One of the most awaited guests arrived at the Lucca Film Festival e Europa Cinema: Oliver Stone, a three time academy award winner and “political” Cinema’s master.
Not only he received the Lifetime achievement award, he also met the audience and the press, chatting freely about different subjects: from his new project to contemporary America, From his early works to Alexander, of which he introduced the screening.
Conversations with Putin and Trump
The thing that most of all has captured the attention of the press and the audience was surely the announcement of the american director’s new project:
“I’m finishing a documentary that i would like to distribute at the beginning of next year. For the first time, you’ll all have the chance to listen to Putin speaking English himself and not trough an interpreter; this will allow everyone to make their own idea about him. He is one of the most powerful man in the world, but due to the linguistic “wall” we have a partial vision of him”
he said in the press Conference.
He didn’t, obviously, miss the chance to talk about the Trump administration and his country current situation:
“Trump is going to the wrong direction, absolutely. Even on some fundamental problems like the environment. Trump has surprised me a lot in the foreign policy too; he showed himself to be as stubborn and ignorant as Hilary Clinton would have been. It’s time for Trump to learn something about foreign policy; he has no idea of how the internal relationships work, let alone the foreign ones…”
Trump, Alexander and the “Studios”
During the introduction of Alexander’s screening, the director expressed, once again, his love towards the film about “Alessandro Magno” and most of all about the historical character himself. Actually, according to Stone, Alexander is mostly a man full of interior conflicts that he has to solve. Although he will be forever remembered as one of the greatest conqueror ever, his hardest battles were against himself.
“I Spent ten years of my life writing this script, but i can say that i’m satisfied about it. Alexander is the journey of a ma that has to break into himself, in order to conquer his spirit.”
After Willem Dafoe, the Teatro del Giglio hosted the audience and Oliver Stone for a conversation, together with Silvia Bizio and the theater’s director Manrico Ferrucci. The american director has spoken, once again, about his big love for italian cinema, which has taught him so much. He then released a very peculiar statement about the Hollywood system:
“I often tried to stay out of the studios. The majors don’t want no troubles, especially with the stories that go against the country itself. I believe that today would not be possible to produce a movie like Born on the first of July. America is not the world savior.
For Snowden, for example, I couldn’t raise the funds in America; we had to look elsewhere. At the end, we found the money in France and Germany. You must understand that some kinds of movies are impossible to make in the USA. My movies are critical towards The United States, but i do for my love for the country, i try to criticize in a helpful way.”
