Simone Valentini speaks of a lucky year when we meet him on the occasion of the premiere of Per po’, his debut film, in competition in the Feature film competition section of the RIFF Awards 2025. In addition to the feature film, this year Valentini directed Back to Life, the documentary about Giovanni Allevi, premiered at the Film Festival in Rome. With him we talk about the film that is taken from the novel by singer-songwriter Niccolò Agliardi, inspired by events really happened, and that tells the relationship between father and son, entrusting for a limited period of time.
The film is taken from a book. How did you get there and when actually the project was born to make us a movie?
I met Niccolò Agliardi because, between 2015 and 2016, I made a kind of help-direction for a television program conducted by Niccolò. At that time, he was starting the path to become a foster father. Knowing us, he told me his story. One day, he told me he wrote a book from this experience and made me read it, although a few chapters were still missing. I gave him a hand with the cover and he told me that, in case a movie was made, he would have wanted me to direct. Then speaking to Giovanni D’Amico about the possibility of making a film that was in my strings, we thought about Niccolò’s novel.
About your relationship with Niccolò: what kind of sensitivity have you sought and what was your approach in transcripting the text in images?
Initially I asked two friends screenwriters, Francesca Maria Scanu and Andrea Zuliani, to help me. Having a relationship of friendship with Niccolò, I wanted to avoid being influenced and not be able to have that schiettezza in telling him what worked or not at the cinematographic level. The novel then contains many reflections and real flows of consciousness. We then went to extract what was the heart of the book by choosing to give the story a form as much as possible centered on actors, avoiding overstructures at stage level. We took the core of every dynamic of the book. It was a job to subtract, eliminating any royal virtuosity to leave room for words and actors. Words and silences. We compared a lot and had to cut a lot of scenes. The first draft was twice as much as the final script, but between dramatic rules and productive needs, we managed to reduce it.
What were the most difficult cuts? What is the heart of the story?
The most difficult cuts were those concerning secondary characters. In the novel there are many figures (Niccolò’s mother, his friends and others) who played a role in his life, but that the script could not contain except in a few lines. The work was to keep only the characters essential to the story and to center the story on the two protagonists, leaving in the background. We went to prun everything that could be too rich for such a simple story, but at the same time complex and rich in nuances.
Is it for this will to give space to the characters that the film is divided into three chapters (Nicc, Faith, Nicc and Faith)?
Exactly. In the book, the part where Faith escapes and returns from her mother was told by Niccolò. Instead, we wanted to follow the character of Faith in its growth and self-discovery. We wondered who composed this story and the answer emerged was: Niccolò, Federico and then both. That’s how we’ve even split up visually.
Looking at this structure, one wonders who the real protagonist of the film is. If in the novel is clearly Niccolò, here, both in film minutage and in evolution, the answer is less evident.
We debated a lot about this with the screenwriters. Personally, I found my answer while we were filming the film, observing the way we worked with the characters. Since both, in the film, have a strong need to grow, the protagonist goes from one side to another. Initially it is Niccolò, who really grows when he no longer has faith. And right at that moment passes the ball to Federico, who still has to mature. And to do so, Federico does not need Niccolò, but to leave his mother. It is as if they were two parallel stories that never really touch each other until the end, so it is true that the film presents a first hug at the beginning of history that does not work, and a functional only in the epilogue.
The protagonist is the need to grow.
That’s right. I add that I have always dealt with this issue also in my short films, as well as the theme of influence and function that parents have towards children. It is something that is often neglected and delegated to other realities. If it is true that the first community in which you grow is the family, parents are the first examples we have. So yes, growth but also the relationship between fathers and children are the two main themes of the film.
These themes are widespread in different types of cinema. What’d you say about his story? What is inspired to convey the delicacy and anger that is perceived in the relationship between the two characters?
At the film level, my general references are Sean Baker, Larry Clark and Harmony Korine. I think their cinema has grasped perfectly the fact that boys do not grow on their own, but they need a community. About For a while, we initially searched for visual references, but then found a guide in Nicolai Lilin’s Outlaw Favole, which I asked to read to the other screenwriters. I think Lilin had a great influence on the family, as I mean it. Moving on to a cinematic plan, the main reference was Manchester by the Sea, so it is true that there is a scene on the ferry that mentions it openly.
By the way, the ferry scene is also in Johnny’s videoclip, Niccolò Agliardi’s song about his son and with whom the titles run.
I think it was just random. I hadn’t thought about it before. I know the video, but I never connected the two things. I think Niccolò didn’t even think about it. That’s a good coincidence.
The film consists of more snapshots and photographs than frames. In the opening there are scenes that recall the photographic language in function of memories (vertical videos, the sequence in motion blur); Moreover, the photographs are also present as scene objects with narrative function. In the first sequence the mdp induces on the photos on the bedside table, while in a moment of joy the protagonists frame their instant. Also at the registic level it insists on the faces, with first and first floors, rarely yielding to large fields, almost to want to compose a photo album of memories through the film.
You hit one of the movie points. I was interested in immortalizing memories. The theme of photography is central. The character of Niccolò decides to replace a photograph in the house when he feels he has become a father: he replaces a photo with De Gregori, his artistic father, with one in the company of his son. There is another photograph taken at the birthday of Faith, where he is the boy to grow, not in a figurative sense like Niccolò, but anagraphic. In the mother’s house, there are no photographs. The mother is a character who tends not to want to have memories of a travailed and bureaucratic past. The videos and photos are present for Niccolò also in function of memory of the lost companion. The report’s morbid, he can’t let her go. I am very fascinated by the idea that we are the first generation to confront so many visual memories of people who will fail.
Reflecting on the mother of faith, she seems to escape from the picture, as she does not want to be part of photography and therefore memories.
Yes. We have discussed a lot about how to represent the character of Afra (the mother of Federico), which is very thick is in countermovement compared to the camera. It is something that with Jacopo Maria Caramella (DoP) we have looked for a lot.
Both for Afra and Niccolò’s father, with whom it is perceived that the character has closed the relationship, the film does not deepen and therefore avoids condemning. Why?
Yes. The answer is in what Faith learns. The boy arrives at a time when he understands that he has to take his life in his hand and, by doing so, he understands that there are no faults for the life he finds himself living. You can be responsible for life that we choose to live, but not the one we found in. Afra cannot be guilty of being Afra. He may be responsible for not being the mother of faith, but he cannot be guilty of existence. For this reason, the film also decides not to judge.
So the first scene comes back, in which, in the only childhood memory that you see of Faith, Afra is out of the field and is screaming. We can’t know if the child’s escape is his fault or responsibility.
That scene was special. With Jacopo (DoP) we wanted to create a set of sounds and colors but not a precise image. When the memory becomes a flashback, it becomes part of the story, and we wanted to avoid it. So we questioned how to give only one memory to Faith that could not become part of the narrative for the viewer. We found this solution, which is opposed to the memories of Niccolò, which are instead very sharp videos of the companion. Faith in time has become rare.
L’articolo RIFF 2025 – Interview with Simone Valentini proviene da SentieriSelvaggi.
