original title:
Chutzpah – Qualcosa sul pudore
directed by:
editing:
music:
Diana Tejera, Patrizia Cavalli
producer:
production:
country:
Italy / Switzerland
year:
2023
film run:
70'
format:
colour
status:
Ready (01/06/2023)
festivals & awards:
Chutzpah is a Hebrew word that can be translated as insolent, cheeky,
impertinent. Although the Yiddish word khutspe (חוצפּה ) has a very negative
connotation, the form adopted in American English has also acquired
positive meanings of "boldness."
One of the circulating examples of the word chutzpah is as follows: "A boy is
on trial for the murder of his parents and appeals to the judge's goodness
because he is now an orphan."
In the midst of a personal and work crisis, I start filming everything obsessively:
my parents, grandparents, children, friends, but also myself and
psychotherapy. Some footage is consensual, some is “stolen” and some is
personal found footage - taken over a lifetime, with seemingly no purpose
other than to look at me: who am I?
In putting all this material together, the personal-intimate becomes narrative:
my recent separation, the pain of my children's distance, my parents'
separation, my inadequacy as a mother. Inevitably, in this process of 'coming
out' I clash with the privacy of those around me: that of my mother - who has
always refused to be filmed by me, of my children - who can no longer stand
the camera pointed at them, and finally the psychoanalyst - to whom I
confess my sin and who will force me to make a choice.
The result is a kind of intimate diary that, in becoming public, is perhaps
shameless and obscene. But where are the boundaries between what should
remain private, off-stage, and what can be made public and shared? Today
then? As in the chutzpah example, I struggle to justify my actions, appealing
to a sense of what it means to make films for me.