Interview by Alessandro Chiodo CCS
We would like to thank Matteo Cinelli for the set photographs
Emanuele Zarlenga CCS, cinematographer, and Andrea Marini, director… you recently collaborated on a project for the Beretta brand: Born From A Spark. And I know that your collaboration goes back a long way. When and how did you first meet?
AM It was 2014. I was living in Rome at the time, looking for a cinematographer for a project, when I came across Emanuele’s photographic work on social media — it caught my attention immediately. Even then, he already had exceptional technical skills, particularly in high-speed cinematography. The project involved creating a series of portraits using a Phantom Flex 2K, a camera built for shoots requiring an extremely high frame rate. It was one of the first substantial advertising projects I had taken on. I asked a close friend of mine, the DIT Francesco Giardiello, what he thought of him, and Francesco said, “He’s an artist!” I replied, “Exactly!” It made me laugh. That really sums Emanuele up: he has always combined a solid technical grounding with a deeply artistic sensibility. I still remember our first meeting vividly. He arrived carrying three books. I can’t recall the third, but the first was on Bill Viola, and the second was The Art of Colour by Johannes Itten. His approach struck me. It wasn’t confined to the commercial we were there to discuss — it pointed to a broader philosophy. That was how our collaboration began, and it grew stronger quickly. After several shorter projects, we worked together on my second documentary feature, Ferrari 312B — an ambitious, at times chaotic undertaking. In short, it’s a partnership that has lasted.
Ten years of collaboration and an extraordinary number of projects together… Emanuele, who is Andrea Marini?
EZ Over the years, Andrea has become my closest friend. He is the only director I have encountered in my career with such a strong connection between the material and intellectual dimensions of his work. When he conceives an effect or a way of telling a story, he never replicates something seen elsewhere. Instead, he follows an inner process that absorbs and reshapes all his experiences. This makes him deeply creative in building narrative language, both in advertising and in cinema. In Andrea’s work, you never encounter anything that feels derivative — and that is a rare quality. He is not the kind of director who arrives on set and asks, “Emanuele, how should we do this?” By the time he presents a project, he has already developed a precise vision, both technically and aesthetically. He proposes a clear direction and invites my thoughts. That is when our real exchange begins: an open dialogue — technical and aesthetic in equal measure — that evolves through discussion and, between the two of us, unfolds with a naturalness and harmony that I find quite rare.
From what I understand, it is about translating an idea into images.
EZ Yes. Andrea is a complete director in the fullest sense — he pre-visualises every dimension of the work: the technical, the aesthetic, and of course the narrative. By the time we arrive on set, we can focus almost entirely on the emotional and performative truth of the moment, because everything else is already settled. We know why we chose that particular lens, why the camera is positioned in that corner, why the actor needs to make a certain movement, and how that gesture will connect to the scene that follows. It is a process grounded in deep awareness from the very start. Over the years I have learned to give him more and more space on set — to protect his time and freedom to work with the actors — because I believe that is the true key to a successful project. If the actor cannot deliver the necessary emotion, you lose 50 to 60 percent of a scene’s impact. You may craft a flawless image, create the most spectacular effect, or achieve the most sophisticated cinematography, but if human intensity is absent — if there is no inner life behind the character’s gaze — everything loses its meaning. At the same time, working with Andrea is demanding. You need to know precisely what you are doing. He has a deep understanding of cinematography: he knows what a lens is and what it does. With a director who is so technically accomplished, there is no room for improvisation, and you cannot afford to be less prepared than he is.
Somewhat in the Kubrickian tradition. It is a form of directing that demands complete command of both technique and creativity. I imagine it is a constant challenge, and one that fosters mutual growth.
EZ: It is an ongoing exchange, built on shared instincts, expressed through an immediate interplay of glances.
Turning to Born From A Spark, how did the project come about? Is it a commercial? A documentary?
