The Italian director is back in competition at the Venice Film Festival after 37 years with It Will Happen Tonight, starring Jasmine Trinca and Louis Garrel.
His latest film, It Will Happen Tonight, tells “a rather powerful story in which a woman and a man keep meeting at the wrong moment.” It marks the 73-year-old director’s return to the Venice competition, nearly four decades after his last appearance.
The film was inspired by Israeli writer Eshkol Nevo’s collection Stay With Me. Moretti, working with co-writers Valia Santella and Federica Pontremoli, freely draws on and interweaves several of the stories to follow the complicated, almost fatal attraction between Matteo, a bookseller, and Greta, an actress, played by Louis Garrel and Jasmine Trinca.
Their spark comes on a tennis court, but Greta is about to marry someone else, played by Antonio De Matteo. Over the 17 years covered by the film, Matteo becomes involved with Cristina, played by Elena Lietti, a doctor who treats his father Olivier, portrayed by Hippolyte Girardot.
The web of relationships also includes Matteo’s mother Agnese, played by Angela Finocchiaro, his brother Antonio, as well as children and former partners. Moretti himself plays Greta’s father.
His last film in the Venice competition was Sweet Dreams in 1981, when he won the Silver Lion. Eight years later he returned to the Lido with Red Lob, but the film was rejected by festival director Guglielmo Biraghi and shown instead as a special event.
Since then, Moretti’s films have primarily premiered at Cannes. He insists he returns to Venice without any hard feelings.
“I read that I had something against this festival, but that isn’t true. Quite simply, for the past 30 years my films were never ready in the summer. There is no other reason.”
Moretti, relaxed and playful, was greeted by the press corps with something approaching a football-stadium reception. He also poked fun at one of his own old interview lines.
“Years ago, I came up with a rather silly phrase: ‘I’d always like to make the same film, only hopefully a little better each time.’ But as time went by, I realised I didn’t want to keep making the same film.”
This time, he has made a film about emotions and the need to put them into words: allowing feelings to emerge, openly acknowledging affection and being unafraid to tell someone you love them.
Music plays an important role. For Matteo, his love of music becomes a powerful bond with his father, taking him all the way to San Sebastián to fulfil his father’s wish to see Bruce Springsteen perform live.
Music is equally transformative in another scene, when the Rolling Stones’ She’s a Rainbow becomes the soundtrack to a spontaneous dance of love involving unsuspecting passers-by.
Moretti joked that the film had broken his personal record for music expenses, previously set by Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert, which featured in Dear Diary.
Producer Domenico Procacci, whose Fandango produced the film with Sacher Film and Rai Cinema, recalled the negotiations. It was the first time a live performance by Springsteen had appeared in a fictional film.
And then came the Rolling Stones.
“Just after we had finalised the agreement with Springsteen, while we were thinking about how to keep costs under control, Nanni sent me a message asking for a Rolling Stones song,” Procacci said. “I was sure he was joking.”
He was not.
Louis Garrel also had his own challenges on set. He describes Moretti as “the Pope of cinema” and says working with him was a joy — but not always an easy one.
“The first scene was basketball. ‘I’ll show you how to do it,’ he told me, ‘then you do the same.’ He took the ball and boom — straight into the basket, like Michael Jordan.”
Twenty-five takes later, Garrel still had not managed it.
“And he sadistically asked: ‘Can we watch mine again?’”
Another scene involved riding a scooter. Garrel had expected a Vespa, but found himself on a Japanese scooter instead.
“You know,” Moretti told him, “I don’t like self-references.”
For Jasmine Trinca, the film marks a reunion with Moretti 25 years after The Son’s Room and 20 years after The Caiman.
“Nanni is the person I owe my entry into cinema to. He gave me an idea of what this profession meant and what it was about,” she said.
“Then, fortunately, as you do with fathers, you create some distance. I went on to do different things and built other parts of myself, both as an actress and as a woman.”
On set, she said, Moretti constantly intervened with both his actors and the objects around them.
“I would say he treated us as equals. When I saw the film, I found it magical and full of life. There is this strange nursery-rhyme quality to the language — love as a kind of wise language spoken by children.”
The film will be released in Italian cinemas on December 3, giving audiences plenty of time to form their own opinions.
For now, Moretti appears happy to enjoy his return to Venice.
“Damn, is our time already up? What a shame. I really wanted to talk about current politics. Maybe next time.”
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