Marco Perego Saldaña: from visual art and independent cinema to challenges for AI

Would you describe the independent film industry as sustainable? 

The sustainability of independent films is a major issue. Culture at the moment tends, particularly in the context of cinema, to be more focused on entertainment and less on auteur cinema, whilst culture, film and art reflect the society in which we live.

There’s no doubt that, culturally speaking, we’ve been going through very difficult times in recent years. I believe that cinema and art have a tremendous potential to reach thousands of people on a grassroots level, without coming across as patronising. One of the films that has moved me the most recently was the Iranian film The Seed of the Sacred Figby Mohammad Rasoulof, which was in competition at Cannes alongside Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard, for which my wife won the Oscar for Best Actress. This film has finally convinced me to support and protect my community of true artists. I think directors such as Alejandro Iñárritu, Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón set an example that networking makes the individual better.

 How did you come into contact with Martin Scorsese, who was the executive producer of your film Absence of Eden?

Through his manager, Rick Yorn, who is also my manager and my wife’s, and is a very dear friend of the family. The screenplay, now part of the Academy Museum’s permanent collection, is a poem about illegal immigration. The script grew out of a project I’d worked on in 2015, based on the tragic news story in which 714 children died whilst trying to travel from Syria to Italia. For about a year, I collected 714 pairs of shoes and filled them with concrete. So, I decided to use another form of expression – that of cinema – to convey this tragedy. My parents ran a café when I was very young, and at the back there was a shop selling VHS tapes. As a solitary, very thoughtful child, I used to rent them, and cinema helped me enormously to fill the void of my loneliness and to strengthen my artistic inspiration. So the transition from cinema to art was almost natural.

When I first started thinking about making a film, I prepared myself by watching one film a day, from Monday to Friday, without fail. Yesterday, for example, I watched Rocco and His Brothers by Luchino Visconti.

Martin Scorsese watched my film Absence of Eden with editor Thelma Schoonmaker, gave me lots of advice and became its executive producer. Scorsese is a great role model because he helps so many filmmakers.

During a talk at the Locarno Film Festival, you spoke about artificial intelligence. You said you weren’t afraid of it, but that you would use it, that you would regard it as a tool...

I use it, and I also used it for an installation I created at the Pompidou-Metz Museum and the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in Los Angeles. It’s called The Being. The installation is a multimedia network comprising screens, audio systems, scent diffusers and films that interact with the presence of visitors. An AI system, connected to the solar system, changes in tandem with it; it records the visitor’s breathing and adapts accordingly. Here, I used AI as a tool.

But right now, when everyone’s talking about AI, I’m making highly personal films. I’m always a bit of a maverick – if everyone’s heading in one direction, I go the other way.

 Also during this lecture, she said that producers should try to put their egos aside...

This is the toughest challenge. Independent cinema needs a great deal of support, and I try to provide it in every way possible – not least because I am a director myself. So I know how to handle every aspect of production and filmmaking. Even if the film isn’t a success, it doesn’t matter; I am the filmmakers’ champion.

 Lately, films have been coming out that are far too long – in the sense that if they were half an hour shorter, they’d be masterpieces. Do you think producers have a role to play in ensuring films are the right length?

I don’t agree with him on this, because form follows function, that is, form serves the purpose. When the director sets up the camera, he knows what he wants to achieve. If he wants to make a four-hour film and that is his idea, his vision, you have to support him. He is taking a leap of faith, and the producer must do the same. Even if he wants to do it in a single long take, he will have his reasons.

As a director and producer, you work on two fronts: the Italian and the international. Do you see a difference between them?

No, I’m Italian and very proud of it, but I’m truly grateful to America for giving me so much. I’m still 100 per cent Italian – you only have to hear my accent when I speak English. I’ve been in the US for twenty years and my three children can’t understand me when I speak Italian.

But I try not to generalise. I think travelling around Italia is just as lovely as travelling around the United States.

 So you don’t see a distinction between the two worlds?

I simply believe that every single experience is unique, and I think that each of us is truly unique; I truly, deeply believe that the authenticity of coming here to shoot a film in Italia creates a different feeling, depending on the story you want to tell. The same applies to the United States: the story I want to tell, set in the United States, would be very special in a different way.

Can you tell us about the project you’re currently filming in Italia?

I wrote a film with this brilliant writer called Alex Dinelaris, who also wrote the screenplays for Digger and Birdman , both directed by Iñárritu.

It weaves together the stories of my mum and her mum. In 2004, my mum lost her voice for about three years; she suffered from aphasia, which is a language-related stroke caused by emotional issues. The film is a portrait of this woman who travels to America to visit her son and loses her voice. She is played by Valeria Golino; it was an honour to work with her. The other actors are Isabella Rossellini and Tommaso Ragno, and it was shot by Janusz Kaminski, that brilliant director of photography behind most of Steven Spielberg’s films.

In *Absence of Eden*, you worked with your wife, Zoe Saldaña. What was it like working with her? 

I’m learning a great deal from her and I feel happy and grateful to be doing so alongside her. Zoe is one of the finest actresses of our generation. With her, I’m like a sponge: without saying much, Zoe teaches me everything, and what she has conveyed to me most of all is vulnerability. She is capable of being very vulnerable, and vulnerability is an incredible quality that society sometimes tends to regard as a flaw. This film is about people – about persecuted immigrants.

How did the idea come about?

From the sculpture The Being, which I mentioned earlier. I wanted to continue the dialogue on immigration, moving from visual art to cinema, because I am an immigrant, and my wife is Latina – a second-generation immigrant. Zoe and I have three children who have dark skin... My wife and I spent three years on the border with Mexico working with various charities. My idea, in fact, was to create a poem about illegal immigration.

What advice would you give to young artists, directors and producers?

Not to listen to anyone.

How do you do that?

I try to listen to everyone.