Interview with Bruno Pischiutta and Daria Trifu: Great Creators Shooting in Greece Part B

Written by Eleni Giannakidou in Greek language
– published in Kulturosupa Nov. 11, 2023
– what follows is its English translation

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This is the continuation, Part B of the interview. Click here to READ PART A.

Dear Daria, we’d like to know more about your start in the arts beyond the information that Bruno mentioned to us.
Daria (DT): I grew up in an artistic environment. From the moment I was born, my mother was the director of a dance club and then a theatre club in my town. The actors were students and all the rehearsals were late at night. My mother took me to work with her every day. In fact, everyone called her “Mom” because I called her that and it became her name.

I grew up on stage, surrounded by performers, costume designers, makeup artists and creative minds. I traveled to various cities where students participated in national dance and theater festivals. My friends, the people I spent most of my time with in my youth, were actually adults in their 20s and 30s.

So I had theatre at the forefront of my goals into adulthood and I learned very early on what I wanted to do with my life: I had a career in Hollywood in mind!

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I saw Fellini’s “La Strada” when I was about nine years old and that solidified my desire to create something similar, just as powerful, just as impressive… I knew then that I would go into film, I didn’t know how, where, when, but I knew it!

When I was 11 years old, my parents enrolled me in the Art High School, where I stayed until I graduated and, soon after, I immigrated to Canada. Those years of study and artistic creation proved to be incredibly helpful in my film career.

In that time, when we needed visas to travel, even visiting another country was arduous, moving to another continent back then was incredibly difficult. The fact that I already knew what I wanted to do helped, because I focused directly on my goal and didn’t wait a moment. After a few months I had already enrolled in the International Film Workshops that Bruno was teaching and immediately after completing the Workshops, I started working for Bruno’s company, Toronto Pictures.

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Tell us about your films and documentaries. What is their subject matter and who are they aimed for?
Daria Trifu (DT): As Bruno mentioned earlier, I traveled all over the world to attend various film festivals. I’ve been to Cannes, the American Film Market, Montreal and Monte Carlo several times. I traveled for business to cities like London, Los Angeles and New York. By 2004 I was already working as a producer on the pre-production of “Punctured Hope” and I had been to Ghana several times where, in 2005, we shot the film.

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Bruno and I founded Global Film Studio in 2011. It’s a Canadian media company, a “small media empire”, running six divisions: Film Production, Film Distribution (Global Cinema Online), Talent Agency (Global Actors Service), Film Festival (Global Nonviolent Film Festival), Publishing (Daria! Magazine) and Film Academy (film schools and workshops). The foundation of the company is, in fact, the result of a lifetime of film work by Bruno Pischiutta whose career, as you can see, spans more than five decades.

In many respects, Global Film Studio operates similarly to the Hollywood Studios of the 1950s and like United Artists, founded by Charlie Chaplin. The films we produce are always non-violent and have a high social content.

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Our film, “Punctured Hope”, directed and co-written by Bruno and produced by the two of us, qualified for an Academy Awards nomination and was nominated for Best Film Expose and Best Film on Human Rights by the Political Film Society in Hollywood the same year when the other nominated films were by Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino and James Cameron.

You have your own magazine, DARIA!, tell us about your activity in this field?
Daria Trifu (DT): I am the editor-in-chief of DARIA! magazine, which we founded and first published in 2005. Originally distributed in print with a laminated version, it was distributed for 10 years in thousands of copies at high-end events, luxury clubs, hotels and film festivals worldwide. It was distributed during private events in Monte Carlo, New York, Toronto, Toronto, Montreal, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Brasov, Las Vegas and Cannes. Since 2012, the magazine is the official media partner and is providing full coverage of the Global Nonviolent Film Festival. In 2022, it became an online publication, available at DariaMagazine.com

Some of the articles I have written are published in DARIA!. I have also published countless articles on major social networks, such as LinkedIn, and countless press releases.

Give us more information about your activity in the field of production and direction alongside Bruno Pischiutta?
Daria Trifu (DT): In 2015 I wrote an original story and a treatment for a film. The treatment was developed by Bruno into a film script. The film is part of Global Film Studio’s slate and is currently in development for production.

Some of my other film credits include: assistant director on the feature film “Maybe”, which was an Official Selection at the Bahamas One World Film Festival and received The Visionary In Film Award for director Bruno Pischiutta; producer and executive producer of the documentary “Bruno Pischiutta Film Director”; and executive producer of the English versions of the feature films “The Comoedia” and “Ultimo incontro a Venezia”, directed by Pischiutta.

In 2012, I produced the feature documentary “Brasov: Probably the Best City in the World”. The documentary was directed by Bruno and shot over 12 months to show the city in all four seasons.

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We were the guests of honor at the Semana de Cine Rumano in Havana, Cuba, invited by the Romanian Plenipotentiary Ambassador to Cuba, Dr. Dumitru Preda. The world premiere screening of the documentary was attended by the country’s leading media and film personalities and was followed by a press conference.

In 2013 I produced a 24-minute documentary “Brasov International Film Festival & Market”. The documentary was released in 2014 in Brasov and online.

These documentaries are all about subjects I know very well: about my mentor Bruno Pischiutta, about Brasov, the city I was born in, and about the Film Festival I founded and have been running since 2012.

What is your participation in “The Trilogy”?
Daria Trifu (DT): In our upcoming film project there will be two new roles for me: for the first time I will play an important part as an actress in a feature film and I will direct the three documentaries that will accompany the films.

