4 Questions for Rolando Colla

Why this story?

I wanted to tell the story of a man who has withdrawn himself, because he wanted to break free from others, and above all from love.

Ivan is a botanist and lives in the world of botany, writing academic articles and he runs a herbarium. He has given up on love, or at least so he thinks. And then one day, he is contacted by Francesca, his brother Richard’s girlfriend. Both Francesca and Richard are ex-junkies, who want to get married on a small Sicilian island.

So Ivan, who has finished with love, comes to organize a celebration for love.

I was interested in showing that Ivan is repressing his own problems. He doesn’t talk about his failures for a long time, and looks for reasons to blow off the celebrations – because he doesn’t feel like partying at a wedding, and even less so with his brother, for whom he seems to have little sympathy. It suits Ivan that few people live on the island, and the locals are keen make as much income as possible from the festivities, but also that the island only has one run down hotel and the lighthouse, where his brother wants to spend their wedding night, is out of order. This is where Chiara, Francesca’s best friend, comes to the island to help with the preparations, and sees things differently; for her everything is possible, and of great importance to the married couple.

Thus begins a struggle between withdrawal and commitment, between selfishness and generosity. Chiara finally manages to pull Ivan to her side. He gets his grip together, and goes to the lighthouse to clean up and set up the matrimonial bed for the wedding couple. He comes out of his closed world, and as his spirit awakens, he finally awakens his need for closeness and vitality.

“Seven Days” is the story of a man who returns to life.

The island itself also comes back to life. It happened to me several times, to find myself in a place I considered to be devoid of life, because I wanted to keep it lifeless, to have my peace, and instead I was surprised, because life comes to find us, even if we hide. This sounds abrupt, yet this is a deep and existential experience; even when we retreat, life calls us to back to play our part.

“Seven Days” is also the story of a man in the second half of his life – a second rite of passage of some sort – who is disappointed by love, but more precisely by his ability to love. It is also a personal story that is connected to my own life and age.

The unavoidable happens; Ivan develops feelings for Chiara. He feels that Chiara is attracted to him too, but is afraid to let him in, which is why he has the unusual idea of having a relationship with her only for a few days, to avoid the bad that comes sooner or later. He wants to keep love at bay. Chiara finds the proposal courageous and therefore agrees.

But Ivan is unable to keep his cool and his feelings grow stronger than his plan. He feels jealous of Stefano, Chiara’s real life partner, and he projects his own failings on her relationship, though he’s not necessarily mistaken either. But he loses control of his feelings, and when he calls his ex-girlfriend he wants to understand what happened and what went wrong.

For me, it is essential to see how Ivan changes over the course of the film. As he gets closer to his brother, he accepts his confusion and he fights with Chiara. It would have been easy to let him fail with Chiara, but I did not want that. Chiara also wants a change, and wants to leave Stefano for a more intense life.

“Seven Days” is a film against the resignation. For me, it is also a plea for a passionate love story, and ability of a man to break away from his slumber and change.

Why did you chose the small island of Levanzo as a shooting location?

Levanzo has inspired me since the first time we set foot: with only one small village by the sea, a dilapidated lighthouse, the few beaches with pebbles and wild nature. Even the inhabitants, people with a certain scepticism, have opened up with time, and inspired me. Their songs, their cuisine and their joie-de-vivre are now in the film, especially in the scenes that show the wedding feast, and I’m very happy about that.

Why this cast?

For the female leading roles (Chiara and Francesca) I had the fortune of working with two actresses that I knew from previous films: Alessia Barela acted in “Giochi d’Estate”, Linda Olsansky in “Einspruch VI”. I could count on the fact that they are both natural and spontaneous and they are willing, during long weeks of rehearsals, to define exactly their characters and completely identify with them. For the casting of the male leading roles I asked Alessia and Linda to be involved and I chose with them.

Both Bruno Todeschini (Ivan) and Marc Barbé (Richard) were willing to have intense rehearsals, and I think it was worth it. Ivan at the beginning of the film is not really nice, he is arrogant and in some ways childish. Todeschini has accepted and lived these aspects of Ivan’s personality making the change as main character of the story even stronger.

For the inhabitants of the island I’ve worked with Sicilians actors and actresses, both with professionals and non-professionals. I was particularly struck by Aurora Quattrocchi, who acts as the owner of the hotel, and by Gianluca Spaziani, the lightly handicapped son, I find their islanders’ discretion very personal.

The guests of the party, friends of Richard and Francesca, are mainly ex-junkies. Here as well I wanted to have pure authenticity.

The choir is composed by singers between the age of 60 and 75 that live in Palermo and in their free time sing; only the soloist is a professional. We found the musicians in a senior center in Palermo, and they play by ear.

Why this style of story telling?

The film leaves a lot unsettlement and invites the public to know about the past of the characters, with some hints inside the story itself. What happened in the past to Ivan and especially to the newlyweds is particularly eventful, but “Seven Days” is a pretty calm film. I think there is more power in silence than in noise. I also think that a story that is anchored in the Here and Now has a stronger emotional impact. This is the reason why I avoided flashbacks and I restricted myself to the everyday, in which the action develops.

Certainly the script is a construction and also the mise-en-scene is the product of creative intent, there are metaphors and symbols, but I tried to tell the story as it could have happened in reality.

Even though the situation and the locations are exceptional, I wanted to give a feeling of everyday life, let everything follows its course, to have in the film sensual moments and leave in the background the dimension of pain, fears and hopes.

The latest film from Colla, now a relative veteran in Switzerland, “Seven Days” follows up Colla’s “Summer Games,” a coming-of-age tale which played out of competition at 2011’s Venice Film Festival, then screened at Toronto.

“Seven Days” shares with “Summer Games” the sense of a possibly finite time for happiness. Otherwise, it marks another new direction in Colla’s career that begun with the 1998 period drama “Le monde a l’envers,” and also features estranged-sibling drama “The Other Half,” which won its male leads, Kader Boukhanef and Abel Jari, best actor awards at the 2007 Amiens Festival.

Co-starring “Summer Games’”Alessia Barela, “Seven Days” turns on the seemingly impossible love between a man, Ivan, whose brother is marrying on a Sicilian island, and the bride’s best friend, Chiara. Ivan is reluctant to risk repeating the debacle of his last relationship, and Chiara does not want to endanger her marriage. They determine to enjoy their love for just a few days, but it proves much harder to curtail than they planned.

“Seven Days” was shot over 2 months on the Sicilian Island of Levanzo, and is coproduced by Prato/Rome based Emanuele Nespeca (Solaria Film), associate produced by Mario Mazzarotto (Movimento Film) and with the assistance of Paris based Ilann Girard (Artcam Sarl). It is supported by the FOC Schweiss, MIBACT and Regional Fund of Sicily.