Filippo Demarchi was born in Zurich in 1988, but grew up in the Canton Ticino. At the age of 18 he moved to Paris to train as an assistant director at the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français. In 2013 he gained a BA with first class honours in film at ECAL in Lausanne. He works regularly with the Locarno Film Festival and the Castellinaria youth film festival in Bellinzona. He is currently taking a Master’s in screenwriting at INSAS in Brussels.
Director’s Note:
Disillusionment from love, the feeling of being completely understood by someone and its opposite, the feeling of being rejected – these are subjects close to my heart. They are feelings that I experienced as an adolescent. The perception that I was understood, deep down, enabled me to feel I was no longer alone, and to believe that all my problems were solved. But then the realization that I had been wrong, the sense of rejection, inflicted a deep and lasting hurt. Which is pretty much what happens to Matteo. In order to tell his story, I tried to draw on those feelings, to film the illusions of a youth who falls in love with a priest almost without realizing it, because he is the only person who seems to understand. I would like to think that, through my film, viewers will be able to (re)live those strong, often violent feelings that are so typical of adolescence: feeling that you’re in love to the point of obsession, the bitter disappointment of the first rejection, and the sense of disorientation and anger that comes with it.
-Filippo Demarchi
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