AM Born From A Spark belongs primarily to the world of advertising, more than to any other genre. That said, it takes certain turns and becomes something of a hybrid. Its opening section may recall a documentary, following the factory floor and the production processes, yet it is not truly one. It then shifts into the past and adopts a more classical narrative form, with a degree of experimentation along the way. As I said, it is a hybrid — but it clearly operates within the dynamics of conception, development and delivery that define advertising. We had previously completed another project with Beretta, something quite different, centred on the world of luxury, with greater room for abstraction and suggestion. Beretta is a historic company celebrating its 500th anniversary this year — the only company in the world to have remained under the same family ownership for so long. The project was also shaped by the work of the agency responsible for all of Beretta’s corporate communication. We were asked to mark this anniversary, this extraordinary longevity, and the film grew in particular from the idea of moving backwards through time. I built the concept around the birth of a spark. In advertising there are many possible approaches: one can take a didactic route, adhering closely to the brief, or one can overturn everything and assert a personal vision. In this case, I chose to remain faithful to those two central ideas and constructed the entire film around them.
Could you go into more detail about how you developed the piece?
AM I needed to construct a narrative framework around the premise of moving backwards through time — beginning in the future and arriving in the past — framed by an opening and a closing that exist outside time altogether: the river. It could easily have become a very traditional film, and in certain sections it is, particularly once we enter the early 1900s, but I did not want it to be entirely conventional. That is also why I chose to blend different genres. It was a process of creative proposal on the director’s part, in continuous dialogue with the agency and the client. We already had an established relationship with Beretta, so there was trust. They are probably the best client I have ever worked with: once they decide to collaborate with you, they fully embrace your vision, with great respect and genuine encouragement. From my perspective — and from Emanuele’s as well — the approach was almost that of a short film. Within the framework we had built, we were able to make more authorial choices than advertising typically allows. The result was a genuinely healthy and stimulating balance.
Emanuele, I also sensed elements of contemporary art in the film. From this collaboration, from this initial idea and from the different components you brought together, something quite remarkable emerged — as it had in your previous project as well, The Legacy of Beretta. 500 Year Old Company , about Beretta’s origins, there is that rifle suspended in mid-air, the faces… There is one face in particular that immediately captures your attention — dark, with half of it barely visible… The woman with the net… All elements that feel out of the ordinary. It seems to me that a significant part of your work lies in constructing the image on set, perhaps combined with a virtual component as well. Tell me more.
EZ Both Andrea and I are deeply drawn to the thinking of Carlo Rovelli and, more broadly, to philosophical reflections on time. We are fascinated by the idea that time is not an absolute entity but a construct — something human beings perceive, shape and alter. We ask ourselves how it can be slowed down, accelerated, fragmented; how this seemingly invisible flow can act upon matter to the point of distorting a face, an identity, a human presence. This tension was already present in the earlier Beretta projects, albeit in a different form: the attempt to arrest time, to suspend it. The almost deformed, almost Bacon-like faces were not conceived as an aesthetic effect, but as a way of situating ourselves within a temporal abstraction. We wanted to move away from canonical forms and enter a space where the image was not descriptive but perceptual. In Born From A Spark, thanks to the client’s trust — a rare and precious condition — I was able to approach the project as though I were making a film. I did not think in terms of commission, but of authorial responsibility. I said to myself: this is my film. Even during colour correction, I did not ask what might be pleasing, but what was consistent with the vision. It had to convince me and the director before anyone else. The structure of the work grew from a clear awareness: we had to move through different eras, mark them out, make them tangible. To that end, we devised a narrative system built on format and lens choice. The camera became a temporal instrument — by shifting formats and optics, the very perception of time shifted with it. The concept was simple in formulation but rigorous in execution: each era with its own language, each moment with its own visual substance.
Could you elaborate on how a technical choice can define an era, a sense of time?
EZ: We were tied to a specific rental house for budgetary reasons, so the project was conceived within a clearly defined perimeter from the outset. Compromises were inevitable, but we never experienced them as limitations — on the contrary, that was the real challenge: to work with a given set of tools and a precise financial framework, and still build a coherent, radical visual language. Sometimes freedom emerges precisely from constraint. Starting from what was available, I devised a visual system built around format and lens choice. I worked with an ARRI Alexa Mini LF, alternating between Large Format and Super 35, using the sensor shift as a narrative device rather than merely a technical adjustment. Each era needed its own temporal density, its own rhythm of breathing.
