Carlo Lavagna and Roberto De Paolis

As old friends with a shared artistic sensibility, Italian filmmakers Carlo Lavagna and Roberto De Paolis were destined to join forces. “I think we have the same kind of childish humor, which makes us understand each other right away when we work,” says the Rome-based Lavagna, whose documentaries, films and videos have brought him into the orbit of a starry cast of international characters, including Michael Haneke, Lars von Trier and Chuck Close. Currently, he is working on a feature film about a girl who discovers at 18 that she has been raised with a false idea of her gender. Lavagna’s fellow countryman De Paolis studied cinema at the London International Film School before returning to Rome to pursue a career in photography. His first solo show, Psychoanalysts, came in 2005, followed closely by commissions for large public installations in Madrid and New York. His first short film, Low Tide, screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2010, while his follow-up, ALICE, was presented at the 2011 Venice Film Festival; a new exhibition of his photographs is currently running at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris. De Paolis currently lives in New York.

Roberto De Paolis and Carlo Lavagna by Ivan Olita, 2010

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December 23, 2010

Part Two: Francis Ford Coppola Holes Up with NOWNESS in La Mamounia Palace

Four days after wrapping the gothic fable Twixt Now and Sunrise in California at his Napa estate, Francis Ford Coppola made a pilgrimage to Marrakech to appear as the headline guest for the city’s 10th International Film Festival. Filmmakers Roberto de Paolis and Carlo Lavagna met the 71-year-old legend in the library of the Art Deco hotel La Mamounia Palace for today's NOWNESS exclusive. “Coppola told me the whole idea for his new film came from a dream—more of a nightmare—he had in Istanbul, which involved children escaping from a cemetery,” says De Paolis, who counts the director as a longtime family friend. “My dad [producer Valerio de Paolis] worked on the first two installments of The Godfather trilogy in Sicily,” he explains. Twixt Now and Sunrise, starring Val Kilmer, marks the latest in a series of more experimental visions for Coppola, following on from pre-WWII love story Youth Without Youth and last year’s monochrome tale Tetro. The director's anti-big-budget stance has enabled him to sidestep the industry and play by his own rules. “He’s doing more individual, personal movies now,” says De Paolis. Keeping it in the family, daughter Sofia’s stylish new feature Somewhere closed the festival. To see other high points from the Marrakech Film Festival, click here.