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After a short period on the road with her debut film — the tender, surreal coming-of-age story Chlorophyll — Italian director Ivana Gloria soon began to realize that the film festival circuit would only take her so far. Starring newcomer Sarah Short, the film concerns a girl called Maia, who discovers that she is not like other young people her age. But it’s not just her dyed-green hair that makes her stand out; when she moves to the Sardinian countryside to pick oranges for the lonely Teo (Michele Ragno), Maia begins sprouting blue flowers that give off a distinctive scent, and her biological clock goes haywire.
Chlorophyll made its debut at the Rome Film Festival last year, then travelled to the Karlovy Vary Film Festival (where it played in Proxima), and last week competed at the Leeds International Film Festival in the U.K. That was it as far as festival bookings went, so Gloria took matters into her own hands, first by adding a secret and “very punk” screening at a pub in Bristol. “I felt like a rock star,” she says. “I jumped out of a taxi, ran in and presented the movie, and then I got a beer, and did a Q&A after.” Tonight [November 12, 2024] she is hosting a self-arranged screening of the film with Short at the Genesis Cinema in London.
“I took the occasion to do it because I was in the U.K.,” she explains, “so it was a chance to visit some friends and, at the same time, [check out the reaction] in the U.K. too. I was so impressed by the people in the Czech Republic, because they were enjoying themselves so much during the screening. I was curious to see how each country has its own experience with it. Maybe it will help us get a release. Otherwise, I will keep going in this punk way for as long as I feel like.”
DEADLINE: Where did the idea for Chlorophyll come from?
IVANA GLORIA: It started with the script from Marco Borromei, and he asked me to direct it. I immediately fell in love with the script because I could feel so much what it was all about, because I struggle myself finding my own identity, accepting my sexuality. And so, I really put all of this into the movie in every scene. It’s about finding your own identity and accepting your sexuality, finding your own nature, your relationship with nature. And I like the way the script does that, because it’s a fairytale. You don’t question it, you just accept it, and you go with these characters on a trip, on a journey.
I tried to make it an immersive experience, so I focused a lot on the visual aspect, the colors. I focused on the sharp green because I wanted to be connected to the sharp, bright green you see in spring, when the leaves are born, because this is what it’s all about — being born again, blossoming.
DEADLINE: Sound is also very important…
GLORIA: I come from animation — I did a lot of stop-motion animation and traditional animation before this — and in animation there is no sound at all when you create moving images. It all comes after. And even here, a lot of it came after. We worked a lot with Silvia Orengo, the sound engineer, on the sounds. We had the whole big team for sound, to find the right frequencies. At certain points we use this very, very low frequency, one that kind of connects you with your gut. That’s because the character, Maia, is kind of paralyzed at times, because she’s scared. But usually when something scares you a lot, it’s actually because it’s attracting you a lot. And so, for me it was a very key element. It’s something I’ve been learning about myself as well. It’s about going where you want to go, even it’s very scary. At some point, you will go there because it’s just in your nature. Nature will do what it needs to do, no matter what it takes.
DEADLINE: How did you find your lead actress, Sarah Short?
GLORIA: I got a self-tape from her agent. It was between, I don’t know, maybe seven, eight other young girls. And I got immediately captured by her way of hiding herself behind irony, behind her smile. I liked that because it’s quite a deep story, in a way, but I wanted to keep it light. So, I really wanted to have a character like that. And of course I was very much captured by her eyes. She has this incredible, very not-so-common light blue eyes. So many people asked me if she was wearing lenses!
DEADLINE: As well as sound, music is also a very important part of the film. Who did the music, and how did you approach adding music to the film?
GLORIA: The music was by a collective called Soha. It’s actually going to be released soon, the soundtrack. I met one of them after a screening of another movie, outside the cinema. I approached him, and we started collaborating. It’s a mix of electronic and ambient music, maybe.
DEADLINE: Do you listen to music while you’re working?
GLORIA: Just in my [earphones]. I had a track I really liked that I heard in another movie, an electronic track, the one that is at the end of Triangle of Sadness [“Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing)” by Fred Again and The Blessed Madonna]. I got inspired by that scene for a particular moment in that movie: It’s nightmare scene in the film where Maia’s wearing a wig, and she has a dark hair. So, it’s kind of a moment in her life when she’s thinking of herself as a [normal] person, like others, but she realized she’s actually running away from herself.
DEADLINE: What influenced you to make such a surreal, dreamlike movie?
GLORIA: I don’t know. I remember the first movie I saw as a very, very young teenager that kind of affected me in a strange way. And afterwards I said, “What does ‘directed by’ mean? And who is Michel Gondry? [Laughs.] I always was fascinated by magicians and the magic of cinema. But this is something related to my past in general. For this movie, I think I got moved by Border from Ali Abassi. Not that it’s so surreal. I think that movie is a bit more about the nature, about the call to nature that we share in common. And there is a call to nature in here, it’s a call to – your nature, to who you are. There’s a bit of Midsommar, but that’s more horror. And there’s a bit of Portrait of a Lady on Fire. I really like the tension between the characters, and the female gaze in it.
DEADLINE: What has been the reaction when you’ve shown it?
GLORIA: I feel sometimes they’re kind of shocked and surprised, and sometimes they get very moved, which is very unexpected. When we screened it in Karlovy Vary, people were so moved, and coming to me crying and saying, “Thank you for making this movie. I felt so understood.”
Chlorophyll screens at 9pm on 12 November 2024 at the Genesis Cinema, London E1
