XXV edition
8/13 December 2015
The power of arms
Having gone off to America in 2002 to
seek her fortune on the stage and screen, Italian born-and-raised
actress Celeste Moratti plays detective Aimee Dobkins in the independent
film written and directed by Sean Roberts, Traffickers, which has
already won the Award for Best Film at the 2015 Philadelphia Independent
Film Festival.
"When I read the script I thought it was
fantastic," recalls Moratti, also executive producer of the film. "Agent
Dobkins is more of an observer than a talker, a person who is very
isolated, with an aura of mystery about her that makes her interesting. A
character not all that different from me, so I didn’t find it very
difficult to get into the role, nor did I look to any particular actors
for my inspiration, although it is true that if I think of the role of a
detective, Gary Oldman immediately comes to mind. Oldman always injects
humanity into characters with a dark side."
The film, which
opts for a realistic approach and has an almost documentary feel,
revolves around the "fate" of a pistol that triggers off a series of
dramatic events in the plot and has landed Traffickers smack in the
middle of the great national debate on the right to bear arms in the
United States. "It’s time to change the mentality especially of younger
people, who think that guns give them power and authority; that
they’re….’cool’," says Moratti. "Not having been born in the U.S., I
feel it is utterly absurd that machine guns, for example, are on sale in
supermarkets, and regulation of the sale of weapons is urgently needed.
The entire issue is enormously complicated, since such a regulatory
policy is not only perceived by many Americans as curtailing their
freedoms; it also runs up against the all-powerful gun lobby."
When
asked about her own experience in the States, the actress says, "In
America film and theater are seen first as a business and second as art
forms. It’s very hard to make it, there are no free rides, and for this
very reason it’s a system that generates a strong awareness of its own
value." Celeste Moratti is currently rehearsing a reworking of Hamlet in
New York, and will soon be involved in Sean Roberts’ new film, Cold
Hands, a gangster story set in Philadelphia.
