“I Have a Naive Conviction That Images Serve a Potentially Positive Purpose”: Beniamino Barrese on The Disappearance of My Mother

Not many filmmakers have a mom who’s an iconic model from the ’60s, photographed by the likes of Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, a muse to Warhol and Dali. Far fewer have one that kept that past hidden. Indeed, it wasn’t until director/cinematographer Beniamino Barrese made a youthful discovery — a stash of portfolios containing Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar covers tucked away inside a locked wardrobe — that he got an inkling that Benedetta Barzini was more than just the radical, outspoken, intellectual mother he’d been filming since he got his first camera at seven.

And with The Disappearance of My Mother Barrese sets out to create one final testament to his lifelong maternal subject, as the onetime feminist organizer and current university instructor (she teaches a course exploring the relationship between fashion and women’s role in society) is preparing to “disappear.” For Barzini has had enough of a culture that collects images but not experiences, and is set on leaving everyone and everything behind. Including her son.

Prior to the doc’s January 25th Sundance premiere in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, Filmmaker spoke with the Italian director, who’s also an accomplished DP in the UK, about putting together his highly personal first feature.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.