The future — embodied by the woman and the emerging eye — was our conceptual point of departure. I chose a Laowa Probe T8 on LF, a lens that produces an almost synthetic, plastic sensation. For me, the future is also this: no longer crystal, but industrial material, resin. An image that is no longer pure, but constructed. Moving into the Beretta factory in Gardone Val Trompia, we remain in large format with Cooke S8 lenses. Here the image becomes crystalline again — contemporary, solid. This is the present: technology, precision, control. Gradually, we begin introducing filters, as though time itself were starting to settle upon the image.
With the transition to the robots — the junction between contemporary automation and the manual memory of the 1970s and 1980s — everything shifts. We reduce the format, moving to Super 35 with Bausch & Lomb and Super Baltar lenses. The image compresses, depth of field increases, it loses air. This is a denser, more mechanical time. Crystal becomes memory. The trajectory of the lenses follows a precise conceptual arc: from the plasticity of the future to the materiality of the past — from synthetic surfaces to the vibration of 1960s glass, through to the Baltars that carry us back to the 1930s. At this stage, filters become an emotional instrument. For the 1930s sequence, I used a Hollywood Black Magic filter to create a bloom reminiscent of the organic response of film stock — not as nostalgic quotation, but as perceptual transformation.
With the nineteenth century, another shift occurs. After passing through a more modern and then a more austere aesthetic, we enter painterly territory. I return to large format and select the only anamorphic available, a Cooke SF Special Flare 1.8. It is an almost counterintuitive gesture: anamorphic not to magnify spectacle, but to create distance — to evoke a temporal dimension that is no longer chronological but iconic. I wanted the image to resonate with late nineteenth-century painting: not historical reconstruction, but visual memory. Ultimately, that was the essence of the entire project — not to represent different eras, but to make them felt.
Scarica in PDF il concept di utilizzo delle varie lenti in rapporto alle epoche rappresentate.
And there is also, Andrea, a significant relationship with production design and with visual effects — elements that are visible, yet almost imperceptible at the same time.
AM: I want to be clear about one thing: there is nothing artificial in anything I do, or in what Emanuele and I create together. I believe deeply in the craft of this work. I avoid artifice as much as possible. I am drawn to what is tangible and real — to the unpredictability it offers and even to the imperfections that come with it. In essence, what you see involves very discreet technical interventions, and then there is the production design. One of the true pillars of this project was the production designer I often work with, Fabrizio Moschini. Since we first met, we have built a strong creative partnership. He comes from theatre and cinema rather than advertising — another man of action, extremely pragmatic, yet deeply cultured, and never in a self-indulgent way. We worked across all the historical periods, but the most demanding sections were the late nineteenth century and the sixteenth century. Given the relatively tight budget for what we set out to achieve, we worked closely with the client on locations, arranging to shoot within their own spaces. I also valued working with non-professional performers — we could never have found actors who were also genuine master gunmakers.
Are you telling me that, in the forge, we are seeing people who genuinely know how to handle those tools? And that the metal is truly incandescent?
AM: Yes. Even the iron fragments scattered on the ground were real — we discovered they created a powerful visual effect, so before each take we would throw red-hot pieces into the water and onto the floor. It was a rather rock’n’roll approach, but that is precisely what made it exciting. Everything is real. We brought these craftsmen in and, together with my first assistant director, Matteo Polo, gradually guided them through the process. They had no idea what we were shooting — whether we were a local television crew or Scorsese. I worked step by step: “Come here,” “Stand there.” I placed the team leader at the front, dressed in costume, and immediately the atmosphere shifted. Then one worker, then another, then another — positioning them, stopping, adjusting, refining. When the lighting came in, it became a set. There was no other way to approach it. Everything is authentic, achieved through countless small adjustments and an enormous amount of lighting work. Emanuele and I both knew the forge had to feel nocturnal — otherwise it simply would not have worked. Too much would have been visible, the backgrounds would have caused problems, and those were complications not worth taking on. For the nineteenth and sixteenth-century sequences, we used a historic hammer forge in Bienno — a beautiful location, though not the easiest to work in. The production designer spent an entire week there, working by hand. In fact, both sequences were shot in the same space, just from slightly different angles, yet we managed to differentiate them convincingly.
