No.she had never learned of the candidacy in class, at school, nor won a David di Donatello in Romethe most important prize of the Italian cinema, at 17, as a sensational outsider.
Swamy Rotolo (pronounced suomi), Calabrian from Gioia Tauro, name borrowed from Indian culture (“Mom is passionate about it, it has a nice meaning: love and wisdom. I like it so much”) and black eyes in ink tip, is the Millennial who rewrote the hierarchies of an Orthodox ceremony until the explosion of joy of the Rotolo family – Claudio and Carmela, the parents, Grecia, Swamy and Giorgia, the daughters – hired as a whole by Jonas Carpignano, 38-year-old talent of the camera, a trilogy dedicated to our South, each film a prize: To Chiara, Bildungsroman of a teenager forced to grow up fast by the discovery that her beloved father is affiliated with the ‘Ndrangheta, has the realism power of non-acting acting, galloping along by the raw but dazzling instinct of the thoroughbred, Miss Rotolo.
Swamy Rotolo, what do you remember, coldly, of the David night?
My scream when I heard my name, then I didn’t understand anything anymore. It was a moment too big for me: I have the problem that emotions eat up memories and then I have nothing more to tell. But I am learning. As anxiety rose, I imagined myself in my bedroom, in Gioia Tauro, and I forced myself to remain calm.
It worked?
No! Like at school before the interrogations … I finished the fourth year of Health Biotechnology at the Severi technical institute, next year I will do my high school diploma. But I’ve already decided what I want to do when I grow up: the actress. Without school I would already be in Rome, where my sister Greece is studying, taking a course in diction and then the Academy or the Experimental Center.
Swamy Rotolo: “I love Alba Rohrwacher”
From Gioia Tauro to the capital is a good leap.
Oh, sure, in Rome it won’t be like us in Calabria, that you park everywhere… How many cinemas are there in your place? One, where with my friends we try to go as often as possible. It is the only one in the whole plain of Gioia Tauro, it serves ten countries. A historic theater, in crisis like all the cinemas in the world: in my small way, I try to make a contribution.
Carpignano is more than a mentor: a brother, he defines him.
I met him when I was nine, through my aunt: I went to audition for his second film, A Ciambra. Jonas knows everything about me. When he offered me the lead role in A Chiara, I initially didn’t feel like it, but he knows how to take me: he convinced me. Thanks to Jonas I discovered a talent.
Your reference points in acting?
I love Alba Rohrwacher, a wonderful person: when I met her at the Venice Film Festival, tears came to my eyes. The Wonders, directed by his sister Alice, is the film that made me want to act: it is the story of three sisters, like us.
What was it like acting family with your family, Swamy?
Strange. Dad and I left lazy, getting passionate day after day. There are very intimate dialogues between father and daughter: the most difficult scene was that of the confrontation with him fugitive, when I look for him to give me explanations and he passes me the cigarette, a gesture as an equal. Thanks to the film we have changed individually and as a family, and we will carry this with us forever.
Will it be difficult to cut the cord with Carpignano and rely on another direction and another working group?
It is my great challenge. But Jonas at the end of the last scene of the film, the one at the birthday party where I am really melancholy because I know perfectly well that the magic is about to end, he pulled me aside. Go your own way, Swamy, she told me crying.
What is the fiercest fear?
Not to be as good as everyone tells me, or not to be good enough. I think a lot is due to Jonas, who taught me that life is not a trivial thing and that gratitude is never taken for granted.
Who has given you the best advice so far?
Dad: stay as you are. He repeats it to me almost every day!
Swamy Rotolo: “With my license I’ll go straight to Naples”
And the best compliment from who came to you?
By Toni Servillo. At the David there was a meeting after the awards ceremony, like a teacher to a pupil. He took my cheeks in his hands: you are good, he told me. And he filled me with kisses.
But in short, after David as best actress, has life changed or is it always the same?
Initially it was a bit traumatic: suddenly everyone in Gioia Tauro noticed me! Journalists came to school to interview the teachers, the country made its support felt. Then everything went back to the way it was before. There is a phrase that Chiara says in the film, when she cuts her shadow line: “From now on, I decide what I do”.
I bet it mirrors it.
Very very much! My sister tells me everything, but I have a different character, I am more reserved: every now and then I like to retire to my bedroom and be with myself. Quarrels with mine are unleashed because I do not listen, I do my own thing. I dream of independence!
On August 14, when he turns 18, he will get it. The first thing you plan to do?
The driver’s license, I can’t wait. I’m dying to go wherever I want, aimlessly. We made a pact with my five historic friends since childhood: the first one who gets her driving license takes all the others to Naples for a walk, a pizza and a coffee.
Is voting a right / duty that you will enjoy exercising?
I am so curious about politics that it seems to me a very strange world from the outside. As a young person today, I will be able to choose who to vote in an informed way: after all, we are the future. I am an optimist. I hope for greater protection of the rights of the LGBT community and that the Zan bill against homotransphobia will sooner or later resume its path.
“Jonas’s film exported our south to the world”
As a Millennial, do you live attached to social media?
Well, I frequent social media, of course: all except Facebook, which seems a bit outdated to me. However, when I study or are with friends, the cell phone is silent. And more than my images, I post photos of what I like.
Because a tiny but powerful movie like To Chiara did he split, Swamy?
Why did you reach the audience and the jurors of the Film Academy like a laser beam? It’s not me, that’s the message: we people from the South are not how they categorize us. In Gioia Tauro I have not seen a shooting or a criminal act in 17 years. We do not live lazy, closed at home doing nothing: I live the life that everyone lives between school, friends, the gym. Abroad they are hungry for Italy and knowledge: they knew nothing of the Calabrian reality and Jonas’ film finally exported it to the world.
iO Donna © REPRODUCTION RESERVED