Director Antonietta De Lillo: “In cinema, the industry cannot triumph over culture”

“Il resto di niente” is a splendid novel by Enzo Striano, published in 1986, centred on the figure of Eleonora Pimentel Fonseca; it has been reprinted time and again in Mondadori’s Oscar series, though during his lifetime the author struggled to get it published by a small publisher of school textbooks; In 2004, director Antonietta De Lillo adapted it into a film of the same name, which was highly acclaimed by critics and won a David, although it was released in cinemas with just twenty copies. De Lillo’s defiance sparked a long-running legal dispute that cost her her place within the system, a story she recounted herself in L’occhio della gallina, presented at the Venice Film Festival in 2024 and produced by Marechiarofilm, the independent production company she founded in 2007.

Now the City of Naples is paying tribute to her with the ‘Antonietta Uncut’ initiative, running from 11 November to 2 December: alongside the comprehensive retrospective of her works at CasaCinema, the Nest and the Napoli Est Teatro, there will be a series of seven lectures given by the director (as with the screenings, attendance is free of charge).

More than twenty years on, I would say I’d do it all again, even though I paid the price. I’m proud of myself, but I do not feel sorry for myself nor do I consider myself a heroine, even though it hurt to see the indifference of so many colleagues, who lacked the strength or the interest to realise that a case like mine could just as easily have happened to them. It is not merely a question of solidarity, but of political awareness.

Because I did not view it through a paranoid lens: I never believed it was a case of personal persecution, but rather a situation that could have happened to anyone. I fought to stay true to myself.

I am not a conventional feminist, nor have I ever experienced gender subordination; on the contrary, I believe that being born a woman and in Naples has been a double blessing for my artistic life. I make no secret of the fact, however, that the lack of dialogue with the institutions – whose leadership was almost entirely male – may also have stemmed from this: perhaps it was uncomfortable for them to speak on an equal footing with a woman.

I was more combative than him because I was quite young, and I identify with Striano partly because of his artistic solitude. If you do something that doesn’t fit into either the mainstream or the auteur tradition, you become unclassifiable. To me, both labels seemed too narrow: it is possible to pursue an aesthetic exploration that isn’t self-referential, and it is possible to take the audience into account without being merely ‘pop’. Unfortunately, those who tread the line between the two poles are disconcerting to producers and critics who are prisoners of definition. Never mind: everyone must have the courage to believe in their own way of expressing themselves.

I do not wish to go against the grain, but there is a long-standing problem: as a result of the 2016 Franceschini Act, funding for the film industry saw exponential increases that favoured a select few, penalising smaller players and perpetuating a system that remained unchanged even as governments came and went. A bubble had formed: we saw millions of our tax money being channelled into films that were guaranteed to turn a profit along the way, rather than expecting the films themselves to make money at the box office, or at the very least to have cultural value. Furthermore, the idea that cinema is an industry by law has taken hold: even the younger generation has been brought up to think this way. The lectures I will be giving in Naples will focus on the opposite perspective: the uniqueness of the filmmaker and an awareness of the artistic process as a means of combating cultural impoverishment.

Ninety per cent of them are the result of an industrial process in which even the authorship of the work is lost, but I’m not entirely opposed to it. Someone suggested I watch “Adolescence” and I found it absolutely brilliant, precisely because it defied that pseudo-industrial mould. I must admit I do not like wasting time: if a story does not grab me straight away, I would rather watch Dancing with the Stars or Le Iene: they still open a window onto the world – perhaps a depressing one, but one that is more enriching than a bad TV drama.

I aim to emulate the spirit of Calvino’s "Lezioni americane", the book I have given away most often in my life—even to my beautician. This is not presumption but an act of gratitude. Today, I am not as afraid of artificial intelligence as I am of the loss of humanity – that feeling which makes you laugh until you cry in moments of pure joy, or brings you to tears. For example, at the theatre, I am moved when, at the end, the actors come out to take their bows: whether I enjoyed the performance or not, I feel gratitude for the generosity of those who took to the stage.

The hospitality of the Nest, on the eastern outskirts. I was a girl from a middle-class neighbourhood, raised within a magical circle. When I managed to break out of it by travelling around the city, I realised that the outskirts often produce more interesting ideas. It’s like in the film industry: perhaps creativity lies on the fringes because those at the centre are lazier. As Age & Scarpelli used to say: ‘Take the tram if you want to write’. Out there lies the world.