The documentaries will be entitled “The Making of…” and will be of interest to people who have already watched the films. They will consist mainly of interviews with the main actors and behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the films. In fact, when we shoot “The Trilogy” there will be two different crews on set: one crew will shoot the actual films and the other crew (my crew) will shoot details from the set so you can then see how the films were made.

We would be very interested to hear about the Global Nonviolent Film Festival.
Daria Trifu (DT): As we speak, (the interview took place in October) the 12th annual edition of the Global Nonviolent Film Festival is taking place on our streaming channel at GlobalCinema.online. This year, we are featuring 36 films competing from 15 countries! Anyone from around the world can watch the Festival by going to the platform.

Bruno and I founded the Global Nonviolent Film Festival in 2012 because we wanted to showcase films that do not contain gratuitous violence and we wanted to create a space for films that inspire and uplift audiences by entertaining them. In other words, we also wanted to prove that it is not necessary for a film to contain gratuitous violence to succeed.

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In the first two years we screened and awarded films featuring Woody Allen, Robert Redford, Nicole Kidman and many other stars. Over time, however, we began to receive a flood of films from independent filmmakers from all parts of the world who wanted to enter the space we offered for nonviolent filmmaking and who to this day show us exceptional talent and creativity!

Today, as we hold our 12th successful annual edition, I can proudly say that the Global Nonviolent Film Festival is the most important and renowned non-violent film festival in the world!Two years ago, our company launched GlobalCinema.online which distributes non-violent films and documentaries around the world. Its creation came naturally because we have always known that the main reason films go to festivals is so that distributors have the opportunity to see them and select them.

In 2021, during COVID, we had time to invest in the establishment of this streaming channel. Today we already have more than 220 films streamed to a global audience and we are adding new titles every week. We are now able to offer distribution contracts – on very favorable terms – to all selected films at our festival once the event is over. It’s a win-win situation for everyone: our company, the filmmakers and the audience.

What is Daria Trifu’s biggest ambition after “The Trilogy”?
Daria Trifu (DT): I am looking forward to the near future. Doing “The Trilogy” with Bruno will be a unique experience, since for the first time I will be acting in a major film, the one we will shoot in Greece, and I will also make my directorial debut with the three documentaries.

When the films will be released, a huge multi-million dollar campaign will take place: the campaign will promote the films and, at the same time, the channel where the films can be viewed, GlobalCinema.online! I hope that by then the channel will have a huge exposure and attract the interest of many viewers towards non-violent cinema.

Finally, one question I would like you both Bruno and Daria to answer: what would you like to say to the followers and readers of Kulturosupa about Theatre and Cinema? How do you think the arts improve human relations?
Daria Trifu (DT): Bruno: My recommendation is not to underestimate the cathartic function of art, and try to use the time spent watching films on screen as part of an artistic quest.

Cinema is a multifaceted phenomenon. Information and entertainment are undoubtedly two of its main functions, but if we can watch artistic films we will improve our ability to interpret reality and open up new horizons.

Daria: I know that many young artists and intellectuals in Greece feel somewhat restricted and often think of moving to distant big cities like London and New York.

Certainly traveling and seeing distant cities when possible gives us the opportunity to make discoveries and experience places in a direct way. Today, however, the internet allows us to see a lot and be present and make connections even in faraway locations.

With a computer and a telephone today it is possible to connect with the whole world, and this reality should not be overlooked because it allows us to make our spiritual contribution and our Art known not only in the place where we were born but also in the world as a whole!

The interview time passed very quickly and pleasantly. Observing the comfort and the positive aura that these two people were giving off towards me, I thought how important it is to interact and chat with such a wide range of people, those who observe, record, talk, process, select all this material — especially subjects on issues that concern modern man — and transform it into the highest form of art that is awarded with world-wide distinction and prizes.

In bidding them farewell Bruno shows me a plant on the balcony of their cottage. “This plant, he tells me, waits all year long to bloom and manages to do so for just one day and one night, but the sight of the flower springing from the foliage is unique!!!”. Daria has captured it and shows it to me on her tablet. This plant, my godmother gave it to them from our village garden, I think, and this sense of a rare and one-day flowering surprises and amazes us. So is Art, Bruno and Daria, as we watch your films for the first time, they manage to blossom in us and to make us reminisce, reflect and think about them constantly, something similar to what this little flower in its pot patiently but courageously achieves on your balcony…

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About The Author: Journalist Eleni Giannakidou was born and raised in Veria, a small town in Northern Greece with a rich history and archaeological interest. She graduated from the Department of History and Archeology at the Philosophy School of the Aristotle University in Thessaloniki and she works as a Philologist at a secondary school.

Eleni’s love for travel and history led her to travel a lot, to meet the locals and record their customs and manners. At the same time, her amateur involvement in music and theater brought her to become a performer in a theater group that puts on shows in Thessaloniki while she also coordinates programs and cultural activities with her students.

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Eleni writes articles for the popular arts and culture magazine Kulturosupa where she has her own travel column called “My travel trail”. She writes reviews for plays that are staged in theaters in Thessaloniki, for concerts and for various cultural events.

Eleni Giannakidou is married to her college sweetheart, Jean, and they have four children! Her greatest wish is to be able to travel around the world with her family, and to get to know other cultures, other places and the way of living of different people.

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