Paris-based Italian director Giacomo Abbruzzese says making the Berlin Film Festival competition cut with his first feature, “Disco Boy,” which toplines German star Franz Rogowski (“Passages,” ”Undine”), is “certainly a dream come true.”
But he also points out that his remarkable debut was a long time coming.
A graduate of several film schools, including France’s prestigious Le Fresnoy, Abbruzzese started developing “Disco Boy” in 2013 following an encounter in a French disco with a classical dancer who had been a soldier.
“I realized that beyond their apparent contradiction, these two worlds had a lot in common, especially when it comes to classical ballet,” the director said, citing “the extreme physical exertion and discipline that they both involve.”
That chance meeting was just a starting point for the film’s complex narrative, which Abbruzese developed at the Cannes Film Festival’s Cinefondation and during a Clermont-Ferrand Festival residency.
But then the film took 10 years to make. Basically “because of the indie film financing world that we live in,” says Abbruzzese, noting that “Disco Boy,” due to its locations, was an expensive proposition. “It’s partly set in Africa, and I didn’t want to make compromises. I wanted it to be radical,” he said.
“Disco Boy” stars Rogowski as a young Belarusian named Aleksei who, on the run from his past, reaches Paris to enlist in the French Foreign Legion, the military organization that allows any foreigner, even undocumented ones, to be granted a French passport after three years of service.
On a mission to the Niger Delta, Aleksei encounters Jomo (Morr Ndiaye), an environmental activist who fights against oil companies that threaten the survival of his village. His sister Udoka (Laëtitia Ky), meanwhile, dreams of escaping, knowing that all is already lost in her native country. As the parallel destinies of these three characters intertwine, the film, which starts out naturalistic, “gradually becomes a bit psychedelic, mysterious, shamanic,” as the director puts it.
Describing “Disco Boy,” Abbruzzese further pointed out that he really wanted it to have “a transnational dimension.” So much so that in casting the actors he deliberately decided that almost none of them should be speaking their own language on screen. “Even the African actors who play Nigerians are not from Nigeria,” he notes.
The film was shot in Île de France, Reunion Island and Poland. Post-production took place between Belgium, Italy and France. The sound post-production was done in Italy and France. The technical team and the cast are of 14 different nationalities, from the Ivory Coast to Croatia through Germany and Nigeria. Casting was carried out over two years.
The film, in the end, was produced by French production company Films Grand Huit, with France’s Charades, which is also selling the film, Dugong Films, who are Abbruzzese’s Italian producers, Donten & Lacroix in Poland, Belgium’s Panache Prods. and financing from France’s KMBO, Canal+ and Ciné+, plus various other funds.
After being delayed by the pandemic, the “Disco Boy” shoot started in the fall of 2021 and lasted just 33 days due to constraints of its relatively hefty, €3.5 million ($3.74 million) budget.
But as the film was being shot very rapidly, Abbruzzese says he was blessed to have been able to enlist ace cinematographer Hélène Louvart, who earlier this year was celebrated by the International Film Festival Rotterdam with its Robby Müller Award. “Hélène is not just a DOP, she embraces the entire film,” the director said. “She’s someone you talk to about everything from locations to the actors’ performances. And she is always receptive to anything I might have to say about the light.”