From Sicily with Love - a conversation with Ludovica Musumeci

I had the pleasure to chat with Ludovica, an up and coming director from Sicily in London. We share a similar expat-story, having followed our dreams from Italy to the UK and arrived just a few months before the Brexit vote. She has been working for an educational video agency while making a series of inspiring and unexpected short films, and now her time has come to embrace full time directing. This is what she told me about her passion for creating worlds, surviving lockdown and taking the next steps in her directing career.

Hi Ludovica! First of all, the big question, how did you get into directing? And why?

Being from Sicily in Italy, I grew up with Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini and all the great cinema of the ‘60s. So it was always something I was attracted to but I’ve never considered being a director when I was there, as it was something so far from my reality.

When I was younger I was in the French musical theatre Le Théâtre Francophone. I enjoyed creating and bringing the world of the stories together.

I’ve also always written poems, small novels, short stories and so on. I published a book when I was 22 years old. So I’ve always thought about myself as an author.

Then at some point there was a switch. I realised I didn’t want to stay in Catania. I wanted to do something bigger. I knew I just liked to create these worlds. And that’s what directors do. But I thought it’s silly, I’ll never make it. Nevertheless, I moved to London and with a classmate we made a 5 minute short about Shakespeare’s sonnet #130 My Mistress Eyes are Nothing like the Sun. And as I was on set, I wished I could do that forever. So that was my illumination. Despite how apparently impossible it looked, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. 

Still from I Am.

Both Mens Sana and I Am talk, in different ways, about mental health and the human mind. Where does the fascination for these topics come from for you? 

They approach the topic of mental health from two different points of view.

Mens Sana is more of an exploration of what’s real and what’s not, and whether it does even matter if something is real. One of my favourite authors - which as an Italian you’ll appreciate - is Pirandello, also from Sicily. In his novel One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand he says you think you are one, but actually people see you in a hundred thousand different ways and ultimately you are none of them. I’ve always been interested in what creates our reality and how we process informations. 

Joyce (the protagonist of Mens Sana) believes there is a parasite, she gets obsessed with it. For me, all of us are just a step away from being Joyce. Reality is not objective, but we always try to objectify it, because we look for confirmation of our beliefs. And that’s how miscommunication, hate and war happen. I’m fascinated by how volatile reality is and yet how important it is. 

I Am, on the other side, comes from the desire of being part of something meaningful. Oriane Pick, the founder of Candid Broads Productions, approached me. Someone in her family suffered with Schizophrenia and she wanted to make this movie.

One of the reasons I decided to transition from writing to directing is because unfortunately people don’t read as much as they watch movies. Films can actually make a change. They can impact on people’s values and behaviours and make them more aware. I Am was my opportunity to do that. It presents schizophrenia in more realistic way. In fact, because schizophrenia is usually represented in a very sensationalistic way by the media, people suffering from it are often stigmatised. As a result of that, when coming in contact with someone schizophrenic, people tend to confuse their state with other conditions - such as depression. This is what happens to Gabi, the protagonist of our film, who is struggling to open up to her boyfriend as she is afraid of rejection. That’s why it is very important that people become more aware of these types of conditions and what they really look like.

Mens Sana still

Mens Sana film Poster.

That’s great! Schizophrenia is one of those conditions that have a very bad connotation in most of its media representation. If I had schizophrenia I would like to see it portrayed like you do in I Am, unstigmatised. I think it’s really important what you did. 

That’s what I wanted to achieve. It would have been easy to go down the horror route. But I don’t want to reinforce the association between schizophrenia and something scary. It’s unfair and unrealistic. This needs to change. It’s already difficult to learn to live with this condition without having to deal with the stigma. And this is so important: filmmakers should feel responsible for what they create. As it can influence and impact on society and individuals’ lives. 

BTS Ludovica on set for I Am.

Also, you shot I Am during the lockdown. How did that go? 

Yes, we shot in October during lockdown. It was hard for different reasons. Multiple crew had flown back to their countries and had to return for the shoot. The flights were delayed and many had to quarantine. So it was especially hard just to find a date. 

