
The director of the short movie “La città oltre il tunnel”, in competition at the Indiecinema Film Festival and fresh from various successes in Italy and abroad, spoke with us upon this one and the previous works too
We met Lucilla Colonna, whose short film La città oltre il tunnel will be screened today, Tuesday 20 February, at the Circolo ARCI Arcobaleno in Via Pullino 1, Rome, together with two other works from the Indiecinema Film Festival Short Film Competition. From Greece to the United States, naturally passing through the premiere which took place in September at another roman location like Cinema dei Piccoli, as the opening event of the Biopic Fest, there are so many awards that Lucilla Colonna’s work is receiving… we wanted to summarize all the steps with her, naturally starting from the other peaks of a filmography that had seen her debut in feature films years ago with an excellent costume film, Festina lente – Affrettati lentamente.

Moving from Festina lente to La città oltre il tunnel
This short film comes several years after the successful and award-winning Festina lente; what was the genesis of this new project, from the firast idea to the writing of the screenplay?
It arrives several years later, yes, or rather centuries. Festina lente took place in the sixteenth century and instead La città oltre il tunnel is set in the present day! Jokes aside, a very pleasant aspect of non-profit independent cinema is that no one is chasing you and therefore you can give life to a new project calmly, only if and when you hope that it is worth using your energies and those of friends who they will support you. This time the inspiration came from an online debate on the film La città delle donne by the great Federico Fellini. I participated in the debate on 8 March 2021 and then slowly became passionate about the idea of drawing inspiration from that 1980 film, which had the merit of shining a light on gender conflict at the time, offering a male point of view. With La città oltre il tunnel I stage a train very similar to the one on which Marcello Mastroianni travelled, but I try to offer a contemporary and feminine point of view.
La città oltre il tunnel is a tribute to Fellini and women; How important was Federico Fellini’s cinematography in your life? And what is in your opinion the role of women and men today?
I think it is important that art and cinematography always look a little beyond the known horizon and I believe that Federico Fellini is a Master in the courage to dare. I also love his way of transforming the set into a party where everyone is asked to contribute by giving their best.
If today women and men have a role, I think that for both of them it is to make the world better by acting together.

The actors: a guarantee!
Once again you have chosen the beautiful and talented Francesca Ceci as the protagonist of your film, transporting her from the 1500s to a modern role. What is the difference between the poet Vittoria Colonna, a modern woman ante litteram and the lost Francesca who finds herself and her strength as a woman in a growth path that rests its foundations in the dream world and then reveals itself in the real world?
Francesca Ceci is so good and versatile that I find her perfect for every role. It filled me with joy when he also accepted this new challenge, so different from my previous works. His friendliness never fails to illuminate the set and it is rare to find a serious dedication to cinema and theater like his. When defining the protagonist I always try to take inspiration from reality. The noblewoman Vittoria Colonna was an established poet who lived in the Renaissance, while the main character of La città oltre il tunnel is called Francesca like the actress because it could be herself or any other woman from the reality we live in today. We could imagine Francesca as a descendant of Vittoria, since they have something in common: they both feel the urgency that the female condition in the world progresses and both have something to do with poetry. Or we could think that Francesca takes the train after finishing playing Vittoria Colonna and begins to question herself about the existence and rights of women today. In the end, the spectators will decide and perhaps imagine something else.
La città oltre il tunnel is an ensemble work; how did you choose your cast and how did you create for them the synergy, the connections, the pieces that make up the perfect puzzle of the film?
In the preparation phase I try to find the right faces and a good harmony between my vision and theirs, but if the film slowly takes shape and if in the end it can be said to be successful, the credit always goes to a necessary dose of “cinema magic”.
In La città oltre il tunnel, the encounters that the protagonist has during her journey are entrusted to interpreters with whom I have been comfortable for years – Annalisa Aglioti, Rodolfo Mantovani, Diego Riace – and to some names that are new to me – Elio Crifò, Michela Scarlett Aloisi and Marina Parrulli. – I am grateful to each of them because I wanted to surprise them and instead they are the ones who left me speechless!
It was also nice to be able to involve the writers Daniela Alibrandi, Cristiana Astori and Antonella Sica in the cast, as well as the very young athletes Marta Ceci and Roberto Manieri in the role of themselves.

The soundtrack’s importance and the technical cast
As with Festina Lente, the soundtrack in La città oltre il Tunnel is also very careful; in this case, it is an original song written by the musician Andrea Secli based on your lyrics. What inspired you, did you have a musical genre in mind, a song, or did you leave Secli free to put into music what you wanted to say, that is, the message that men and women are equal?
Here to answer you I have to go back to the source of inspiration we were talking about, namely the reactions aroused by the film La città delle donne. In that film Fellini underlines the bitter incommunicability between men and women, setting to music an ironic motto of 1968’s global feminism. But since then society has come a long way and I asked the musician Andrea Secli, who is Marcello in the short film, to play a different nursery rhyme, which has as its objective the harmony between men and women rather than lack of communication. In addition to the artistic one, you have chosen a highly respectable technical cast; the photography by Andrès Arce Maldonado and Cristian Iezzi and the editing by Luca Balducci embellish your dreamlike vision, while the musical part played by Andrea Secli and Michela Scarlett Aloisi places the emphasis on its eccentricity.
How did you relate to the technical part of your film, did you give carte blanche or did you set limits, very specific limits within which to move?
Without a good technical cast you can’t go far and I was lucky to have the collaboration of these extraordinary artists. As for relating to them, I am inspired by the classic in medio stat virtus, I seek dialogue. I think that leaving carte blanche would cause everyone to risk unnecessary slip-ups, whereas if on the contrary we set limits a priori we would see the magic of cinema dissolve between our fingers.
Michela Aloisi
