original title:
Mahmood
directed by:
cast:
Mahmood, Dardust, Paola Zukar, Carmen Consoli, Blanco, Anna Frau
screenplay:
Virginia Ricci
cinematography:
Amilcare Canali, Luca Ciuti, Fabrizio Fichera, Dave Miller, Marco Artusi
producer:
production:
distribution:
country:
Italy
year:
2022
film run:
90'
format:
colour
release date:
17/10/2022
festivals & awards:
The docufilm recounts, through Alessandro’s voice, the journey that made him Mahmood. From revelation at the Sanremo festival to global superstar. An intimate film made of lonely moments, important relationships and crowd baths. An inner journey that has music as its backbone and where love and absence find their way to coexist.
DIRECT0R'S NOTES:
Documentaries are an opportunity to discover stories, people, real life. I never like to come in over-prepared, I prefer to have a baseline, and then let along the way I can create my own point of view or opinion about the topic or character that is the protagonist of the film. With Mahmood it was like that. It took time to figure out who exactly I had in front of me. For weeks, on the road, on tour, at home or on off days, we shot what was happening, with an observational approach, without invading his space and pulling things out against his will. Alessandro is a very sociable person but he doesn't open up easily about intimate and personal topics: those he puts into his songs. Even in interviews you need time, you have to earn his trust. We had a chance to photograph up close the wonderful relationship Alessandro has with his mother Anna, the absolute co-star of this film. Alessandro puts a lot of things into his lyrics that he struggles to communicate in his everyday life; that's why very often I opted for a very intimate filming approach during the live parts, not infrequently in a sequence plan, as if those songs, at that moment were a speech, rather than a performance.