《L'incredibile storia dell'isola delle rose》 - the truth
On June 24, 1968, only 55 days after the island declared independence, Italians sent troops to control the island. They destroyed Rose Island with explosives on February 11, 1969. A few days later, a storm completely submerged the building.
After Rose Island was destroyed by explosives, a storm submerged the whole building underwater. Today, its remains remain on the bottom of the Adriatic Sea, but the home of Rosa's son Lorenzo preserves an original structure. "I have a brick that divers got from there. They wrote some wonderful words on it - Rimini divers are honored to return the fragments of their dreams to a dreamer.
Rosa, the protagonist of the story, died in 2017 at the age of 92. Before his death, he met with the filmmakers. After their persuasion, Rosa agreed to their request to adapt the story into a film. In the process of communication, Rosa was not very interested in the idea of the story, but he enthusiastically introduced his proud island building technology to the film production team.
"My father is an engineer. In Italy, this description is enough to understand what kind of person he is. He is a very meticulous person, very organized, almost like a German engineer. "Rosa's son Lorenzo said.
Rosa's original intention is to add a floor to Rose Island every year.
Rosa's son also said, "I love this island very much. I've been there many times - it was a wonderful experience. I like being with my father. As an engineer, he worked hard to make money to build the island. At four or five o'clock in the morning, he left Bologna, went to Rimini, got on the boat, and worked on the island. "- yes, Rosa was married before she built the island.
In order to destroy the image of Rosa Island, some politicians even proposed that the island posed a threat to national security and might provide cover for Soviet nuclear submarines. They even said there were Russian submarines under the island. In addition, they said there was a security risk to Rosa because of its unstable structure (which was destroyed by the last three rounds of explosives).
"After the destruction of Rose Island, my father was very depressed, regretful and miserable. He never mentioned it on his own initiative. Although if asked, he will answer questions.
"My father received a letter from the Italian government asking him to pay for the destruction of the island, which was 11 million lire (about 5200 pounds in total).
The film was shot in a swimming pool in Malta, which is much shallower than in real life. Because there are many technical problems to be solved when shooting on water. "Every day we use water to explode things or do complicated things. When we make a movie on the water, it's mobile and it's hard to control the camera. "Young directors often ask me for advice. My advice is that the film should be made on the ground!
The film plan has been shelved because of the large budget. For Italian films, this is the first time.
Neither of the film's two leading actors has been exposed to the story before. "I'm from Bologna and my family and friends don't know the story. It's crazy," said de anjis, who plays Gabriella. When I read the script, I wondered why no one had ever made a movie about this story before, because it was really incredible.
One drawback of this story's obscurity is that the actors don't have much material to base their characters on. "It really depends on our imagination to shape characters, so it is important to reproduce the atmosphere of the 1960s, including clothes, atmosphere, attitude and free thinking. "Said d'anjis.