Paolo Sorrentino sent a warm greeting to the audience attending the premiere of his film This must be the place – a touching road movie starring Sean Pen – which was screened at Olympion theater in the framework of the 52nd Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
In his written greeting, the filmmaker said: “I am sincerely sorry not to be with you in Thessaloniki. I have never been to Greece before and I have just missed the best occasion ever to be there. I am very grateful and surprised that the festival is dedicating a retrospective to me. I really don’t know what I can say about my films. I prefer not to look back to avoid seeing a guy with more hair and more energy. That guy was me. I can only say that these films are 5 first films, in the sense that during each film I was convinced that that particular film would have been the last, that nobody would have had the desire or the need to finance my next film. Hence I have always put my upmost efforts, fatigue, attention, recklessness and fear into making each of these five films. And, with many variations on the theme, I have always concentrated on man and his difficulty in finding a sense to life. I’d say my recurrent theme is man and his senselessness.
The one important observation that I have made in my life, is that man, in his decisive moments, loses his sense of existence, even when he thinks he has found it. This is what my films speak of, whilst trying very hard not to take themselves too seriously.
I don’t think it is healthy for me or for anybody else to believe one’s convictions too much. The risk is to be continuously disappointed.
Therefore, without any convictions, I invite you to see my films, and in the meantime, I thank you very, very much and I excuse myself once again for my absence. My presence, as you deduct from my words, would have been totally unnecessary…”
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