1. Your film THE EVE is one of the winners at our competition. Where did the inspiration for the film come from?

The film is based on a very ironic but straightforward story by the writer Nicola Lombardi, a
friend of mine. It tells of a child who meets Santa Claus and receives a gift. The ending is
the same as in the film, the problem being that what worked well in the story turned out to
be too predictable on film, so I added the subplot of the illegal adoption, and removed
some of the irony as well, in order to make space for the child's drama and keep the
audience from guessing how things were going to turn out. I had to change the poster too.
The original version showed the child's face reflected in a drop of blood shaped like a
Christmas-tree ornament, except that also gave away the ending. It was a shame,
because I liked the first poster better than the one we wound up using.

2. Tell us about your background and when you decided to become a filmmaker?

I began as an assistant on a number of productions, and then I wrote an encyclopaedia of
Italian fantasy and horror films entitled Spaghetti Nightmares. The unabridged Italian
edition, which I edited, presented the recollections of producers, actors, directors and crew
members who had taken part in the making of some of the key films in the history of the
horror genre in Italy. It was a great success, both commercially and with the critics, but the
publisher of the American edition deleted three-quarters of its content without my
permission, turning the book into something unsightly, that I no longer want to have
anything to do with. After that, I went to study directing and production at the Los Angeles
Film School, directing THE EVE as part of my training.

3. What films inspired you to become a filmmaker?

As I have said in other interviews, the horror films of Philip Ridley, such as The
Reflecting Skin, a masterpiece in a style similar to that of David Lynch, enriched with
exquisite references to the paintings of Edvard Munch, such as Vampire and The Scream,
all of which taught me how to delve into my characters' subconscious, reinforcing the
psychological depth of the film, an approach not fully taken advantage of in the horror
genre. It may be due to certain Nordic stirrings within me (my roots extend beyond Trieste,
in Istria, even further north), but I greatly admire the verve of English pop. Their theatrical
tradition is stronger than ours, and so I find Blue by Derek Jarman, or his Wittgenstein, to
be particularly interesting, though not being homosexual myself, I have trouble completely
identifying myself with his films on the subject. I am also intrigued with the directing of
Peter Greenaway, though the way he mixes theatre with video art throws me off a bit,
seeing that I have an entirely different conception of the cinema.  

4. Who is your biggest influence?

The masterpieces of George Romero, my filmmaking hero. In my eyes, he is probably the
all-time great director of horror films, for he not only revolutionised the genre, but
courageously depicted the distorted reality of America consumerism. When I see how
people all over the world, on Black Friday, take shopping centres by storm, in search of
bargains, it reminds me of the scene where the living dead attack the shopping centre in
Romero's Dawn of the Dead. I believe that, had he filmed Day of the Dead with a budget of seven million dollars,
rather than three and a half, based on his original script, he would have made the best
horror film of all time. The full-length feature films that I have scripted to date contain messages on social issues
that make people think. I only hope that I am allowed to address these thorny issues.

5. Do you have a favourite genre to work in? And why is it your favourite?

Any kind of visionary horror film, including those based on the surreal and the esoteric,
because they offer thrills you simply cannot find in other genres. In fact, once you
experience them, the other films, the ones you used to enjoy, no longer do it for you.

6. What's your all-time favourite movie and why?

I personally consider Fellini to be the greatest filmmaker of all time. His masterpieces are
sensorial experiences which arrive beyond the dimensions of time and space. There is no
describing them, you simply need to live through them, as in a collective dream. And while
8 ½ is definitely the best film ever done on the film industry itself, the first to give the figure
of the director its due, depicting the role with exceptional class, when it comes to flights of
fantasy, I myself prefer City of Women, an extravagant, vastly underrated blockbuster of
dreams, a fantastical   amusement park of the imagination where, if you enter with the right spirit, you never leave. At