Italian leading newspaper la Repubblica had a nice chat with Madonna on the phone from New York City to talk about the release of “Sacro e Profano” which hits Italian cinemas today.

When Madonna answered the phone she had just finished rehearsing for the 2009 leg of her Sticky & Sweet Tour and asked someone to bring her a towel. She apologised for the time lap – it was not morning yet in Italy at the time journalist Giuseppe Videtti was asked to call her – and said she had “an exausting day, but now let’s talk about cinema”.

“Filth and Wisdom” is distributed in Italy by Sacher Films, a production and distribution company focusing on quality cinema, led and founded by celebrated director Nanni Moretti. Moretti’s name did not ring any bell in Madonna’s head, though. “Nanni who?” she asked, and had the journalist spell the director’s surname. But she admits she has never heard of him. “I understand that I should be flattered by his interest,” she said cautiously. “For me it is already a success that “Filth and Wisdom” was theatrically released in several European countries. It means that according to the public who knew Fellini and the nouvelle vague my movie is not really garbage bin material.”

Videtti also asked Madonna about her relationship with the art of Federico Fellini. “In 1993 I was looking for a director for the “Rain” videoclip and immediately thought of him and wrote him a letter,” Madonna recalls.

“Well, it was a song from the “Erotica” album, maybe this embarassed the maestro a little bit”, Videtti points out.

“Quite the contrary,” Madonna reckons. “He answered with a nice letter which was a very courteous refusal. Later on I learnt that he was ill at the time and in fact it would have died a few months later. His message written with his unmistakable handwriting is framed here in the living room of my New York house, side-by-side with the Tamara De Lempicka paintings.

“Did the fact of having been for many years maried with a director somehow trigger your decision to direct a movie yourself?”

“Guy Ritchie is not the only cinema-man in my life,” Madonna, who was married to Sean Penn and had a relationship with Warren Beatty, answers. “Directors are visionary artists. I always felt envy and attraction for them. To write and produce a film is an extraordinary challenge. In order to succeed you need to unleash your creativity. For someone like me who for a quarter of a century was on and off with the world of cinema, it was sort of a natural progression. Guy gave me an invaluable tip: trust your intuition.”

“Someone said that, as an actress, you were a thorn in the side of the directors you worked with. It was claimed that you has the entire “Desperately Seeking Susan” screenplay re-written to match your pop star iconic image.”

“Now I understand that it is not pleasant when someone interferes with your work. If you envision a specific project you want to achieve it in your own way. The story in “Filth and Wisdom” was buzzing in my head for a while. It reflects some of my experiences, but there’s more in it. Originally it was meant to be a short film, born from the ideas I had for the H&M commercial. There is the music business in it, that I know very well, but the characters were also inspired by people I actually met along the way, like the lap -ancer or the pharmacist who dreams of doing volunteer in Africa, the two girls who share the apartment with AK.”

“Someone said that it was easy for you to become a director with no actual knowledge of what it really is about, but taking advantage of your pop idol status.”

“I’m not a film trainee. I have made documentaries about life on the road and more recently “I Am Because We Are. My passion for cinema is old but not remote. As a child I was not attracted by the images on the big screen, but when I went to University in Michigan, I discovered Fellini, Pasolini, Visconti, René Clair and the nouvelle vague of Godard. For me it was as the second coming of Jesus Christ. Do you know what present I gave to my friends for Christmas? A private viewing of “Rocco and His Brothers” in my house. If I were to direct the remake of a classic, I’d choose Visconti’s masterpiece. And I’d ask Dolce and Gabbana to design the costumes.”

“Your next priority is the Summer tour. When should we expect your second experience as a director?”

“I’ve got a top secret script ready. We’ll do casting this coming Fall and if all goes well – which is, if I manage to find the money to produce it – I’ll start shooting in January“.

“Pop icon, actress, art collector, now film maker. Isn’t it a risk for an artist like you to venture into new territories?”

“Risk is like amniotic fluid for an artist. I doesn’t scare me, it stimulates me. At 50 years I don’t want to stay closed in a cage. Neither to remain bottled like mineral water. The label that you put on me no longer matches the product? It’s your business not mine”.

Check out the original interview on the online website of la Repubblica by clicking here.

Thanks to Drowned.