Meet Alessandro Streccioni | Filmmaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alessandro Streccioni and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alessandro, why did you pursue a creative career?
When I was little my parents -who are musicians- asked me if I wanted to start playing an instrument. I thought about it for a while, but I decided to start playing basketball instead. I didn’t last long. I wasn’t very tall, or particularly skilled. So a few months later I started taking piano lessons, and my dad, who played in the church, taught me the organ. I grew up around a lot of art, and a lot of musical instruments. And we had a little music studio in the house, so one day my dad taught me how to plug things in, and because I was the only one in the family that fit behind the desk, I would help him connect the instruments to the mixer. I became completely obsessed with cables, wires, extension cords, and power outlets, they were my first toys.

Photography started around the same time. My family always traveled a lot, and we had a camera around all the time. So when my parents bought a new one, I took possession of the old camera. I remember one Sunday my dad taught me all the basics of photography while we were taking a walk at the beach. Iso, shutter speed, aperture. And to be really honest I only learned what a five years old could learn, probably not much, but he never talked down to me. So I started taking pictures. And for the following ten years or so, I sort of did it just for fun. Until one day, at my music school, they started a film course, and they needed a couple young people to complete the group, so me and a friend of mine joined. It was a beautiful period of my life, because we didn’t know the rules yet, we didn’t have anything to defend, and we experimented a lot.

One day, completely by chance, I met Guido Michelotti, who at the time had just started DPing for some really big films, and he would let me visit him on set from time to time. I think that was around the time I really fell in love with cinema. And when I had to decide what to do after high school, it came down to either studying film or literature. I applied to Calarts just for fun, because the deadline was way earlier than the other school. I got accepted in the Film/Video program, but I didn’t want to go because for an Italian family the tuition is obscenely expensive. But my parents took all of their savings and told me “No, you’re going”. They were the first generation of my family to go to university, and they understood what it meant. I’m so grateful to them.

So I left Senigallia, my hometown in Italy, without much money, and without really knowing what to expect. I had barely seen any film, but I had a lot of enthusiasm. And little by little I started to realize that creativity was something that could be cultivated, and it could be a tool to exercise our freedom. So this is more or less how I ended up on this path.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
The last film I worked on was filmed in Anzhausen, a town in Germany where my grandparents immigrated in the sixties. They got married and left Italy when they were about 25. My grandpa worked with wood, and he was able to build almost anything with it. He was an incredibly skilled artisan. And my grandma was not just skilled but tireless. They lived in Anzhausen for a decade or so, with a family of Shepherds. Last March, almost a year ago, my grandma passed away in a horrible accident, and I wasn’t able to attend her funeral because I was in the US. I was incredibly attached to her, and this made me feel terrible. So when I returned, I thought that the least I could do was to visit the places where they had immigrated, because their immigration story is not too different from mine after all.

So after a long journey I arrived at Anzhausen, and to my surprise things hadn’t changed too much. In the house where they stayed, now lived the son of the old Shepherd, Joachim, who still takes care of the 350 sheep. I lived with him for a while, during the summer. And just a few days after my arrival, the sheep started giving birth to their lambs. That whole week was an explosion of life, and that’s pretty much what that film is about.

There’s a film by Lubitsch where a man enters a bank, and he’s so taken over by his emotions that instead of writing a check, he ends up writing a love letter on the check. I think about that film all the time. Films should all be like that. You think you’re going to the bank to write a check, and you end up writing a love letter.

I always work from a very personal place. It’s very important for me that my films are born inside of me, but I’m interested in what has not been done yet. I work in a variety of formats, and I love 16mm, but when I’m traveling I mainly shoot digital, which allows me to pack very light, and be very flexible. I make almost everything with a small mirrorless camera and two lenses.

Sound is fundamental in my work. And whenever I can, I make music, it’s always been in me. I don’t make any distinctions between music and sound. I believe that every object that produces sound is an instrument. Music can be the sound of traffic that intersects the bark of a dog. Traffic in a way is like an orchestra, made of little instruments called cars. If you think of cars for what they really are you become depressed, but if you think of them as instruments of an orchestra it’s a lot better.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’d bring them to all the places I love. There are beautiful museums in Los Angeles: LACMA, MOCA, Geffen, the Hammer, the Getty, the Broad. And the museum of Jurassic Technology. I find it interesting how different Italian museums are from American ones. To a certain extent, part of my fascination is not just with the art, but the reasons why different artwork enter a museum, and what’s considered art in different cities, or different cultures. And I think you can read a country very well by looking at what’s inside the museum. But these museums in LA have a lot of my favorite artists: from Baldessari, to Warhol, Nam June Paik, Giacomelli, Henry Taylor…

I would then make a stop at Mount Wilson observatory, where there’s the legendary 100-inch telescope, where Hubble made all of his discoveries about our galaxy. And it’s a very magical place at night. Apparently they left Einstein’s chair in the same position since he visited the observatory in the 30s.

But how could I not bring my guests to the cinema? One of my favorite venues is 2220 Arts + Archives, they always have great guests. WHAMMY! Analog Media is also a great little cinema, where these days they’re also having an amazing 16mm workshop with Mono No Aware.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Well, my parents and my family for sure. I wouldn’t be anywhere if it wasn’t for them. But then all of my teachers, especially at Calarts, because they always treated us like real artists, even when we didn’t believe too much in it, or didn’t deserve it. It’s very important to have someone that trusts you and understands what you’re going through. It’s very easy to be creative on the right day, but on the wrong day, when you don’t believe you’re able to satisfy the expectations you put on yourself, it can really be a matter of leaving everything or not.

Betzy Bromberg, and Julie Murray were fundamental in instilling the love and fun for celluloid. Then, Gary Mairs, that for our generation at Calarts, is an architrave. And more recently, James Benning, and Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias. They really helped me develop an aesthetic, and political idea of cinema, and most all, they always remind me to have fun. They’ve all been crucial in the last few years. And perhaps they made me understand that it’s possible not just to make films for a living, but also to live through our films.

Website: https://alessandrostreccioni.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alestreccioni/

Image Credits
Yuzhi Chen