Fun and grief are not suitable bedmates, but in Director Giulio Mastromauro’s Timo’s Winter (Inverno) , the backdrop of a funfair is part of a young boy’s own catharsis as he faces up to one of the most challenging times in his life.
Film And TV Now spoke with the director about his work.
FILM AND TV NOW: The film is far more reliant on visual suggestion than some shorts. Tell us about the overall visual design of the film.
GIULIO MASTROMAURO: The short film takes place in a real place, a few kilometers from Rome. It’s the amusement park where a long-established circus family lives.
When my general manager Corso Codecasa took me there the first time, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was exactly the place I had imagined! With Sandro Chessa (Dop), Marta Morandini (Art Director), and Maya Gili (Costume designer) we tried to respect and at the same time enhance that place from a cinematographic point of view, always seeking the truth and capturing the atmosphere and soul of the place.
FTVN: There is a dedication to your ‘young mother’ at the end of the film. Tell us more about her.
GM: Time heals wounds, they say. But I think that the loss of a mother is a wound from which there is no recovery. That laceration is the “winter” of the title. When I shot Timo’s Winter I had just turned 36.
When my mother died she was 35. I was past her age and this is the reason for my final dedication to a mother “who will be young forever”. Her name was Nicla and she was a beautiful and very strong woman. I keep the rest in my heart.
FTVN: Tell us about your cast.
GM: In these recent months, many have asked me where I had found this funfair working family. I consider this a great compliment since it is not a real family! I am delighted with my cast and the opportunity I had to work with actors that I had admired for a long time and who have fully understood the “feeling” of my film and the need I had to tell this story.
Babak Karimi – Timo’s grandfather – starred in several films by two-time Oscar winner Asgar Farhadi.
Elisabetta De Vito – Timo’s grandmother – is the magnificent actress of an Italian film that I love very much, “Don’t be bad” by Claudio Caligari.
Giulio Beranek – Timo’s father – is an artistic brother for me as well as one of the “fathers” of this project itself. I hope to be able to work with him again. But the little protagonist Christian Petaroscia arrived after a very long search.
It was a real luck to have found Christian, a gift from the Universe. Even after watching my film so many times now, I still find myself getting touched because I see a lot of me in him and through him I live my story again.
FTVN: Tell us about your production team.
GM: I have been lucky to work with fantastic and sensitive artists. The story of the film brought us together and made us a real family. With many of them we were already friends, with all the others we have become friends.
I cannot mention someone in particular. All have been fundamental on an artistic and human level. I must say that the success of the film is absolutely the result of a great team effort.
FTVN: The film takes place against the backdrop of a funfair. Tell us about the location you used and was the family based on anybody in particular?
GM: I was looking for a real place, made up of real people: a place able to take me back to my childhood.
I found it in the world of funfair and circus workers, so deep and rich in humanity. A world that I got to know thanks to my brotherly friend Giulio Beranek (the actor interpreting Timo’s father), who is himself a son of funfair workers.
When he welcomed me into his family I had the chance to live once again the family warmth I had known as a child and the emotions coming from my memories. I knew since the beginning that that was the right place to set my story.
In fact I then found the same intimacy and warmth in the park where we shot Timo’s Winter, thanks to the circus families Kost and Curatola who welcomed us into their home made of funfair and caravans.
FTVN: Where did you shoot and for how long?
GM: I shot near Rome, in particular in Aprilia and Ostia, for 5 days. But the preparation work lasted about 2 months and was meticulous and passionate. As well as the post-production work, which lasted about 3 months.
FTVN: How did you raise finance for the short?
GM: The film didn’t receive the public funds we had been hoping for, therefore we found ourselves at a crossroads: either to leave the project “in a drawer” or make it happen at all costs. We chose the second path because the urgency I had to shoot this story was great and it was deeply understood by the producers.
I have been very lucky and I must also be grateful to my stubbornness as well as to my producers Zen Movie, Indaco Film, Wave Cinema and Diero Film, which are among the best short film production companies in Italy.
FTVN: What were your cinematic influences when making this film?
GM: I love Art that knows how to be sincere and authentic Cinema that knows how to speak to the audience. But my greatest source of inspiration is my own childhood: all my stories come from my memories.
There are many directors that I admire for their unique style, such as Iñarritu, Kieślowski, Garrone, Fellini and Leone. But I’d like to have my own personal style. I would like that one day even just one scene from my films can be enough to make people say: “this is a film by Mastromauro”.
FTVN: You were selected to study at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome after graduating in law. What was the deciding factor in switching from one career to another and what was your experience as a student there?
GM: I was dreaming to make films since I was a child, as it immediately seemed to me the most exciting means to tell my stories. I was born and raised in Molfetta, a small town in Puglia, and a boy who grows up with the ambition to be a film-maker is considered a bit like a “system anomaly”.
The law degree was a choice imposed by my father, however by nature I don’t like to leave things unfinished so I completed my studies and graduated with almost full marks. My future law career seemed marked but inside myself I was screaming! I was 25 and I gave myself a gift: I applied for admission to the CSC.
I managed to be among the 15 admitted to the preparatory course. This opportunity was very important to make this transition from what I “had” to be and what “I wanted to be”. I only attended the School for two months because I was not admitted to the full 3-year course which only admitted 8 people.
Someone else in my place might have given up after that, but I decided to stay in Rome and start studying cinema as a self-taught while doing other jobs to earn a living. As I said, I don’t like to leave things unfinished.
FTVN: Tell us about the production company Zen Movie, which you formed with Virginia Gherardini.
GM: Virginia is my partner in life and work. She is a strong and sensitive woman. Between us there is a great complicity in work and a bond that goes beyond words.
It was she who encouraged me to shoot Timo’s Winter when it seemed impossible to build finances to produce it. With Zen Movie we work together to promote short films able to tell precious and universal stories.
FTVN: What issues and themes are you keen to explore in your future work?
GM: I often ask myself about the meaning of life and things. About why we are born, about why we die. I don’t know where these questions will lead me, hopefully towards films that can travel around the world and “speak” one universal language.
FTVN: How is the Italian Film Industry and your network coping at the moment in the current climate?
GM: Many colleagues have interrupted the shooting of their films, postponed the theatre release of their films to an unconfirmed date, or experienced to have their films presented on digital platforms from home rather than premiere in front of real audiences in real places.
We cannot deny it, the world is facing a very big challenge. But of course everybody in the industry is striving to go on and keep telling stories.
FTVN: How has COVID-19 affected your development and evolution as a film-maker?
GM: I do not exclude that in the coming months and years it may flow into the stories we will tell. Personally in this moment I want to tell something else.
FTVN: Finally, what are you most proud of about the short?
GM: It was a summer evening and, after a public screening of Timo’s Winter at a festival, a girl approached me and with shining eyes told me: “I wanted to say thank you. Also my mother will be young forever ”.
Then we hugged.
It has happened many times this year, to be able to share my story with people who had lived an experience similar to mine. This is a little magic that makes me proud of Timo’s Winter.
