Interview by Sebastian Bonolis CCS
MOTHERS is about listening.
Because I believe that, today, listening is a political act.
I listened to women on the other side of the world who were compelled to carry children that were not their own, and to parents in my own country living with the constant fear of losing the children they are raising.
Alice Tomassini
I’d like to begin with the origins of the project. How did it come about? Mothers How did Alice Tomassini first conceive the project, and how did you become involved? I’d love to trace its origins.
Alberto Marchiori: Alice began the first phase of the project during a trip to Cambodia with her partner. While she was there, she established a number of contacts and shot the first footage with a local camera operator. Once she returned to Italy, she started looking for a cinematographer to help her develop the project further.
I was put in touch with her through a mutual colleague, Sandro Chessa, who is a friend of Alice’s. We met, and she told me about the documentary and the subject she wanted to explore. I think you would have to be completely lacking in sensitivity to turn down a project on such an important issue. For me, being able to contribute was something that really mattered. We didn’t know each other beforehand, but we clicked straight away. Alice is incredibly energetic and determined, and she involved me from the very beginning. From that moment on, I felt fully committed to the project and to the reasons that inspired it.
Francesca Zonars: This was my third film with Alice. She had told me about the project when it was still just an idea, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to work on it throughout, because the shooting schedule wouldn’t be continuous—as is so often the case with documentaries. I do remember the very first day of filming, though. Alice and I rushed off to cover a demonstration. I can’t remember whether it was before her trip to Cambodia or immediately after she came back, but it was one of those situations where you have to make a decision on the spot and simply get on with it. The demonstration had been organised shortly after the Italian Parliament passed the so-called universal crime law, which allows surrogacy to be prosecuted even when it takes place abroad, in countries where it is legal. What is remarkable is the extraordinary coincidence between the approval of that law in Italy and what was happening at exactly the same time in Cambodia. In Cambodia, legislation had been passed under which some Cambodian women were sentenced to prison and, above all, required to keep the children born through surrogacy with them. The paradox is even greater when you consider that the women carrying the pregnancies have no biological connection whatsoever to the children they give birth to. The eggs belong either to the intended mother or to a donor, while the biological material of the father is provided separately. The stories of the Italian intended parents and the Cambodian surrogate mothers converged before Alice’s eyes. She presented the project to Palomar with the material she had already filmed, and two further chapters were then added—one directed by me and the other by Alberto. I was responsible for the section focusing on the Italian intended mothers, while Alberto was responsible for the extraordinary story of Lia Giartosio Goretti, a young woman born through surrogacy who has since become an activist.
Soffermiamoci sulla presenza, nel documentario, di questi diversi blocchi e suoi vostri diversi sguardi, tra l’altro uno femminile e uno maschile. Ho avuto l’impressione che il film adotti registri differenti, ma sempre guidati da intenzioni estremamente precise.
Francesca Zonars: I think this is one of the film’s most fascinating aspects. The contrast between its different visual registers was both natural and intentional, and Alice chose to embrace that diversity in the edit by structuring the documentary into three distinct chapters: (1) Cambodia and the perspective of the surrogate mothers; (2) Italy and the stories of the intended mothers and their journeys; (3) the story of Lia, a young woman born through surrogacy.
During the colour grade, we decided to emphasise the distinctive qualities of each chapter, because the film naturally seemed to be moving in that direction. In the Cambodian section, the women who had been arrested appeared openly in front of the camera alongside their children, so we worked with brighter, more saturated images.
In Italy, by contrast, the intended mothers were afraid of being recognised and prosecuted. The very first instruction I received from Alice and the producers was: ‘These people must not be identifiable—we have to protect them.’ At first, the idea was simply to obscure their faces in post-production, but that felt unconvincing and had the flavour of television journalism rather than cinema. So we set out to find a genuinely cinematic visual language that would make them difficult to identify. I relied heavily on silhouettes, strong backlighting, and compositions that consistently avoided revealing their faces—focusing instead on gestures, reflections, wide shots, or fragments of the body. For me, that was the real cinematographic challenge.
Alberto Marchiori: For Lia’s chapter—a young Italian woman born through surrogacy, raised by two fathers, and now a committed activist on the subject—Alice made it clear that we needed to give her the freedom to express herself. We had to follow her lead because she’s incredibly dynamic and full of energy. It was important not to burden her with the weight of the filmmaking process. We chose a very lightweight setup: a Sony FX6 with compact zoom lenses and just two lights. We shot a huge amount of material over only four or five days—six at the most—with another camera operator, Michelangelo Maraviglia, and myself. Our aim was to capture Lia’s relationship with her family, her friends, and her life as an activist. We filmed at home, on the terrace, outdoors, and recorded a series of short interviews with her. We also had the luxury of choosing the time of day that offered the best natural light, allowing us to portray Lia in the most truthful way while giving this section of the film a coherent visual identity.
