“Overnight, I lost my job as a scriptwriter and assistant editor. So I turned on my computer and started talking to it – about cinema,” director Alessandro Aniballi explained the circumstances behind his film Claustrocinephilia, conceived as a documentary essay and tribute to cinema. He started to compose the autobiographical film collage during the first lockdowns in 2020. “My aim was to process in my mind all the movies I have ever seen. They are my personal as well as cinematic memoirs,” he shared with the audience in the Small Hall his passion for cinema, which he describes as a medical diagnosis.
For each film, he started with the last, final shot. “Even when I take a book, I always read the last page first to decide whether it is worth reading,” Aniballi told the audience. He also admitted that the pandemics were not the only reason for making the film. “I actually realised that the lockdown was rather a pretext to dedicate my time to its creation,” the Italian filmmaker revealed.
