I run to you, Riccardo Milani: “Disability deserves neither pietism nor indifference”

He is a wealthy entrepreneur, selfish, liar and self-centered, willing to do anything to win a woman, even to pretend to be in a wheelchair. She is a committed, sensitive and cultured violinist, who plays tennis, who really moves in a wheelchair due to an accident. They are the two protagonists of the romantic comedy I run to youproduced by Vision and Wildside, and a remake of the French film Tout le monde debout. He is now in the cinema, after a series of postponements due to the pandemic, with an unprecedented duet: Miriam Leone and Pierfrancesco Favino (to complete the cast: Vanessa Scalera, Pietro Sermonti, Pilar Fogliati and an extraordinary Piera Degli Esposti). Riccardo Milanidirector, screenwriter, author of hits such as All crazy for loveon tv, and Like a cat on the ring road or Welcome President on the big screen. Its only common denominator? “Irony does not mean superficiality”.

How do you deal with a delicate issue such as that of disability?
«The initial push was to be able to make a film on a delicate theme, trying to make the audience laugh and trying to reach as many people as possible. Try to reach people very different from me, to possible Gianni, thanks to the humorous register of the comedy. Disability is unfortunately a subject that is not dealt with in our cinema ».

Is irony the key to talking about everything?
“As soon as this project started, I wanted to involve associations that deal with disabilities. We have had by our side people who are masters of the subject, they have become our consultants. And the politically incorrect came to us from them, something that at first completely blew me away. Kids with disabilities who made irony about themselves, kids who were unfair, aware and free, kids overwhelmed us with their jokes. And they taught us that things must be told by their name, without filters ».

What else has he learned?
“I took a deep breath of their desire for normality. They look for normality in the eyes of others. And not the pietistic attitude, or the worst one of indifference ».

Why Miriam Leone and Pierfrancesco Favino?
«I first met Pierfrancesco and then Miriam. They are two very different people in life, but they are also two very different actors, they come from opposite paths, but in them I immediately found a crazy adhesion to the narrative path of the characters. Something clicked immediately and I like it a lot because it means that cinema still retains the magic of encounters ».

On the Net there are those who wrote, even before the release of the film: “It would have been nice to see a really disabled girl”
“Since I have been doing this job in all my films, I have always tried to have credibility in the staging. This is why I have always focused on the preparation of the actors, on their skill. In the history of cinema, actors have pretended to be anything, what matters is their preparation, Miriam has had people with disabilities next to her who have helped and supported her ».

Do you really believe that the Gianni can change?
«I think that in life there can be changes of direction, and I believe that some episodes can be decisive in the path of change. When life puts you in front of things, even in a harsh way, you acquire a little awareness. Observing the social life of this country, realizing the level of hardness of certain moments, I always think that people can become aware of things. And that from there we can start again ».

I run to you he had started filming it before Covid. Would you ever have thought that a film of him would at some point be blocked by the outbreak of a pandemic?
“Absolutely not, then it happened to everyone. I will take this film with me also for this reason, it was marked by the passage from an era of normality to a period that the history of humanity will always remember. We had to stop when there was only one day left to shoot, a day that we then recovered after four months. And I remember that was the first time I left home. “

Unlike many of her colleagues, however, she wanted to wait for the release to the cinema, giving up an advance on the platforms.
“I also did it because I believe it is important to defend the social life of all of us. The platforms have helped us a lot when the emergency asked for it. In those moments we bought everything from home, from food to clothes, but now we have to go back to our social normality. We have to go out, share ».

Do you remember the first time you went back to the cinema?
“I took my daughter, we went to see a cartoon. We wanted her to be the first to return to the cinema, to return to normality ».

Having to choose one, only one, which is the film that has stayed with you the most?
“The usual unknown. It came out in the year I was born, and then it made a big difference to me. The need to be popular, to speak to everyone, to tell the country’s dramas through the tone of comedy, this is the cinema that I like. And what I try to tell ”.

In I run to you there is no wife, Paola Cortellesi.
«I made some films with Paola, nor will I make others, it’s normal like this, I don’t see anything strange in them. We will return to work together, as I would like to work again with Pierfrancesco and Miriam ».

In this film, however, there is the great Piera Degli Esposti, who then left us last summer.
“It was great working with her. We have often worked together, we shared friendships, evenings, nights in the mountains, we had a great time together. Piera was very funny, her humor was refined, very high. Piera told wonderful jokes, one of the many things that I will carry with her are the jokes she told us at night. She would have enjoyed watching this movie very much. I have only one regret, not having shown it to him before, I wanted him to see it in the hall, at the cinema, then unfortunately it didn’t happen. And I carry this little extra pain with me ».