So there is very little… compositing involved. On that note, Emanuele, let’s talk about the rather astonishing shot with the 360-degree movement passing through the water. It might appear to have been digitally reconstructed… There is the barrel of one of the rifles being immersed in a bath, and we see how the metal reacts in the water.
EZ Perhaps Andrea should be the one to tell this story, because I have to admit that while we were shooting, the first assistant director and I kept asking him, “Are you sure this will work?” And he would say, “Yes, yes, it will work.” And we would look at each other and say, “All right then — it will work.”
My focus was primarily on the lighting, because I had to reconcile two very different worlds: the nineteenth century, built around purplish neutrals and a softer atmosphere, and the sixteenth century, dominated by reds and the warm tones of candlelight. Two distinct chromatic universes that nonetheless had to speak to one another. Making those worlds coexist while shooting with a Phantom camera was a challenge — it required great delicacy to ensure it would integrate seamlessly with the material shot on the ARRI ALEXA.
This kind of shot has become part of our visual language over the years. In the previous Beretta project, for instance, I created something similar, though conceptually distinct: the gunshot seen from inside the barrel. In that case everything was physical. We placed an explosive charge inside a plexiglass barrel, detonated it, and composited the explosion into the rifle. The idea was to enter the gunshot literally.
The same principle applies here, but in a more complex form. We needed a red-hot barrel, heated on set using a kind of mini-forge, moved by a robot with a perfectly repeatable motion, and plunged into water. An actor — continuous with the nineteenth-century character — simulated the action of lowering it into the basin. We worked with suspended powders in the water: it had to feel like nineteenth-century water, not clean. That particulate matter was essential — it made the light visible and gave the image substance.
As the barrel enters the water, the camera rotates to follow it, passing between the two temporal worlds. When it crosses into the other era, the light changes completely. Within that single tank of water, two universes coexisted — the nineteenth and sixteenth centuries — merging within the same space. I had to synchronise two robots: one for the camera movement and one for the barrel, so that everything would be fluid, precise and repeatable. On top of that, we used lighting cues and dimming transitions to allow two distinct luminous energies to inhabit the same environment: candlelight and daylight. The artificial and the natural met.
Then something partially unexpected happened. We had anticipated the water’s reaction around the barrel, but it spontaneously took on an almost fairy-tale quality. The spheres of water forming around the metal caught the light in a surprising way. When I saw them, I felt they evoked the atmosphere of a romantic film — something bordering on magic. I had simply tried to recreate the two worlds as photorealistically as possible. The unexpected dimension came on its own.
We were speaking about time earlier. Paradoxically, the only truly tangible time in physics is thermodynamic time. And that barrel entering the water — symbolically moving from the nineteenth century to the sixteenth — triggers a thermodynamic process: the water shifts from liquid to vapour. It is a concrete, physical transformation. And it is precisely there that time becomes visible.
There is no artificial intelligence involved here, but Andrea, as a director, and you, Emanuele, as a cinematographer — how do you approach this new development?
AM I work from a fundamental principle: the moment experimentation and craftsmanship disappear, I am not sure I would still want to do this job. If you remove the relationship with another human being, with a physical element, with unpredictability, with error, with process, with research, with the time it takes to find a solution — the human mental process itself — if all of that were to vanish, which I do not believe it will, then it would no longer be worth doing.
AM We are living today inside an exaggerated bubble around AI — a form of sensationalism amplified by people who approach this profession with entirely misguided assumptions, and for equally misguided reasons. I believe, on the contrary, that it can be an excellent tool at various stages of production, pre-production and post-production. In post-production especially, I see it as a remarkable instrument capable of streamlining many processes. Post houses, in fact, should be the first to develop genuine expertise in this area. It can also be very interesting for pre-visualisation.