Francesca Zonars:
Alberto Marchiori: This is the kind of approach typically used in observational or biographical documentaries, where the story revolves around a central character. You let them move freely, rather than boxing them in with lighting stands and equipment, because the filmmaking apparatus can be intimidating for people who aren’t used to it. Capturing real life becomes much more difficult when you’re working with non-professional performers. Paradoxically, the chapter on the intended mothers was much closer to a fiction production. Since our primary objective was to protect the anonymity of the three women, the work required a much more carefully designed visual approach. We prepared extensively, carried out location scouts—which is quite unusual in documentary filmmaking—and worked from very clear visual references. At the same time, we were careful not to overwhelm their homes with lights and technical equipment. Our brilliant production coordinator, Alessia Santucci, was invaluable during the preparation. We shot with an ARRI ALEXA Mini and Zeiss Standard Speed T2.1 lenses. For the interviews, in addition to using strong backlighting, I always positioned a 4×4 black cloth that served a dual purpose. On the one hand, it acted as negative fill, deepening the contrast on the subject’s face; on the other, it created a kind of dark enclosure around Alice and the interviewee, visually separating them from the rest of the crew. It was a way of creating a more private, almost intimate environment, where the presence of the film set was felt as little as possible. I think it worked.
I’d assumed that the decision to film the women in silhouette was purely about preserving their anonymity, but it conveyed something more as well—and I imagine that was intentional. Rather than diminishing their individuality, it gave their stories a universal quality. I found myself deeply drawn into their experiences and felt a great deal of empathy for them. The stories were profoundly intimate, yet I had the impression that they felt completely free to lay themselves bare. In my view, making their faces unrecognisable actually broadened the scope of the film’s message. I found it extremely effective.
Francesca Zonars: They told us they felt completely at ease. Despite the fact that we were entering their homes, they never felt that we were being intrusive. Paradoxically, they even enjoyed the experience, despite talking about deeply painful events that had profoundly shaped their lives. I think particularly of Chiara, the youngest of the three. When we filmed her interview, she was just about to leave to collect her daughter. At that point, she still didn’t know whether they would be able to bring her back to Italy without being stopped. One of the reflections that emerged during the edit was that the film has a certain darkness about it—a darkness that reflects the way this subject is approached in Italy. It’s as though everything is inevitably weighed down. We can’t show people’s faces; we can’t allow ourselves moments of lightness, because the judgement of the State is always hanging over these families, regardless of what anyone may think about surrogacy itself. It’s an extraordinarily complex subject, and no single film could ever hope to do it full justice. But I believe that sense of darkness was both truthful and necessary.
How many days did the shoot last?
Francesca Zonars: The chapter devoted to the intended mothers was filmed over around ten days, with additional shooting days spread over a longer period to cover the demonstrations. Those sequences were filmed on separate occasions, often quite far apart. The main part of the shoot took place between Nettuno and Trigoria, as almost all of the women lived in the same area. At the same time, we wanted to step outside the enclosed atmosphere of the interviews every now and then. As I mentioned, I’d developed a visual approach based on silhouettes and strong backlighting, but we also felt it was important to show the places where these women lived—the spaces that shaped their everyday lives. That’s why the film includes images of the sea, the surrounding countryside, and moments that evoke the idea of family or, in the case of the youngest protagonist, her solitude as she waited for her daughter.
When you’re working on projects with a strong political or social dimension, do you allow the subject matter itself to shape your cinematographic choices? In your conversations with the director, does the content of the film influence the way you decide to approach it visually? In the case of MOTHERS, were there any other particular ideas or sources of inspiration that guided your work on your respective chapters?
Francesca Zonars: I work extensively in documentary filmmaking, and it’s a form I care about deeply—I find it extraordinary. I live and work between Italy and Greece, and there the distinction between documentary and fiction is much less rigid: a film is simply a film. I think this sharp division is a particularly Italian way of looking at cinema. When it comes to creative documentaries, I find it especially difficult to understand. There are small fiction films made with exactly the same approach as documentaries, often featuring non-professional performers, and there are documentaries in which certain scenes are reconstructed from observed reality. The boundaries are far more fluid than we often imagine.What I love about documentary filmmaking is that it often creates a kind of temporary family. You work very closely with people who are not filmmakers, and you develop a deep connection with the stories they are sharing. And when you’re dealing with subjects such as parenthood or motherhood, it’s impossible not to become emotionally involved, particularly when they resonate with your own stage of life. Whatever one’s personal views on surrogacy—or on its various legal and ethical implications, which were never the focus of our work—these are issues that affect you profoundly. Alice and I talked about them endlessly. More generally, we often discuss what it means to be a female director and a female cinematographer working in an industry that is still largely male-dominated. Those reflections inevitably shape the way we approach a film. After all, a cinematographer is never just a technician. You always bring something of yourself to a project; you become emotionally invested in it. When you’re listening to a woman your own age explaining that all she wanted was to have a child, and that achieving that meant going through such an extraordinarily difficult journey, you simply can’t remain detached. During some of the interviews, I literally felt my stomach tighten.
