“You seem like a cheerful and happy guy, so I have to ask — WTF?” said host Saša Michailidis, drawing attention to the stark contrast between the beaming director and his dark, blood-soaked horror film The Holy Boy, which explores a suspiciously cheerful mountain community whose happiness is tied to a deified teenager.
“Never trust nice people,” replied director Paolo Strippoli laconically, drawing laughter from the audience. During the discussion, he spoke about the film’s motifs relating to pain and grief. His film is about healing that takes a wrong turn and grows into fanaticism. “I am a really scared person myself. I am scared of everything in life. I am not brave, even though I’d like to be. In my writing, I am interested in our inner demons, which are the most terrifying kind. I don’t believe in the concept of good and evil. I want to tell morally ambivalent stories, to show how easy it is to become good – or evil.”
The combination of fragility and violence serves as a point of reference. The character of Matteo, the faith-bringing teenager, is both endearing and terrifying at the same time. “The film isn’t a critique of religion. It’s about the oppression and violence that we justify by religion. I am telling a story of how faith can be misused,” said Strippoli about the film’s religious motifs.
“Although we Italians are deeply religious and Catholic, the film didn’t stir up much of a controversy in Italy. I work with canonical phenomena that the Vatican doesn’t recognise. It was very common in the 20th century for a particular community to venerate a specific person. My film is respectful of those who hold such beliefs. I grew up in a Catholic family, though not a particularly conservative one. These days, I struggle to believe, though. But I respect and admire people who do. It is important to believe in something, but we’ve got to be careful,” he elaborated on his attitude to Christianity.
“Will your next film also be a horror?” was the final question. “No, but it will certainly be my darkest one yet,” responded Strippoli, whose The Holy Boy had its world premiere in Venice last year.
