Laura Chiatti, wife of director Marco Bocci, in a scene from the film.
Both actors, beautiful, Marco Bocci and Laura Chiatti they have been married since 2014, have two children, and now for the first time they shared the set of The huntBocci’s second film as director afterwards It never rains in Tor Bella Monaca (2019). It’s a very dark, desperate noir, which sees the story at the center three brothers and a sister who find themselves, after the death of their father, in the villa where they grew up. It is all they will have as an inheritance, while they urgently need money because they are struggling with adrift lives, full of debts and failures. Returning to your childhood home brings back repressed memories: something terrible happened when they were children and their father took them hunting on the villa estate to educate them. In the role of a former drug addict who paid a pregnant foreign prostitute to have the child she is expecting, Laura Chiatti.
The four brothers protagonists of the film “The Hunt”. From left, Paolo Pierobon, Filippo Nigro, Pietro Sermonti, Laura Chiatti.
«When I wrote the subject of the film», he says Marco Bocci, who is co-writer of the film as well as director and also plays a small role as a “bad guy”«I immediately thought of Laura for that part, which is so far from the type of role she usually plays. She was great, above my expectations, and it was a great experience working together. Off the set we were husband and wife, as soon as we started filming she was the actress and I was the director».
Is there something autobiographical in this story?
«The inspiration came to me when I lost my memory due to an illness and I had to make a great effort to recover my memories, I still have holes in them today. I thought what could happen if someone instead of remembering wanted to forget a traumatic event. And then came all the rest of the story.”
Do you hunt?
«Even though I was born and live in Umbria, a land of hunters, I have never held a rifle and would never kill any living being». This family is deeply dysfunctional, worthy of a Greek tragedy. Where is the teaching of a story without the possibility of redemption?
«I am interested in investigating family mechanisms, both when they work and when relationships are broken down. In this story my reference director was Lars von Trier. Here there is a manipulative father, incapable of true love, who manages to chain his children forever due to lust for possession and selfishness. None of the four managed to do the only thing that would have saved him: disavowing his father and his actions, and being able to choose a life free from the past.”
The film begins with a narrator who tells the tale of four brothers, and which accompanies the whole story, with a happy ending. Is it a fairy tale invented for the occasion or one that already existed?
«It’s the fairy tale The Four Ingenious Brothers by the Brothers Grimm. It was the mother who read it to the four protagonists as children to prepare them for adult life, that is, to defeat evil while remaining united. But unfortunately they will then behave in the opposite way and instead of winning they will lose.”
This is truly a family film. In addition to his wife, one of his sons also plays…
«Yes, the eldest, Enea, 8 years old, who was very insistent on wanting to act in a film. I noticed his resemblance to Filippo Nigro and so, after an audition, I “enlisted” him for the scenes when the four brothers are children. For now it was like a game for him, I don’t know if he will then want to continue his career as an actor.”
When did you decide that you wanted to be an actor?
«I lived in Marsciano, a municipality in the province of Perugia, and after high school I enrolled in the faculty of Architecture. I met a theater director who had moved to Umbria after retiring from the stage. But he was still passionate about theater and passed on to me his fascination for that world. Together we founded a cultural association that staged amateur theater shows. And from there I decided to move to Rome to attend two acting schools.”
But then he returned to live in Umbria…
«Yes, I prefer provincial life, in the middle of the countryside, where everyone knows each other».
Film, TV and theater actor, director, writer, family man. What else?
«In fact I am hyperkinetic, I don’t want to give up anything, and in directing I have found a way to express myself more freely compared to the profession of actor who must follow the track of the character he plays. Although in Italy it is not easy to find a producer who will finance your project, especially if it is a story as raw as You kick her outto. But I did it. And then I have another great passion: car racing, and I’m about to start a new NASCAR Club Challenge championship as a driver.”
