(GretaandSofiaalso get it.)
Vogue:How does one come up with a film like this?
Ive collected these stories over a long period.
Photo: Courtesy of Neon
But Ive always been passionate about archeology.
I was a classics major at university, and Ive always had a fascination with archeologists work.
They succeed in recomposing a story, piecing it together from tiny abandoned pieces they find.
Photo: Courtesy of Neon
You worked with three kinds of film formats: 35mm, Super 16mm, and 16mm.
What was the idea behind bringing these textures together?
This human presence was very important.
Photo: Courtesy of Neon
Young people dont have many opportunities to see all these formats, as some have gone by the wayside.
How did you come to cast Josh OConnor as your protagonist?
You rewrote the role for him.
But Josh reached out to me.
He wrote a letterhe says he actually wrote many before that onethat I finally received at my parents house.
He asked to meet because he had really liked [Rohrwachers 2018 film]Happy as Lazzaro.
He had a sensitivity and generosity but also a melancholy of an older person.
How did Isabella Rossellini come on board?
Making a movie means spending a lot of time with people we respect.
Im a huge fan of hers and had been hoping to work with her one day.
I find her an incredible woman.
She is not interested in just her own part.
Its like she marries projectsshe really takes them on 100%.
Were there any films that you were particularly influenced by?
When one works on a story connected to memory, there are clearly some influences.
But I rather call them associations, images calling other images.
That immediately reminded me of FellinismovieRoma.
Fellini possibly had friends who were tombaroli.
The film is set in the 1980s, but the costumes arent archetypal 80s.
What did you have in mind with the costumes and the rumpled white suit Arthur arrives in?
I live in the countryside, and today nobody is dressed in a way that screams 2024.
Most people wear things that are 10 or 15 years old or mix and match all kinds of things.
Americans tend to have a very romanticized idea of the Italian landscape from movies and TV.
Here, we see smoking factories, dilapidated mansions, and damp forests.
Why did you choose to portray the landscape this way?
The landscape is another protagonist of my filmI am deeply connected to and inspired by it.
I wanted to give this tragic sense of a lost beauty.
The tombaroli are just the creation of a materialistic, patriarchal society.
La Chimerais in theaters now.
