EXCLUSIVE: Alongside prepping to shoot his next feature, veteran filmmaker Abel Ferrara is working on a book, he tells Deadline. Entitled Scene, Ferrara doesn’t categorize it exactly as a memoir, saying, “I’m trying to focus it more on the people that I’ve met and all the crazy sh*t in this business and around this business, than on myself. I got some crazy sh*t that’s happened to me for sure.”
Scene is due for release around the middle of next year, in Italy and the U.S. Ferrara wouldn’t be led as to who the American publisher is, but mused, “I can’t believe I actually got a book (deal).”
Ferrara should have plenty of fun material to expound on. Known for his provocative, neo-noir and often controversial content, the versatile indie stalwart has made films including The Driller Killer, King Of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Funeral, a remake of Body Snatchers, and biopic Pasolini.
In the meantime, the director is also getting ready to film American Nails with Willem Dafoe and Asia Argento starring. Ferrara calls it a “gangster film” that’s a modernized take on Greek mythology’s story of Phaedra. Argento will play the Phaedra character. Shooting begins in September in the southern Italy town of Bari.
Ferrara was speaking to Deadline at the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily where he was presenting the Italian dub of his Padre Pio which world premiered in Venice in 2022. The film is due to release in Italy later this week.
The American filmmaker explained that except for the titular character, played by Shia LaBeouf, all the actors were Italian but originally spoke in English. With this version, it’s “the perfect storm… the kids acted in English, they get to watch it in Venice, they get to see it with an audience, they get the movie, they understand what they have to do then they go into the studio and dub it in their own language so they bring a little extra.”
For the Italian dub, Ferrara also employed some AI, “It looks like I directed in Italian, it’s very cool.”
So, no aversion to the controversial technology? “Not yet,” Ferrara said. “It’s progress… It’s like anything else, why are you gonna assume it’s going to be used to destroy you? What kind of paranoid attitude is that? It’s like the internet — if you use it in a positive way, it’s awesome. You’re gambling all night watching pornography, it’s a disaster.” He added, “I don’t know, maybe it’s the end of the world, but I ain’t that kind of guy, I gotta see it to believe it.”
In general of today’s technology, Ferrara contends, “You gotta make this sh*t work for you. You got the phone, you got the computer, you got the internet — you’re self enclosed now.”
Of young filmmakers today, he added, “Take this modern sh*t, let no one rule you. These kids coming up with YouTube, TikTok, you know, all the power to them. You got the world in your MacBook, you don’t have to go begging studios and begging people, just go for it.”
Overall, says the filmmaker who will turn 73 this week, he’s not slowing down. “I got no choice. In this business, you die with your boots on. I’m still functioning and I’m grateful for it.”
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