Threads of Desire by Bianca Di Marco is a beautiful film that shows Bettina, a lonely sheep farmer in an Italian countryside town. She watches as a woman leaves an upscale clothing store only to drop her dress as she gets into a car that drives away. The town believes the dress was stolen and police begin an investigation, forcing Bettini to choose between following her conscience or her fantasy of owning a beautiful gown.
The film is one of six to be presented by the New Jersey Film Festival as part of its Short Program #2 on Friday, February 11. The films showcase the human experience from around the world. Films include ¡Llámame Chinita! by Stacy Chu; Threads of Desire by Bianca Di Marco; Covid Crusader: The Carla Brown Story by Randy Slavin; Memory Builds the Monument by Isaac Yowman; Just Like Water by Manos Triantafillakis; and Joey Skaggs: Fish Condos by Judy Drosd and Joey Skaggs;. The six film package is available to rent from 12:00am on February 11 through midnight.
We reached out to Bianca Di Marco to learn more about the film.
Your website says you grew up in the Italian countryside. Was "Threads of Desire" shot near where you were located? Is it a similar town?
Although I was born in New York City, I spent most of my life living in Florence, Italy. My mom and I moved around a lot so I got to live in different parts of the Tuscan countryside. It was great, and I got to do a lot of exploring with my dogs. Threads of Desire was shot not far from where I used to live, close to Radda in Chianti. The town where it was filmed was Tavarnelle Val di Pesa, the town where one of my best friends lives and where I spent a good amount of time.
I liked how you establish Bettini in the first minute as someone who seems to have a hard life, but who doesn't complain. Is one of the biggest challenges of a short narrative film to create an identity for the characters in a brief period of time?
I think that with short films one of the hardest things to do is to create a convincing world where you present your characters’ objectives and push them against a main conflict. It’s hard to set up, you don’t have much time and you have to get to the point fast, or else you risk losing your audience. I don’t love backstory, and I find it more convincing to show who your characters are through their actions. The setting, actions, their costumes, and the world you place them in (amongst other things) create the backstory necessary for a viewer to understand who your character is and what they want. Or at least this is what I learned while making short films in the last couple of years.
You reveal so much with simple gestures like Bettini putting on the dress, but then realizing the dirt and shape of her nails does not match the picture. The dress makes her feel beautiful, almost reborn. Do you think lives can be changed - maybe even saved - by simple moments like these?
There is a lot that can be felt with simple gestures. For Bettina, the dirt under her fingernails is a reminder that the dress doesn’t belong in her world. She tries to scrub it off in an attempt to fit in, to deserve this dress. Whatever our hopes and dreams are, we’re always striving to reach them, and sometimes something as small and seemingly insignificant as cleaning your nails, or putting on a nice piece of clothing can elevate how we feel about ourselves. I know from seeing my grandmother over the years, someone who spent a big part of her youth working as a farmer, how a beautiful dress made her feel valued and beautiful. Not so much for the world, but in regards to how she felt about herself: strong, empowered, and beautiful.
What is the most difficult aspect of creating a short film?
There are a lot of things that make a short film difficult to make. Primarily I would say that funding a short is the first obstacle. There are not many avenues to get a short film funded and the grants that are available receive thousands of applications. Most of the time, you have to put in savings and charge your credit cards just to get your film shot, and then there is post-production which has many highly technical processes which are difficult to get in in-kind services. Making films is expensive and you need a team to fill the many roles necessary to even shoot them. I was very lucky because I had a wonderful cast and crew who really put their hearts and souls into this project. It made every obstacle we had easier to overcome.
Finally, you made Threads of Desire as part of your graduate film program at NYU, is there a plan for the film after its festival run? Are you trying to get it on streaming services or television?
We’re just starting our festival run with the film and we’re extremely excited to get it out in front of an audience. It’s a great honor to be able to share this little film with people around the country and hopefully around the world. This is one of the reasons I want to keep making films. Although Threads of Desire was made as part of the NYU - Tisch School of the Arts - Graduate film curriculum, it would be great to have it on a streamer or on television. We’re open to any possibility and excited about where it can take us.
Threads of Desire is part of the NJ Film Festival Short Program #2 on Friday, February 11 - one of my favorite days in the spring festival. It includes six films that showcase the human experience from around the world including ¡Llámame Chinita! by Stacy Chu; Threads of Desire by Bianca Di Marco; Covid Crusader: The Carla Brown Story by Randy Slavin; Joey Skaggs: Fish Condos by Judy Drosd and Joey Skaggs; Memory Builds the Monument by Isaac Yowman; and Just Like Water by Manos Triantafillakis. The six film package is available to rent from 12:00am on February 11 through midnight. Click here for more information or to purchase the package.
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