«At a screening of one of our short films in Canada, a young woman told us she had completely forgotten she was watching someone with a disability. That's what we're after with every project we make: to tell a person's story—with all the struggles that come with it, but above all the things they want, dream of, and desire, which deep down are exactly the same as what I want and what we all want: to be recognized. Our mission is to craft something that makes the audience feel such empathy, such emotion, that they see themselves in the people and stories we're telling».
This mission is carried out by Daniele Bonarini, a forty-four-year-old filmmaker and founder of Italy's first social film production company, Poti Pictures, based in Arezzo. He leads a team of professionals and people with disabilities because «real inclusion happens only through art, which has the power to stir emotion regardless of who creates it».
How did disability come into your story?
For about thirty years, I've been part of an association started by the Franciscan Third Order in Arezzo. Calling it volunteering doesn't quite capture it—we're friends with people who have intellectual disabilities, people we call "the kids," just to keep things simple. Beyond our weekly Saturday meetings, sometime in the late Seventies, we felt the need to take a real vacation together. We went *with* them, not *for* them, to a house on Mount Poti near Arezzo, overlooking the Tiberina valley—the countryside where St. Francis walked through the Apennines. It was during one of those trips that I met the woman who would become my wife.
Professional short films require at least a year of preparation
We develop each person's particular strengths
Professional short films require at least a year of preparation
We develop each person's particular strengths
Something that started as a game?
I bought a camcorder and we began making small pieces, just for fun, with no grand ambitions. We'd play around creating parodies of Hollywood blockbusters. The production name: Poti Pictures. Filming happened throughout the year, getting the kids out of their family homes or institutions. We'd spend a Sunday together and shoot in someone's house, in castles, with horses. I was always demanding—even about the silly stuff! At the next Poti gathering, we'd screen what we'd made over the past year in a presentation so honest and unpretentious that we could laugh at it together. That's not a given in our world, where disabled people are usually pinned with a label. Here, they felt part of something that mattered.
So you went on to deepen your film training, and Michele Grazzini developed the production side. Now Poti Pictures is a social film production company, even if small…
A deep friendship—that's where it all started. The work was so well-received that we decided to keep going and make proper shorts. The scripts and stories are always tailored to fit the actors. We spent time and resources, and rewards began to come: we started with events run by Teatro Patologico and Capodarco, then moved into pure film festivals, with no disability labels. We submitted without fanfare, and we've picked up quite a few awards—most recently, our short *Uonted!* was selected for the 2020 Nastri d'Argento. We've been to Texas, Missouri, Canada. We were even invited to India, but we didn't have the resources. In 2015, we formalized the whole operation as a proper division of the social cooperative Il Cenacolo, a Type B cooperative that focuses on employment for people with disabilities—where I worked. We registered with the Ministry of Culture to access funding, and we trademarked the name with the European Patent Office in Nice as the world's first social film production company, creating five new trademark classes that didn't exist before.
Experience and strong motivation have opened new doors…
We wanted to be taken seriously, cinematically. That meant no shortcuts for anyone. If Tiziano Barbini—one of our actors with a disability—dreams of going to Hollywood, so do I. The film we're trying to make is even called *Ollivud*. But to get there, I know I have to maximize the potential in myself and everyone around me: actors, screenwriters, crew, production, post-production. Working in a careful, communal way, with help from our psychologist Sara Borri, we've developed a method that's been studied and certified by the University of Siena. Professional shorts require at least a year of preparation at Poti Academy, where we work to develop each person's particular strengths. It's not meant to be therapy first, though it becomes therapeutic—it would benefit anyone, and we bring it into schools too. Beyond care and protection, in the fraternal relationship we have, we can afford not to indulge the "I'm handicapped" attitude, which often becomes an excuse and keeps people trapped behind barriers they use as shields. We make our actors strong and capable—we've done ten-hour night shoots—with professional support tailored to each one, like having a psychologist always on set.
What's at stake now?
Paolo Cristini and Tiziano Barbini are now professional actors on the cooperative's payroll. But it wouldn't be honest or realistic to tell every person with an intellectual disability that they can become an actor: the film industry we know would chew them up. Professional work is hugely motivating, and we're amazed at the progress these young people have made. We have to do it right because cinema is anything but nonprofit, and the costs behind these results aren't easy for people to understand if they think the shared journey is all that matters. Our approach—putting the person at the center—is the kind of cinema I want to make anyway. It aligns with what the UN Convention asks of us: for society to measure itself against disability, not the other way around. I have to change my own gaze first. Every person has a dignity and beauty worth telling in a film. If we do our job well, everyone watching will find themselves in it.