Interview with Domiziano Cristopharo, a prolific Italian director and performer who stands out for his way of making films. In fact, his films, besides being pockmarked by a soft retro touch, are the cradle of everything that afflicts and torments man. Diversity, marginalization, real horror, pain, are burning themes to which he combines the visual beauty of images with a hint of surrealism and theatricality.
In addition to director, actor and theater lover, Domiziano Cristopharo is also a great tattoo artist and Full Body piercer.
But now let us delve into the always aesthetically well-curated cinematogaphic world of this great multifaceted artist, one of the most productive figures in Italian cinema, who makes refinement of style and shock sequences his strong points.
A: Who is Domitian Delvaux Cristopharo?
B: A character who makes movies -- looking a bit haughty, snobbish, theatrical and shy. A character who protects the real person who, after the movie is over, goes back to his life and routine.
A: How did your love for theater come about?
B: It comes chronologically after the cinema one, by chance... since I was a child I dreamed of making movies, but I started working professionally first in the theater as a makeup artist, set and costume designer and the emotions that the theater gives you compared to a set are incomparable. Filmmaking as a profession came later (as an effects and costume designer), and from the gavetta then came my first directing experience when Domiziano Arcangeli decided to entrust me specifically with directing my script HOUSE OF FLESH MANNEQUINS.
A: What was your path that led you to see the world from behind a lens?
B: Ever since I was 12 years old I used my father's super 8 camera. I used to shoot mini films (unwatchable) that I would then edit ... with a small moviola. Even at that time I had developed that craft sense that led me to do everything.
A: House of Flesh Mannequins (2008) is the film that marks your debut as a director. The film was awarded and presented at several festivals, also winning the Independent Spirit Award at the prestigious NIGHT OF HORRORS in Sydney. How did this experience mark you?
B: For better or worse, it marked me--and made my debut with a "bang." Over the years we can say that FLESH MANNEQUINS became a small cult that anticipated many themes seen later in later films (the explicit link between sex, blood, death, video). Here in Italy it also brought a lot of legal problems with that "case"/cialtronata of the Sciò/D'ammicco scandal that then created a bad name for me in the environment even in people who could never evaluate and judge me in person.
A: There is talk of an uncensored version of House of Flesh Mannequins entitled Flesh Mannequins: Totally Uncut. When will it come out?
B: It's slated for release, I can't tell you when -- maybe before the summer. Meanwhile, the first Blu-ray of the film in the director's cut version has been released in Germany.
A: The Museum of Wonders, winner of the Fantafestival in 2010, special mention of the popular jury at SIFF and the 2010 Anoci for directing and Maria Rosaria Omaggio, blends many of your passions among which cinema and theater stand out the most, but paying a little more attention I think that in this work there is your whole world, your soul. Tattoos, Body Modification and the beauty of the human body understood as an art form for example, are elements that certainly do not go unnoticed. Do you also live cinema as a means of expressing yourself and transposing dreams and passions into it?
B: Actually I make films ONLY to express things I feel and believe in. Initially FLESH MANNEQUINS was also supposed to be just a porn/horror film... then Alessandro Giordani (director, editor and musician) made me think about the importance of GIVING something to the audience... and the responsibility we have when we put ourselves out there doing something. We can ENTERTAIN or we can also REFLECT and leave a message...the choice is ours. I believe that there is far too much entertainment...and so I began to convey my messages in films as well.
A: What is the meaning behind the title The Museum of Wonders?
B: As you may have seen, it is a kind of stable circus of modern FREAKS. The Museum of Wonders is one of the appellations given to freakshows and sideshows. Even in our language, "monster" exactly means "wonder." The museum of monsters, the museum of wonders...monsters are wonders precisely because they are rarities...and diversity is culture. Few notice that the Museum of Wonders is already present in HOUSE OF FLESH MANNEQUINS.
It is precisely the place where Sebastian goes in Act II--and in fact we also find the same characters again. In Museum of Wonders we stay in that world--where a dwarf with a French accent philosophizes about the value of diversity.
A: Also in your second feature film you notice religious components related to the stigmata or Our Lady/Santa Muerte. What is your relationship to religion?
B: I think it's one of the worst evils -- the opium of the people after all, that's not my phrase. As one of the characters in FLESH MANNEQUINS says "once upon a time, the church was the greatest medium of mass disinformation, today its place has been taken by television." It says everything about my view of religion, TV, society and politics. My films are very political ... some call me surrealist, some call me horror ... but I am purely PUNK in the most deeply rooted sense of the term: uniting all members of the punk movement under one cause is the rejection for any form of control, including social control exercised by mass media and religious organizations.
A: P.O.E. Poetry Of Eerie of 2011 and P.O.E. Project of Evil (P.O.E. 2) of 2012 are two episodic films inspired by Poe's stories. These two projects of yours in which you also participated by directing the episodes Maelzel's Chess-Automaton and The System of Dr. Tarr & Prof. , involved several directors. How did this idea come about and what do you love about this writer who is considered the God of the Gothic genre? Why did you choose to devote yourself to his works?
