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Parasomnia and sleep disorders, a theme that fascinates many and has entered the lives of countless people worldwide after COVID. "Love, Dreams and Violence" addresses this theme, starting from the reinterpretation of the myth of Endymion. Selene, the goddess of the moon, falls in love with Endymion and decides to freeze him in eternal sleep, so he remains young and beautiful forever. Building upon this myth, in "Love, Dreams and Violence," I defined Luis and Greta as the protagonists of the story. The two exist on different planes: Luis is the main character in Greta's dream, while the entire short film is the product of Greta's mind, where she reinterprets and reimagines her recent actions and experiences. Alongside them is Aleksandr, the desired one for both Luis and Greta. When I approached directing this project, I asked myself a question: when we dream, what and how do we see what surrounds us? To answer this, I reflected on the fact that in dreams, we never see ourselves; we only see others. In those dreamlike visions, sometimes we are the protagonists, but other times, we become omniscient observers, and someone else becomes the undeniable focal point of our interest. Thus, I began by working on Greta's character. The girl is always present – either physically or through the discussions and thoughts of the other two characters – but she remains elusive. Greta is merely a reflection in the mirror or a character that evades the camera (and somehow, herself). The only moment when Greta is clearly shown, in close-up, is during the dream when she presents her despair, becoming aware of what her body is capable of while asleep and beyond her control. To immediately plant the idea that we might be spectators of a dream, various symbolic elements were chosen for the set design: birds, Greta's obsession (the plush toy, Max Ernst's engravings, origami, dream scenes); the vinyl record of "This Man" (the identikit of the dream man invented by sociologist Andrea Natella); imperceptible changes in the scenery between different scenes (indeed, when we dream, if we look at a room and then look away, when we look back, it will never be the same as at the beginning). Apart from the work in set design, collaboration with the director of photography was crucial, during which we contemplated how to visually depict the difference between the "dream state" and the "awake state." We played with colors and, for the dreams, created the sensation that they were seen through an eye that opens and closes at different speeds (like an eyelid that increases its movements from NREM to REM phase). The idea was to evoke the effect of the "dreamachine", a stroboscopic device – conceived by Brion Gysin and his friend Ian Sommerville – designed to produce visual stimuli similar to those perceived with closed eyelids. As references, the short film "A Short Story" (Bi Gan, 2022) and the fluctuations of "Enter the Void" (Gaspar Noé, 2009) were a great inspiration. Moreover, in my desire to blend the thriller genre with an Italian touch, I looked to Bertolucci and Antonioni (especially in the meticulousness of the dialogues). My ultimate goal was to attempt to build a genre narrative witha profoundly Italian DNA, an ambitious experiment that I hope to continue in my work on my feature film "Dreamcatchers."
Country: Italy
Born and raised in an Italian-Venezuelan family, Daniela De Francesco works as a scriptwriter and director. In 2018 she published her debut novel “Cosmica”, from which she adapted the series Cosmic Girl currently a Italy-France co-development supported by MEDIA Creative Europe and winner as Best TV Concept at Tallinn Black Nights Industry@Baltic Event 2022. After writing few fiction and architecture short film, in 2021 she co-write her first feature film “Paula” (2022 - dir. Florencia Wehbe, 90ʼ) selected and awarded at Tallinn Black Nignts, Giffoni, BAFICI, Sofia, Moscow, Sarajevo, Melbourne, Sofia, Huelva among others. She is currently developing “Dreamcatchers”, her debut as director (a coproduction between Italy, Greece and Lithuania), developed in Biennale Cinema College - Italy Program 2022/23 and MFI Script2Film 2022/23 with the support of MEDIA Creative Europe 2023.
Greta, devastated by the death of her parents, decides to move in with two friends....
