“I wanted the film to have the atmosphere of a daydream – like when we remember our first summer when we were young,” director Carlo Sironi opened the debate on My Summer with Irène. He introduced this coming-of-age romance about two friends who discover the ups and downs of life on the Sicilian island of Favignana, at the Small Hall on Wednesday.
The original idea came to him in an unusual way: “I was listening to a song that plays at the end of the film and imagined the characters, their surroundings. Gradually, my personal memories blended with the projections in my head, and I expanded them with interviews with people who shared similar life experiences as my heroines,” the Italian filmmaker added with regard to the film’s leitmotif of fighting a serious illness. Editor Chiara Dainese elaborated on how the film’s delicate atmosphere was largely created in the editing room: “We cut out a large number of supporting characters, keeping only their voiceovers, to focus on the main couple,” she revealed.
The filmmakers also discussed art and how we experience it: “When you read something as a teenager, you feel like it’s about you, it touches you deeply,” Sironi reflected, likening some of the heroines’ experiences to his own. And this resonated also with others – at the end of the screening, a woman from the audience thanked the director and said that My Summer with Irène had helped her to come to terms with a personal tragedy.