B: Well, obviously he's an author I love very much -- like Lovecraft. Not my favorite though...I love Hoffmann and Maupassant more. The P.O.E. project was born out of a challenge Giovanni Pianigiani and I issued to the INDIE circuit always intent on complaining about not finding common ground. We said to each other, "We all have a camera and ideas ... let's make little shorts and make a film out of them." Someone raised the objection that there would be too much stylistic difference between one and the other--and that having a good idea in a tight time frame is not easy. So we decided to have more than solid scripts by each taking a cue from a POE story to be re-read in our own way.
A: Everyday horror, the silent and claustrophobic horror of those living in complete solitude, can be found in your Red Krokodil, a shock film focusing on the dangerous and devastating drug that gives its name to the title of this feature film of yours. Why this particular theme?
B: Because a drug like that, whose development I have been following for many years, was the perfect metaphor for telling in a novel way, an inner disintegration through an explicit self-induced physical disintegration.
A: The religious component is also evident in Red Krokodil. The suffering that strikingly devastates the protagonist (Brock Madson) portrays him as a martyr. In fact, the mattress on which he abandons himself becomes a kind of symbolic cross on which he lies like Mantegna's "Dead Christ." Why the choice of this Renaissance work to represent human decline caused by drugs?
B: Because prospectively, among the few vantage points the small set offered me, it was the best solution. Then even though few will notice connections there, the work is still strongly inspired by Pasolini.
A: Starting January 23, Red Krokodil will enjoy theatrical distribution through Independent Distribution. How do you experience this moment before your work lands in theaters?
B: Of course I am happy, only an independent distribution like DINDI could really care about independent cinema. Unlike so many others who just promise and then disappear. For many people, defending the independent cause is just nice talk that showcases ... but Italy needs FACTS. I am still surprised that my least commercial and marketable work was chosen for the theaters.
A: Bloody Sin is a film loaded with themes and ideas and is inspired by the Italian magazine Oltretomba. Your work is a kind of fusion of genres such as 1960s Italian cinema and 1970s Italian cinema to which you give your evident personal stamp. Given the large number of themes covered, how long was the gestation of this film? Why the choice to stuff this work of yours with different perversions that deviate so much from the common thread?
B: Well, those familiar with the OLTRETOMBA comic strip will certainly not be surprised to find meaning in all these perversions threaded in a shanty way into a slender thread. We had the support of the heirs of the two creators of the comic, including Daniel Baldock, Stanley's son also masterfully plays Mr. Lenzi. So the consistency of the work is not in question. The film was shot in 3 weeks and prepared in 6 months.
A: Also in Bloody Sin, the main character Terence Fisher (Dallas Walker) douses his face with red glitter that simulates blood. What is the origin of this idea?
B: I wanted nothing in the film to be taken seriously, for me BLOODY SIN is an erotic/yellow comedy not a horror film. Also, nothing we see in the film is as it seems... so the fact of turning blood into GLITTER (or vice versa) should give everyone the right key.
A: SHOCK: My Abstraction of Death is a film divided into 2 episodes that focuses on madness. Your Chromophobia is joined by the episode Between Us by Alessandro Redaelli. How did the collaboration with this director come about?
B: Alexander I've been following him since he was a minor -- in fact I should say he's the one following me. He was an editor of some horror webzines and a big fan of FLESH MANNEQUINS. I have seen some of his shorts and I must say that his maturity and stylistic elegance far surpass many works by professionals my age. Alexander once came of age, edited my POE 2 episode for me, then Red Krokodil...and then co-directed SHOCK.
A: You are the director of A Serpent with a Steel Tongue, the second of three Phantasmagoria episodes that will see the light of day in 2014. It is well known that the collective film is a ghost movie, but can you reveal something in advance about the work by dwelling more on your episode?
B: Well I can say that PHANTASMAGORIA is an exquisitely vintage operation, and with a very very French flavor... it was in fact the brainchild of Mickael Abbate former director of FANTASTIQUE SAMAIN DU CINEMA... a festival that has always supported Italian cinema and mine. It was almost normal for Mike to involve me in his project...which boasts illustrious collaborations whose names I cannot name at the moment. My episode is set in a haunted HOTEL on the night of HALLOWEEN, a night that is the common thread of the film for all 3 episodes. As the title suggests, my episode is terribly 1970s.
A: You are a prolific and broad-minded filmmaker because your cinema embraces any genre and theme as well as any art form. Doll Syndrome in fact is the title of the extreme film about perversions that you have just finished shooting. The film represents Hell and is part of an incomplete trilogy that began with Red Krokodil, which instead depicts Purgatory. Why the choice of that title that leads back to a certain syndrome?
