Gianna Badiali
“ON YOUR RADAR” IS A WEEKLY GRAD FILM NEWS SEGMENT THAT FEATURES A STUDENT PICKED AT RANDOM.
GIANNA BADIALI IS CURRENTLY A 3RD YEAR STUDENT AT GRAD FILM. WE ASKED HER A FEW QUESTIONS, AND HERE’S WHAT SHE HAD TO SAY:
1. Where do you consider home and what is it like there?
I grew up in Switzerland, India, Italy and the US. I think for me the idea of home is dispersed across all of these places. Even though that can feel alienating at times, it's kind of fun to be able to organize your past into a series of discrete chapters each with its very distinct feeling. And at the end of the day, any place where I can spend time with a close friend feels like a kind of home.
2. What is currently inspiring you as a filmmaker?
The feature that I’m writing is set in Switzerland and I’m reading a lot of Swiss folk stories and fairy tales. I love when surreal or magical elements are introduced in a really unapologetic way and I’m trying to learn how to make that work in my own stories. I saw a great example in Katsuhito Ishii’s "Taste of Tea" a few days ago so that’s been floating around in my head. It’s a very gentle story about a little girl who keeps seeing a giant version of herself.
I’m also really inspired by the intersection of art and technology these days. There are tons of people doing really cool experiments with real-time augmented reality and crazy stuff like that.
This feels weird to say but I feel like I’ve also recently been rediscovering poetry, which has been magical.
3. What has been your most rewarding experience at NYU Tisch Grad Film so far?
Cinematography is great in that it allows me to get out of my own head for a while and inhabit the space of someone else’s story. Trying to understand other directors’ visions and working styles has been really illuminating and those creative partnerships have been some of the most meaningful of my life. It’s impossible for me to pick out a specific experience, but I’m really thankful I’ve gotten to work with so many brilliant and generous people in this community over the past two and a half years. Also, I’ve gotten to travel to places I otherwise might never have been able to see! Shooting in the middle of a river in the Colombian jungle, it was like—wow, this is a wild, wild dream.
Visit Gianna's website.