Alberto Marchiori: I completely agree with everything Francesca has said. As a man, I threw myself into the project and spent a great deal of time talking to Alice about it. At the same time, though, I also tried to remain something of an observer, because I wanted to understand. On a subject like this, I think it’s inevitable that a woman’s perspective and a man’s perspective will be different. Perhaps that’s also why it felt perfectly natural for Francesca to take on the larger—and, in many ways, the more demanding—part of the film: the meetings and the filming with the Italian women. That isn’t to say my chapter was any less powerful; the subject was just as present there. I wouldn’t necessarily describe my approach as being more political. For me, it was above all a process of discovery.
When Alice first told me about the project and explained what she wanted to explore, my immediate reaction was that there was simply no way I could turn it down. Whatever anyone’s personal views on surrogacy may be, it’s a subject worth engaging with, if only because it helps you grow as a person. That’s how I experienced this project.
Whenever you work on a film like this, you realise just how much you don’t know. That’s also why I believe filmmaking is the most rewarding profession in the world: every project teaches you something, whether you’re reading a fictional screenplay or immersing yourself in real people’s lives. MOTHERS introduced me to countless things I had previously known nothing about.
Francesca Zonars: Yes, that’s absolutely true—you learn an enormous amount. The most important thing I learned is that, in the vast majority of cases, surrogacy is a last resort. It usually comes only after people have tried to adopt, a process that is often extremely complex and frequently unsuccessful. While we were looking for the women who would take part in the film, one thing kept coming up: almost all of them had first attempted adoption, without success, after going through extraordinarily long procedures. The film tells the stories of the obstacles they encountered—women who had been deemed unsuitable because they had experienced a period of psychological distress, or who had endured physically demanding rounds of assisted reproductive treatment. In Italy, there is still an enormous silence surrounding issues such as motherhood, different models of family, and the many paths to becoming a parent. At times, it almost feels like a form of censorship. Working on this film made me realise, more than anything else, just how pervasive that silence really is.
Were the more carefully composed scenes—such as the shadow-play sequences or the family moments—developed together with the protagonists during the shoot?
Francesca Zonars: Yes. We would usually spend three or four days with each family. We always began with the interview, because it was important for the story and the emotions to emerge first. Everything else was then developed together. Alice would arrive with a few ideas, but she also left plenty of room for whatever emerged naturally through the encounter with the people we were filming. The shadow-play sequences were our idea, but the families embraced them wholeheartedly. The youngest child was incredibly lively; during his mother’s interview, his father had to take him outside because he simply couldn’t sit still. The shadow-play approach allowed him to play freely while enabling us to film him without making him identifiable. The same happened with the scene in which the children play with UV light and fluorescent make-up. We used a fluorescent make-up that is invisible under normal light and only becomes visible under ultraviolet lamps. The children had enormous fun, and at the same time we were able to film their faces while still preserving their anonymity. Documentary filmmaking always involves both observation and construction. The challenge is to guide reality without ever betraying it.
And what about post-production? How did you approach that stage of the process?
Alberto Marchiori: Francesca took the lead on the post-production. It was the natural choice, because the largest and most substantial section of the documentary—both in terms of its narrative weight and its running time—was the one she had photographed. Alice and I discussed the work throughout, and she kept me informed at every stage, but it felt right that Francesca should be the one to oversee that part of the process.
Francesca Zonars: For both the colour grade and the sound post-production, Palomar worked with Light Cut, the post-production facility they regularly collaborate with. I spent four days on the colour grade with Ercole Cosmi, whom I hadn’t met before, and we worked together extremely well.
How has the documentary been received so far? Where has it been screened, and what are the next steps? How are you bringing the film to audiences?
Francesca Zonars: The film premiered in competition at the Turin Film Festival, was selected for consideration for the Nastri d’Argento, and has now been released in cinemas. The Rome premiere, at the Nuovo Sacher, was introduced by Nanni Moretti. After the screening there was an extended Q&A with the director, joined by the writer Chiara Tagliaferri, who spoke about her own experience of surrogacy, which she had previously recounted in her novel Arkansas.
Our hope is that the film will continue to reach as wide an audience as possible. Many of the arguments, both for and against surrogacy, stem from only a partial understanding of the issue and from a distorted perception of reality. Above all, the film seeks to offer viewers the tools to understand it more fully.
Thank you both for sharing your experiences, and above all, thank you for your contribution to the film.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
Camera Rental: D-Vision
1st Assistant Camera: Niccolò Vitagliano
Data Manager: Vito Margiotta
Gaffer: Michele Scotto D’Abbusco
Camera: ARRI ALEXA Mini
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Lenses: Zeiss Standard Speed T2.1
Colourist: Ercole Cosmi
Post-Production Facility: Light Cut
