Edited by Corrado Serri CCS
Tell us about how the project originated. Did you have a prior connection with the director?
Yes, this is the second film I’ve made with Michael Zampino. Shortly before COVID, I shot his second feature, Governance. Laghat was a commissioned project: the producer, a horse enthusiast, suggested that Michael read Enrico Querci’s book Laghat – Il cavallo normalmente diverso, which tells the true story of an extraordinary horse — a horse with eye problems that nonetheless won a great many races. The producer asked Michael to build a dramatic story around it, with a faintly criminal undertone.
So Michael and the excellent screenwriter Heidrun Schleff — they often work together — built around Laghat’s story the tale of his jockey (Lorenzo Guidi), the son of a somewhat shady art dealer (Edoardo Pesce), who falls in love with the groom who looks after his horse (Carlotta Antonelli), drifting away from his family.
The project required an extremely long preparation period, and I was involved from the very beginning out of necessity, given its complexity. We began working on it in February/March 2024; we shot on a few Sundays in real racecourses during actual races, then the action unit in June, and the main shoot with the actors took place between September and October.
What does the preparation for a film involving real horse races entail? There’s an enormous filmography on the relationship between humans and horses, spanning every genre. I know it’s important to accustom the horses to the presence of the camera and the vehicles…
Working with the horses was the most complex part. In the past I’ve filmed a great deal with these magnificent animals, even as a camera operator, and I’ve built up significant experience with steadicam and handheld work in every possible variation. For this project we had to make very precise technical decisions: we rewatched a huge number of horse films to determine what to avoid — anything that felt too artificial, anything unachievable or too expensive. That was the first step.
From there, we moved on to consider the nature of the project: an Italian film, the first in our country to portray horse racing in this way. The director wanted authenticity; he wanted to see the actor on horseback. We chose Jacqueline Freda as Horse Master, known worldwide as a stunt coordinator for horses. A former equestrian champion and the daughter of a director, she quite literally grew up in the film industry. She gave us essential guidance, on the basis of which all the racing scenes were rewritten.
Initially, we considered hiring a jockey and having him act, but it seemed far too complicated. In the end, we decided to cast a young actor who would instead learn to ride. After numerous auditions we found a boy with remarkable acting talent, who had slightly bluffed about his familiarity with horses — but Jacqueline got him in the saddle and trained him until he effectively became a real racing jockey. There is simply no other way to achieve certain results: horses of that kind require someone capable of asserting character.
Some of the animals we used were film horses, handled by a highly professional team — yet they remained horses — while the racing animals were genuine thoroughbreds. The actor spent four months preparing to tackle the first scenes. Then, to be ready for September and October, he continued training with a further three months of work: rehearsals, exercises, everything required. From February to August he dedicated himself entirely to working with the horses.
Are the races in the film a mixture of real races and sequences you reconstructed yourselves?
Yes, that’s one of the distinctive features of the film. There are three races, and we had to combine recreated scenes with real material shot during actual events that would have been impossible to reproduce. Not even major American productions try to recreate a racecourse from scratch with ten thousand people in it! You can use CGI — and we used it very sparingly — but it’s a complex job.
That’s why we began by filming real races, the most important ones, because the presence of the crowd was essential to the film. We shot the first race at San Rossore: I was working with an old anamorphic zoom that went up to 500 mm, and I found a spot on the track from which, with a single continuous pan, I could film the entire race. By studying the schedule — the day starts early and several races take place — I found the perfect angle to get a complete shot. That’s how we secured that material.
When we watched the dailies, we became even more convinced that we should use that race. We recovered the silks worn by the winning jockey and obtained all the necessary permits — a bureaucratic process that was far from simple. So the first race in the film is a genuine one. The sequence is, of course, edited into several parts, but originally it was a single shot, because we only had one camera.
The other two races, however, were much more complex: in one the protagonist wins, in the other he loses, and we needed to show the horse’s progression. The only way was to create them ourselves. We defined the shots, developed the storyboards, and discussed every choice with Jacqueline and the director in a lengthy preparation process.
On set we arrived with three cameras and a dedicated team. We had a special vehicle, the Panateam Can-Am, capable of following the horses up close — extremely fast and powerful, yet unobtrusive enough not to frighten them. We shot two and a half days of races; every shot is constructed by us, captured with the three cameras running simultaneously.
We used three sets of horses because, even though they weren’t running the entire track, they still needed rest. We rotated them constantly — it was an enormous undertaking. 
I imagine you must have faced continuity challenges in terms of cinematography, given that the footage was shot at different times.
Yes. There was no issue with the first race, because that sequence was independent from the others. When we returned months later to shoot with the actors, we waited for sunny weather. My absolute requirement was that the sun be out. Once that was secured, things were fairly straightforward.
When we filmed each of the two subsequent races over two and a half days — part of a race on one day and part on the next — it often happened that, compared with the previous day, the sky had clouded over, or it threatened to rain, or something else changed. On top of that, we would start shooting in the morning and finish in the evening, so the sun would literally travel around the track!
