Chiara Mastroianni

“We have here something that really scared me as a child and, I guess, still does now. I love Joan Fontaine. This is Rebecca by Hitchcock. I started watching Hitchcock when I was a child, and I’ve always been really mesmerized by his psychology. It’s very, very strong, very erotic. And it’s actually weird as a kid that I was so into it.”

“This is fantastic. To Be or Not to Be, Lubitsch. A must-see, and re-see and re-see and re-see forever. It’s absolutely wonderful. I think what I like about these kind of movies is that... It’s one in a kind, so it’s not a kind of movie, but... Is the idea to bring something very politic, but, underneath, comedy.”

“Actually I saw something that goes in the direction of what I just said. Divorce Italian Style is a very different story from Lubitsch. But what made me think of it is that Divorce Italian Style is a comedy. It’s really, really funny. When I was a kid and I first saw it, to me, it was just a comedy. And then growing up and learning about Italian politics... Divorce Italian Style was a very political film disguised into a comedy.”

“Back to basics. Mean Streets. Just... No comment, just perfect. I love Scorsese, any Scorsese I love. I love his films. I love the man.”

“Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Cure, I want to see it. Japanese horror, very good. I like horror movies. And when I was a child, once again, I saw many of them because my Mother was crazy about vampire stories and my stepmom had no knowledge of what kids should see or not see. So thanks to that ignorance, I was able to see so many horror movies. I don’t know what it is with horror. I guess it takes away my personal anxiety or something.”

“This is The Night of the Hunter. Charles Laughton. Charles Laughton, for those who don’t know him, was an actor, this is the only film he’s done. He was a big adult when he did it, I think over 50 years old. So this means that there is always hope in life to get something very, very good done once. I think when you’re a child and you get the luck of discovering very strong movies like this, it’s very difficult after that to escape from cinema.”

“A Special Day is not a feel-good movie at all. It’s just a wonderful film. It’s by Ettore Scola, Sophia Loren, and my father. And it’s just two characters, one set... I think what’s interesting about... Because the idea of the male figure has always been something very macho, you know, virile. And suddenly you have this actor who comes in, my father, with a very delicate way of moving himself... He proposed a different version of a man.”

“There is another one that I completely forgot. To just give you indigestion talking about my father all the time. So The Organizer is a Monicelli movie that went very bad when it came out. Absolutely no success. It’s the story of a factory in the beginning of the 1900s... And this character that my dad plays is kind of an idealist guy who arrives in this factory. And little by little, he’s going to be able to help them be conscious.”

“For my last one, I’m going to close my eyes and put my finger somewhere and we’ll see what comes out. Let’s see. Things to Come, H. G. Wells. Oh my God, this I have not seen. But the title and the author and what we’re living right now, it’s a sign.”