Interviews

Interview: Marcello Fonte – Dogman

Published on April 12, 2019

We witnessed a bridge with Italian cinemaʼs past with the pair of comp offerings in Cannes last year. Along with Happy as Lazarro, there are definite strands to Italian Neorealism found in Matteo Garroneʼs Dogman. A four person mounted screenplay, the central character here both figuratively and symbolically, addresses the monkey on the back. The puppy eyed protagonist is played by Marcello Fonte (who once had an uncredited part in Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, who directed his feature debut Asino vola and ended up showcasing it in Locarno back in 2015 , and has a string of important film roles with Corpo Celeste, Dogman (for which he won Bet Actor in Cannes) and has reteamed with Garrone for Pinocchio. I met with actor Marcello Fonte at TIFF and discussed his working relationship with the filmmaker, his character in a laid back and jovial manner as you can see here. Magnolia Pictures release the film today.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).