Izuka Hoyle (who plays Lea in the film) got stuck in Serbia because of Covid. She was meant to have a bigger role. She’s a fantastic actor, I didn’t want to cut her out, so we found the creative solution of having her video calling from Tokyo. We adapted the script to our circumstances, and it worked! Also the pace on set was slower due to the protocol limitations and we had to adapt to the new challenges of dealing with Covid, which now, are the new normal.

How did you meet with Candid Broads Productions?

Actually it was online. Before I Am, and before the production company was formed, Oriane published an advert on Facebook for a web series. I ended up directing some episodes. 

When I started in films and I had just moved here, I didn’t know many people yet. It can be intimidating. Especially as there are already a lot of directors coming from film school having done multiple shorts and having already a network. I did Economics, I didn’t study films. I’ve learned by doing. My boyfriend teases me saying I am “street smart”! So I think it’s nice for people to know that you don’t have to spend thousands of pounds for a film school to get into the industry. Is it going to be more difficult? Yes. But you can still make it if you push hard enough.

I Am film poster.

I also like that Candid Boards Productions promote female filmmakers. I personally always try to employ female crew. If we don’t give work to each other how can we expect others to do so? It also depends on the project. I was especially happy to have a female crew on I Am, because they had a good sensitivity for the character and they just got it. Having said so, I love working with men as well. But at this moment in time it’s important to push to promote diversity. Not just for female stories, but also for any other underrepresented minority. So if I can I’ll always support females and other minorities until there is this balance. 

In general, how did you survive lockdown?

I went through a flow of different emotions. Before lockdown I would always work a lot and then go out and often had plans for the weekends as well. I was constantly exhausted and just pushing through. So at the beginning of lockdown I actually thought “thank God!”. This is what I needed! It allowed me to stop and look at my life in perspective. So I realised I was pushing too much, and probably not in the right direction. I went back into writing everyday and I had more energy.

Since I was little I would have always done a bucket list of what did I want to achieve. But in the last couple of years I didn’t, because I didn’t have enough time and energy to think about the future. I could just survive day by day, I certainly didn’t know what to expect in 5 years! It was very nice to start dreaming again and making plans. 

But now in 2021, lockdown started becoming more tiring, mainly because we had so many openings and then it kept closing again. I would have rather just continue lockdown than being teased and disappointed. So I started to miss my friends and family. I didn’t go back home in December, because I was worried about my parents, and now I miss Sicily a lot. 

But ultimately, if it wasn't for the lockdown I wouldn’t have tried to focus on directing. So for that I’m grateful for it. Of course it’s a worldwide tragedy, but from my little selfish perspective it was not all bad. But then…it lasted too long! 

Ludovica on set for Sam.

I hear you are in development for your first feature film. A a psychological thriller. How is that coming along? 

The development is going well. Hopefully we’ll be able to film it in 2022.

The most difficult thing is writing a good script. I wrote the first draft of the script as I was on holiday, in 10 days. And it was good. The studio executive really liked it. She asked me to adjust just a couple of things. So I made the second draft while I was working. And the second draft was less good than the first one. So we decided to write a third draft. And the third draft sucked! It’s just difficult for me to write while I have other twenty thousand things going on. Especially while producing, as it’s a job you can never stop. Even when you close your computer, you’re still problem solving in the background. So it’s hard to give the development process the right amount of attention. And all of this led me to the second most difficult thing: take a leap of faith. I gave up my steady and nice job at the production company to focus solely on my writing and directing career. All my eggs are in this basket now and it’s terrifying to think it might not happen. I guess I’ll deal with it. But I’ll put 100% into it, and if it doesn’t happen at least I won’t have any regrets. But it will be such a cool film, so it should really happen! 

Currently I’m building the world, that is my favourite part. And I cannot wait to be in preproduction and find all the HoDs to see my world becoming reality. 

This is what makes filmmaking such a magical process of creative inputs and collaborations. That’s what I’m most looking forward to…the creative chaos!