B: MOEBIUS syndrome also called DOLL SYNDROME leads to total facial expressionlessness. It is used more generically to refer in a "vulgar" way to all symptoms of dumbfounding (including teenagers too much in front of PCs and video games) and in my film it plays precisely in describing both the expressionless fixity of the protagonist who is almost an emotionless automaton, and his passion for a sex doll that goes to replace the physical relationship with his "ideal" woman.
A: The Night-Gaunts is a film composed of two episodes (TWO LEFT ARMS is the title of your episode) inspired by the dreams of H.P. Lovecraft to which Italian legends related to the cult of the goddess Sicinna have been added. The film, a collaboration between Italy and the US, is in post production, can you give us some news about this project?
B: We are having a long and difficult process thanks to the ambition of the whole thing... but also a lot of satisfaction. My episode is currently in post-production and boasts an exceptional cast: a magnificent Yvonne Sciò (The Hiding Place), Paolo Stella (The Third Mother) and the legendary Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust), Carlo de Mejo (Fear in the City of the Living Dead) and Frank Laloggia (Scarlatti). The screenplay is by my trusted collaborator Andrea Cavaletto.
A: While the horror genre suffers from a lack of attention from large distributors, it is also true that audiences continue to take little interest in this type of film. Meanwhile, however, among most people the myth of Dario Argento continues to live on both through film tributes and books, etc... Why do you think so? What do you think of Argento? What about his films?
B: As you said he is a myth and myths in Italy you don't touch. You don't touch Mina, you don't touch soccer... you don't touch Darione. As a filmmaker and as a horror fan I would be dishonest if I could not note what a miserable time the stylistic figure of the director of DEEP RED, SUSPIRIA, INFERNO, 4 MOSQUES OF GREY VELVET pours into. Works like Dracula3D, Giallo, The Third Mother... are really unclassifiable not only compared to his old masterpieces... but just as films in themselves. It is not presumptuousness to be able to observe that something is wrong--and it is wrong with ministry contributions. If my films suck, it's my money in the meantime.
To continue to blindly defend the master is a sometimes presumptuous and sometimes not honest stance. I well remember footage on youtube of people filming laughter in the theater during the screening of The Third Mother in Rome, and then upon the film's release the same people were congratulating the master on his CAPOLAVORO. It is not by extolling anything that is made in Italy (have you noticed that every horror film that is made is either the rebirth of horror or it is pure crap? The middle ground never exists here and it is suspect) by passing it off as box office champion and film of the decade that things get better. We only lose credibility instead in the international market.
A: Many people consider you to be a horror director, but you say you are not. What is the real horror that you project or would like to project into the eyes of viewers? In this life what does hell represent for you?
B: Well let's face it I'm not a horror director--every genre has canons. Comedy has styles and times -- so does mystery or drama.
Horror requires a filmic language of twists, suspense--things that I don't use. I sometimes even anticipate what is going to happen or show it without any introduction. I don't use haunting music in fact far from it. I simply narrate dramatic events...frightening perhaps because it is the reality I narrate that is so...there are no textbook psychopaths in my films, creatively murdered deaths...sometimes in my films no one or only one person dies (see Museum, Red Krokodil, Lovecraft, Doll Syndrome) so I don't think I technically fall under horror. I make strong-toned dramas. It surprises me sometimes in certain BLOGs or reviews to read "EH, BUT FLESH MANNEQUINS DOESN'T FEAR DOESN'T SPARE..." and why should it I add?
A: When did you get into the world of tattooing and what does it represent to you?
B: When I was 18, I met the tattoo world. Now I'm 40. It represents what shopping and having a lot of shoes represents to many people, or changing cell phones every 2 months... or working out and getting physical... a way of representing yourself, being, playing with yourself and manifesting yourself.
A: What other art form would you like to express yourself with that you have never dealt with?
B: None! Fortunately, I only devote myself to things I know how to do and feel like doing. And according to some even now I am not doing things I know how to do! AHAHA
A: An opinion on this interview?
B: It allowed me to deepen a lot of my views on things that we normally take for granted.
A: Leave a message to the DarkVeins community!
B: Support independent cinema...don't download movies...buy them on DVD. Pay for official HD streams instead of watching compressed crap on Cineblog. Go to theaters if a work comes out...or festivals...if you like an author contact them and write to them...don't make us feel alone. We don't make money making films...it's not sunshine and roses...we struggle every day to provide an alternative to what the industry dictates. We invest our time, money and energy...and sometimes we wonder WHY WE DO IT if then when the little miracles happen...we see no support and incentive to continue? Downloading THOR is one thing, downloading a small film is a major detriment. Not going to the theaters if it comes out is a serious harm because you educate theater managers and distributors to continue to focus on blockbusters. If you really love independent cinema and would like to see more of it out there...don't think it's all on us making films...without the support of the audience we don't exist.
B: Thank you Domitian!
