about the “painful, then enlightening” process of exploring his own story to create his fictional portrait of gender dysphoria, why he loves working with children and the political message behind his film. “We live in a political climate that looks for easy enemies and targets, [but the real] enemy is fear.”The point of view of the protagonist is my own. It is my theme: gender identity. It’s my story. But I made it into a film, that’s the point. Everything else is fodder, fluff and morbidity.
Back to the film. The story of a 12-year-old girl who does not identify with her gender. She falls in love with a peer. She has two younger brothers, a Spanish mother and a Sicilian, macho, controlling father. We are in Rome in the 1970s. Because that’s what it is. A person’s life is an architecture, a complex organism. I wanted to portray the life, the pain and the uncertainty of adolescence in the face of adult expectations. I wanted to describe the need to be seen and accepted for who you are. The burden of judgment. The suffering for the pain you cause in other people’s lives when you don’t match their expectations. I showed, I think, a family. Any family. A place where everyone can see themselves reflected.