I wrote the screenplay “On the Line”, two years ago after my daughter’s eleventh birthday. Failing as a mother was always my biggest fear and when I got the O-1 and went to Los Angeles several times for 2 months, my feelings of guilt became overwhelming.
Being pulled between motherhood, partnership, work, dreams and household, I began to have feelings of inadequacy and thoughts entered my mind like “What if…?“ What if I mess it up and later, when my daughter is grown into an adult and we don´t have a connection anymore? What if she grows to hate me? What if she abuses alcohol or worse, drugs? This terrified me because like many, I know people struggling with alcohol and/or drug abuse unable to handle their lives. My heart suffered from all these questions and fears so I decided to voice my fears through a film.
First I wasn´t sure if the film would be about a struggling alcoholic mother or a struggling drug-addicted son and if it would have a bad or a happy ending. When I thought about it deeper, I realized there is no bad guy or good guy. There is just suffering. So I decided to make a film about a mother and a son, both suffering about the loss of their beloved husband or father. Each of them are easing their pain in different ways, but both are captured in isolation and a hard heart.
So I took a budget of 5.000€ and started to create. Of course with that budget I couldn´t afford a crew, so I did everything by myself, writing, setting, directing, catering, taking care of and coaching the actors, wardrobe, framing, sound, light, prop master and whatever else was needed. And I have to admit, it was a hell of a lot of fun! I felt like electricity. This, that, there, getting into my character, then out into directing, then light, framing. All changing in seconds, because we’ve only had 5 shooting days. It was crazy but this reflected my italian soul, my temperament and my love for people and the art.
