Luca Miniero’s turning point after Lolita Lobosco: «Stop the comedies, I’m making a documentary film on the Melarancio tragedy»

Troisi also surrendered.
«Let’s say that at a certain point he too felt the need not to do just comedy anymore. He died spinning The postmanwhat he would have done afterwards we cannot know.’

She was also funny with advertising. How did it start?
‘That was all I was interested in when I was a boy. I had gone to Milan and Rome to be a copywriter and I succeeded with great satisfaction. Then the cinema was the second chance».

No regrets of that world?
«No, I was right to leave because internet advertising has changed so much, it has become much less rich and important. Before, the only resources were the press and TV with commercials. It’s all social now.”

In Naples he had studied modern literature with many prodigy boys, such as Andrea Mazzucchi, who is now the mayor’s consultant for culture. What were those years like?
«We were very united, we always and only talked about what we studied. And we had great professors like Mazzacurati, Russo, Botti, Fulco. For us, university was not a transition like any other: we did Literature because we really liked studying those subjects there».

Is it true that you used to compete over who did better in the exams?
«Let’s say that we were competitive. They called me the literature worker because I was in a hurry to finish and go do other things. I graduated at 23, I did my master’s degree almost as if it were a three-year course. As much as I had a passion for literature, the passion had a deadline.”

No sentimental ties?
«Yes, I had a girlfriend in Naples, met at the university. I came every weekend on the train in a couchette, it was called “la direct”: I left on Friday evening and returned on Monday morning to work in Milan. Then she left me and I moved to Rome. Maybe if she hadn’t left me I would have stayed in the North to advertise. Instead I went there and became a director».

That’s all?
«No, now I have a partner, Laura, whom I met at a wedding in Milan and we have a daughter, her name is Vera like my mother. Today she is 23 years old and studies at the Experimental Center of Cinematography, while Laura teaches Economics in Florence. So we live between there and Rome».

What was it like working with Luisa Ranieri?
«Luisa is a great professional. Her strength is in her humility, she has the ability to be like those great strikers who win because they know how to pass the ball ».

A great success for the second season of Lolita Lobosco.
«It was very interesting to do it, certainly for the pleasure of filming in Bari but also of directing great actors such as Filippo Scicchitano, Giovanni Ludeno, Neapolitan like Luisa and Lunetta Savino who is from Bari. An almost family relationship was created on the set because it’s the second year we’ve been there: this was also the strength of this project. It’s not said that things go well when you get along, but it’s better to get along than not, and this has been our philosophy. Every evening we went to the set together, we even spoke harshly but then it all ended up in a bar like football players do in the locker room after a match».

What do these long series mean for a director?
«They’re demanding, you spend long periods away from home and it’s very different from when you’re shooting a film where the shooting time is much shorter. There is a psychological and organizational difficulty for the director more than for the actors, because he must always remain on the set».

No love at work?
“Never. But friendships rather than love are born on the set, this is what makes it a special experience, the main one for many directors. It is a very important moment where there is adrenaline but also strong sharing».

He has made many films but his “Welcome to the South” is a cult. Is he still related to the actors?
«We often talk to Claudio Bisio, while I’ve lost sight of Alessandro Siani a little, but I follow him with great affection. The relationship has also remained with Angela Finocchiaro with whom I also see myself sometimes in Florence, then Nando Paone I have also heard over the years. Nunzia Schiano is also in Lolita».

And now he returns to Naples. What is your relationship with this city?
«What all Neapolitans have: they find it hard to break away, then at a certain point you break away but like salmon you back off, you have to attend it. I have lived in other cities but I feel more at home here than anywhere else».

Why?
«Naples is a somewhat suspended city, which floats, it has a melancholy which at the same time does not exclude happiness even if in flashes. I love her for these lesser known aspects outside. I’m less interested in Naples than Ferrante. I prefer a truer city which, at the same time, makes mystery not a tourist attraction but a reality. It’s magical but really, not because it has to please those who don’t know it».

What strikes you about Naples today compared to thirty years ago?
«When I go back for work and I have the possibility, as in this case, of staying for a long time, I notice its vitality, a different energy that can be seen in everything and makes it very cinematic. It is no coincidence that the most important directors and musicians have lived here. Because it is a city of a thousand contrasts: from a pagan religiosity such as the cult of the souls in Purgatory to the modernity of the underground. In Naples there are still children playing football in the street, it is full of tourism but it is not globalised, it has not lost its identity and I hope it will never lose it».

You are not born into the family, how did you live when you were here?
«I come from a middle-class family, my father was a municipal employee and my mother worked at Sip. We lived in Arenella, one of the new neighborhoods from Rosi’s film Hands Over the City that I really like, like Vomero where you say “down Naples” when you go to the historic centre. The same neighborhood as Giancarlo Siani, who was my cousin».

Will he also talk about him in the documentary?
«Yes, I will talk about his murder in 1985 and the victims of the Camorra in those years on the streets of the city. I will start from the cholera of 1979, I will speak of the earthquake of 1980, of a city crossed by pain and despair».

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