The question I have been asking myself since AI became such a dominant topic is: what can I do with it that is truly innovative? I have not yet found an answer. When I do, I will certainly use it. For now, most of the time, it feels like a shortcut. And I do not believe that human beings truly need shortcuts.
And you, Emanuele — what is your view?
EZ: I agree with Andrea. I see AI as a useful tool, particularly in colour correction. It now allows you to remove or isolate backgrounds from characters, to separate space with a level of precision that was far more difficult to achieve with traditional grading software — and that opens up the possibility of refining the lighting in ways that are both precise and intentional.
It is a powerful tool, but it remains just that — a tool. Ultimately, it all depends on how you choose to use it.
Born From A Spark is a project for a company that manufactures firearms. Beretta is also culture, hunting heritage, history, safety… there are many dimensions to it. Yet in a conflicted moment such as the one we are living through, it might have raised certain concerns. What is the relationship between aesthetics and ethics? Forgive me — perhaps it is an uncomfortable question.
AM: No, it is an entirely legitimate question. Emanuele and I came to this project after a previous collaboration with Beretta that, from an ethical standpoint, was arguably less open to criticism, as it centred on hunting culture and the sporting dimension. That said, any large-scale commercial project can raise similar questions — one need only think of certain sectors of the food industry or the pharmaceutical industry.
In any case, working with Beretta means engaging not only with people who are passionate, cultured and deeply respectful, but also with a company oriented towards innovation, towards achieving world-leading results in sport, and towards a relentless pursuit of perfection and craftsmanship. That is something they have always done and will continue to do, while remaining firmly rooted in Italy.
EZ: In approaching this project, I did not start from an ideological position. A weapon is, first and foremost, an object. Like any object, its meaning depends on how it is used and on the historical context in which it exists. It can be an instrument of violence, but also of defence, liberation or protection. History is complex, and the objects that pass through it are equally so. Beretta is a company that has existed for nearly five centuries. That alone places it within a long and layered historical, cultural and industrial trajectory — encompassing the sporting dimension, hunting culture, technical evolution, and the Italian tradition of craftsmanship. For me, telling this story did not mean adopting a political stance, but observing and interpreting a cultural legacy through a cinematic lens.
That said, I believe the relationship between aesthetics and ethics is always an open question, and one that must be approached with responsibility. Personally, I have felt greater discomfort in other professional contexts. I have witnessed episodes of discrimination on set — situations where individuals were excluded because of the colour of their skin or because they were deemed unsuitable for a certain kind of representation. In those moments, I experienced a far deeper unease, because the issue was no longer an object or a narrative, but real people and human dignity. For me, the line lies there: to work with awareness, without prejudice, and with attention to the concrete consequences of one’s choices.
AM That episode captures perfectly the hypocrisy of certain situations — ones that present themselves one way and turn out to be something quite different. From our perspective, as people who practise this profession with art and aesthetics at heart, as a means of dialogue and connection, it is about taking on a project and bringing it into a world that feels genuinely ours: without prejudice, without distorted assumptions. What truly matters is whether there is respect for the work.
Is there anything I have not asked that you would like to add?
AM I would like to add that a project like this, made under the conditions we were working in — with limited resources — simply would not have been possible without the people we had around us and the way we all approached it together. The team that came together across every department was essential. Starting with Emanuele’s department — which, incidentally, included collaborators who were new to him, people he chose to seek out and bring into the project — through to production, who looked for solutions rather than saying “that can’t be done,” and on to production design, costumes, practical effects, the forge itself.
Everyone committed to a vision they genuinely believed in, driven by the desire to create something meaningful and beautiful. And that made me feel an even greater sense of responsibility. In that respect, it was truly special. Many could have said, “Why do this when I could shoot three other commercials in the same time?” Instead, everyone gave everything they had — and then some. It was extraordinary. And it could not have been done any other way.
Thank you for the time you have devoted to Collettivo Chiaroscuro.