I brought in skilled camera operators to assist me, and we managed by waiting for the right moments — for instance, when it was overcast, or when the background was in shadow but the horses still had sunlight on them. We also shot the starting gates separately, as they are the most dangerous moment of the race: if you’re stuck in an extremely narrow stall and the horse turns and knocks you down, it can kill you.
The continuity is there, and it works. When reading the script, what were your thought processes in conceiving the visual approach to the film? Did you develop it together with the director or independently?
Michael and I began by discussing the film’s style and how to approach its two different parts: the first centred on the protagonist’s family, and the second on the races. We considered differentiating these two worlds visually: the home environment would be darker, while the racing world would be brighter — horses, nature, children everywhere. But the two worlds ultimately ended up blending together, so the photographic differences are not stark.
What made the strongest distinction was the camera work: we shot almost the entire Roman section — the family environment — handheld, though without overemphasising it, whereas for the world of horses we opted for a more classical style: cleaner images, smoother movements. Except, of course, in the race sequences, which are naturally more “nervous”, given that they involve horses in motion.
How many weeks did you shoot for? And what were your considerations regarding the format and the lenses? The Atlas Orions, in addition to the anamorphic zooms you already mentioned… .
We shot the core of the film — the part with the actors — in five weeks: two in Rome, working five-day weeks, and three in Tuscany, working six-day weeks. In the end, it came to six full weeks, plus a few extra days at the beginning and the action unit days. Altogether, six and a half weeks — a very short time.
I imagine it must have been exhausting, to say the least!
Yes, the Tuscan part was absolutely gruelling.
Ecco la traduzione in inglese britannico:
Did you run any tests before choosing the anamorphic format?
I asked the producer to let me run some tests: both with the horses and with colours — the silks, the chromatic combinations, that whole highly distinctive visual world. I also wanted to create a LUT, which I managed to do with Sergio Cremasco, while at the same time testing different lenses. I already had anamorphic in mind: it seemed perfect for the races, capable of giving them a more epic breadth while still remaining grounded in reality — a more cinematic imprint without betraying the truth. That was my initial idea, but I still wanted to explore other options.
I tested, for example, the Leica R and a full set of Xenons, moving from one aesthetic to another. I did it partly out of personal curiosity, using the same subjects to compare them properly, and partly to show the director the results alongside the anamorphic tests: spherical and anamorphic in parallel, with the same horses and the same jockey colours, to understand what worked best.
We didn’t have the kind of budget that would give us access to top-tier anamorphic series, and so I eventually settled on the Atlas lenses, which I had used before and still regard very highly. First of all, because of their lightness — essential when shooting anamorphic around horses — and then for their price-to-quality ratio, which I find perfect, as well as their optical character, which suited the film wonderfully.
I hadn’t explained any of the technical reasoning to the director yet, but when he saw the tests with the Atlas lenses in the 2.39 format, he said: “This is the film.” That was the turning point.
I then needed a few zooms, and worked with Frankie Scoppelliti at Panalight to make the selection. We needed a medium zoom for the action unit with the horse, to maintain consistent distances and functional framing. Frankie brought out two very old Angénieux zooms: one modified with an anamorphic rear element, and another, also anamorphic, that was very long. I have to say that, even though we were working with the same light, they didn’t give exactly the same result — but the zoom look you see in the races brings, at the edges of the frame, precisely those imperfections I love.
There are some very striking, highly stylised scenes — for example, the very first scene in which the horse is introduced. There seems to be a mixture of techniques: you worked with frame rate, shutter, strobe lights and flickering effects. It feels like a visual language that doesn’t continue into the rest of the film. I wanted to ask why you made these choices for the opening, and how you conceived that scene. It leans towards a genre-film aesthetic — almost horror, I’d say — which the film itself is not.
That element was already in the script: the film opens with an initial moment of madness, a sequence of disturbance. The horse has episodes in which it feels unwell. When horses are unwell, they sweat profusely and produce a rather striking white foam. The film had to begin there. And there’s also a line, repeated perhaps once or twice, about the horse suffering from “moon sickness”. In fact, the film opens with an almost horror-like image: the moon and the horse shut inside its stall.
We shot that scene during the day, and I had to build an entire “hut” of light to immerse the stall in deep night. I pushed even further in that direction, thinking that such a strong opening could work almost like a title-sequence prologue — something that stands apart from the rest of the film before re-entering it.
I also worked extensively with the shutter, as you noticed, and we varied it quite a lot, because all the shots — handheld — were filmed inside the stall with the horse in that state of agitation. You can imagine what that was like… We installed some neon lights, the kind usually found in stalls, some flickering and some not. We liked the effect; we didn’t question too much how realistic it needed to be in that scene.
And let’s not forget that in the story the horse has one blue eye, due to its condition. That detail required three months of VFX work and had to be managed on set as well, because we needed to avoid ending up with fifty minutes of the horse’s eye constantly in frame.
