1. What was one of the most challenging moments you faced while making Talking Cure? Did this ‘setback’ change the direction of the final story?

Talking Cure is a short film that is eighty percent in a language I don't know. When I realised that the protagonist of my film would be a deaf girl, I had to learn a new language. This is a bit of a paradox, as the project was initially born with the idea of ​​being a production as agile as possible, and very independent. But writing the short in LIS (Italian sign language) required almost a year of pre-production to allow Aura Ghezzi, who is a non-deaf actress, to learn to speak this language and for me to get to know the deaf community who helped us a lot in the initial stages of this project.

2. What was the biggest inspiration behind Talking Cure?

I can't focus on a specific inspiration. Talking Cure was born as a spin-off of a film project, where the character of Luna has a key, but very marginal role. The more I imagined the character, the more I became convinced that she deserved more space and so I wrote this short film featuring her as the protagonist. This process and this idea of ​​a narrative universe seem to me to be inspired more by books and literature, where it often happens that we encounter the same characters in different books and contexts. Then, I am a passionate cinephile, my style was formed not by referring to specific authors, but rather by trying to shape my images based on what I am passionate about in cinema of the present and the past. Not to emulate, but to embody, to make an idea of ​​making cinema deeply my own.

3. What message do you want the audience to take away from Talking Cure?

Having reached the last image of the short film I think there are two levels of meaning, one textual and one metatextual. The first concerns the desire to stage human relationships beyond any ideology and any Manichaeism. There is no clear division between black and white when it comes to feelings. Instead, there is a grey area, a midtone, where true empathy between human beings can emerge. The metatextual meaning instead concerns the way of producing and proposing a story in a reduced format such as that of a short film. In Italy, this type of product is now very standardised. The narratives that work are few and produced by always combining the same elements. Aspiring directors are not encouraged to produce personal narrative ideas, but instead to place themselves as much as possible in one of these already existing production ideas, and this is the only way to be able to access relevant distribution contexts. I think that short films must still be a field of experimentation and I am convinced that they must certify the signature of a future director. They must be produced more lightly but speak their author's idea of ​​cinema with determination and force. Also taking risks. I think short films are where taking risks should be protected and not stifled.

4. Why was the Italian sign language (Lis) used as a key element in conveying the story's message? Was this a crucial factor in the pre-production stage?

In the pre-production phase, it was crucial to establish the importance of communication in the short film Talking Cure. The film explores how humans often struggle to convey their thoughts and feelings beyond the limitations of language. The protagonist, Luna, attempts various forms of communication, including digital messages, verbal language, and LIS, which is her primary language. Despite this, she only achieves true human connection with a stranger through reciprocal eye contact, which leads to meaningful interaction and action. LIS plays a vital role as a performative language, directly engaging the body and its expressive capabilities. The intention was to show a character, immobilised by pain, finding liberation through her own physical language, which becomes the catalyst for action and moving beyond the pain.