Matteo Garrone is the director of Gomorrah, a new film based on the best selling book by Roberto Saviano.
It explores the world of the Comorrah, the mafia-like organisation based around the city of Naples in Southern Italy.
The film follows five stories that are based on real life accounts:
- A young boy named Toto (Salvatore Abruzzese) who is slowly sucked into the world of drug dealers near his housing estate
- An elderly accountant named Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) who acts as a courier for the relatives of imprisoned gang members
- A tailor named Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo) who endangers himself by trying to work for new company that isn’t controlled by organised crime
- A university graduate named Roberto (Carmine Paternoster) who starts working for a toxic waste company that has ties to criminal gangs
- Two unruly young men called Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone) who fantasise about being mobsters when they uncover a stash of weapons.
I recently spoke to Matteo in London where we discussed various aspects of the film, including: his initial reaction to the book; how he approached casting the various roles; the issues the film raises about contemporary Italy; the reaction at the Cannes film festival back in May and the music in the film by Massive Attack.
N.B. Although Matteo conducted the interview in English, we had an interpreter handy for those trickier phrases and words.
You can listen to the interview here:
[audio:http://filmdetail.receptionmedia.com/Matteo_Garrone_on_Gomorrah.mp3]You can also download it as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here.
Gomorrah is out at UK cinemas from this Friday
> Download this interview as an MP3 file
> Matteo Garrone at the IMDb
> Official UK website for Gomorrah
> GreenCine Daily with links to the various reactions to the film at Cannes
> Find out more about the Comorrah at Wikipedia
> Guardian feature on the film by Clare Longrigg
> Buy Roberto Saviano’s book at Amazon UK