The reference to “moon sickness” is important. There are some truly evocative night scenes in which the moon becomes an integral part of the image, and I imagine you are referring above all to the sequence in which the protagonist returns to his father, takes the horse and runs away. It’s a moment with a wide shot lit quite intensely, and yes, the moon is present and plays a symbolic role as well.
Then there’s the scene in which Carlotta Antonelli’s character reaches the protagonist: there’s a very beautiful dawn moment there. I imagine preparation was crucial in order to shoot within the extremely short window of time that dawn allows. Would you like to elaborate on those very well-lit night scenes?
In agreement with the producer, I decided to make a film lit exclusively with LEDs, from start to finish. We used a 4 kW generator only to power a couple of additional fixtures; everything else — day and night — was LED.
In the night before the finale, for instance, there’s a shot filmed from a small boat moving away from the father’s villa. For that scene, I created a moonlight effect that falls especially on the slope where the horse passes before leaving: we used a very tall crane on which we mounted ARRI SkyPanels and other LED units, bouncing the light and masking certain sources to achieve the desired quality. It felt right to evoke the moon once again, in relation to the horse and to the ending seen from the river. A simple piece of work on the surface, but calibrated with great care.
Which camera did you use, and at what ISO did you set it — especially for these night scenes?
We used an ARRI ALEXA Mini set to 1280 ISO for the night scenes, especially for the final sequence you mentioned — the “dawn” scene, which we actually shot at sunset. We reversed the narrative order during filming because that scene mattered a great deal to me. After several location scouts we had found the perfect spot, but the weather didn’t look promising. That evening I insisted we try: if the sky opened up, it would be ideal. And it did. A bit of luck, of course, but also a bold choice.
We shot everything with the Trinity because, as I said, we had very few usable minutes. I started with the brighter part — the moment when the characters walk away — and worked backwards to the point where the protagonist is waiting with the horse. We filmed the beginning of the scene practically as the sun was setting, and in the edit everything was reversed.
It was a matter of choosing the right moment and the right lens. We arrived an hour and a half early to test what the Trinity could give us: movements, timings, framings. Then, in the final cut, the sequence is further accelerated with a jump cut.
So I imagine you shot the entire scene in about forty minutes, give or take — is that right?
No more than that. Then the colour grading was essential, but we managed.
I find it very interesting that you shot a green film, without HMIs or major tungsten sources. I also noticed some car scenes where you intentionally never polarised the reflections.
At San Rossore — a presidential estate that once belonged to the King of Italy — we found ourselves in an extraordinary place: a vast pine forest crossed by magnificent avenues. Every day I noticed reflections on the car bodies, and I found the idea of a sort of visual storm passing in front of the two young protagonists, accompanying their story, quite fascinating.
So when we went to shoot, I studied in advance the points along which the car should drive. I first did a run on my own, then proposed the idea to the director: mounting the camera on the bonnet for one shot and on the side for another. Michael liked the idea a great deal, and we decided to maintain that style for all the car scenes — even when the protagonist is alone in the car, dancing, singing, moving.
We kept that visual choice precisely because we were immersed in that area full of trees and pinewoods, close to the sea — a place whose beauty, I believe, really comes through in the film.
Yes, it’s lovely that you conveyed the environment through reflections rather than through a more traditional wide shot. Would you like to add something about the post-production and the VFX, which are not intrusive but which I know were quite substantial?
The VFX work was extremely demanding, and I supervised it personally. We had to check every single shot — and there were a great many — to make sure the eye was the correct one, that the colour was right, that the tracking held. I had provided the department with photos I had taken of the real Laghat, today…
…still alive: a close-up of the eye, an irreplaceable reference. The horses that played Laghat were four, each with its own characteristics depending on the scene. This meant we had to make them look as similar as possible, working not only on the eye but also on the markings on the muzzle and body.
So we went into post-production with our Spanish partners, working with the Deluxe laboratory, which has a branch in Spain and provided us with a large and highly skilled VFX department. The director and I went there in person for two days, as it was the best way to explain what we wanted, run tests and define the shape and colour of the eye. It was an intense and very important phase of the work.
And did you do the colour grading with Sergio Cremasco in Italy
I did it in Rome, at Light Cut — a laboratory I hold in high regard — where the sound was also handled. They were originally meant to do the VFX as well, but the co-production took us to Spain instead.
Thank you Stefano.
Director: Michael ZAMPINO
Cinematography: Stefano PARADISO CCS
Camera Operators: Fabrizio VICARI, Alessio BASTIANELLI, Irene CASTROGIOVANNI
ARRI Trinity Operator: Stefano PARADISO CCS
1 Ac: Elena CHIAPPA, Marco DE CHIARA, Lorenzo CATENACCI, Cristian ANDRES BURGOS
2Ac : Vittorio MENCONI, Igor ALLEGRINI, Egidio IORIO
DIT: Dario INDELICATO
Colorist: Sergio CREMASCO
Gaffer: Danilo DI PALMA
Key Grip: Alessandro RAMADORI
Storyboard: Andrea SANNA
