT: Speaking of costumes, have you seen the China: Through the Looking Glass exhibition at the Fashion Institute of the Met across the park?
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| Le Conversazioni with Joyce Carol Oates and Stephen Sondheim Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
AM: Yes, I liked it. Did you?
AKT: I liked it very much. I went there with our friend Gay Talese. I'll send you the first part of the feature I did with him. You can't go to an exhibit like this with a better dressed man.
AM: No doubt about that.
AKT: At the Morgan Library & Museum, you always ask your guests to mention a film they hate.
AM: A classic that they hate! Because I have so many classics that I hate.
AKT: What classic do you hate? Now I put you on the spot.
AM: Do you mind if I skip that? After the festival I'll give you a title! There are a couple of major filmmakers that I can't stand.
AKT: Any dead ones you will never program?
AM (with a mischievous grin): No, no. One film I really can't stand is directed by a living director. Everybody revered that film, not me. Let me be cautious. Otherwise, my Head of Communications will kill me.
AKT: Let's go into safer territory then. What films that are already out this year, and that can't have anything to do with your festival, did you like?
AM: I loved in Cannes the film that won the second prize, the Hungarian film, Son Of Saul. I think it was a spectacular film. Among the Italian films, I liked very much Youth by Paolo Sorrentino. I liked all the Italian films.
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| Marina Abramovic in conversation after Le Conversazioni Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
AKT: Any of the French films?
AM: The Audiard film that won the Palme d'Or is beautiful. Dheepan is the title. The Turkish film that won last year, Winter Sleep, I loved that. The Russian film Leviathan was also marvelous.
AKT: Do you know what Wes Anderson is up to?
AM: Oh, I loved Grand Budapest Hotel. I think he is preparing an animation. I know that he is working on that.
AKT: In the last Le Conversazioni, Joyce Carol Oates said that the first film she saw was Fantasia and you mentioned it was yours, too?
AM: Yeah, Fantasia. It's true. My father and my mother brought me to see Fantasia in a cinema designed for little kids in Villa Borghese. It's still there. It's called Il Cinema dei Piccoli. It's a place where only kids go.
AKT: And that started it all. When you ask your conversation partners about their first movies, is it often Disney?
AM: It's not rare.
AKT: I asked Gay, whose first film was Meet Me In St. Louis, which films he chose when he was in your program. He couldn't remember. Do you?
AM: I'm sure that he talked about La Dolce Vita. Another one was A Place In The Sun. And Godfather.
AKT: Were there any great surprises over the years? When you thought it unbelievable that this person loves that film?
AM: Yes. Jonathan Franzen picked Body Heat. That was very surprising. I think Marina Abramovic hated Gone With The Wind. She said it's the worst film. I love that. And Zadie Smith loved it [Gone With The Wind].
AKT: I got an e-mail from Dominik Graf [Beloved Sisters] in response to the last feature on Le Conversationi that I did and he wrote something like - who would have thought of the combination [Krzysztof] Zanussi and Sondheim?
AM: Oh did he? The next Le Conversazioni will have Jhumpa Lahiri and David Remnick [on December 3]. I already know what they picked.
Festa del Cinema will run from October 16 to October 24, 2015.
Open Roads: New Italian Cinema runs until June 11 at the Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center.
Open Roads: New Italian Cinema was programmed by Isa Cucinotta and Dennis Lim, Film Society of Lincoln Center, with Istituto Luce Cinecittà in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of New York and support from Antonio Monda; Kim R. Brizzolara; The Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation; Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò and the Italian Trade Commission.
