Roberto Minervini on Making His Naturalistic U.S. Civil War Drama ‘The Damned’ While the ‘Rust’ Shooting Tragedy Broke – Trailer
variety.comNick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian-born and Texas-based director Roberto Minervini is known for making hard-hitting documentaries that dissect the backwaters of American society, such as his so-called Texas trilogy comprising “The Passage,” “Low Tide” and “Stop the Pounding Heart.” His most recent doc, “What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?,” about a community of Black people in New Orleans during the summer of 2017 – when a string of brutal killings of Black men sent shockwaves throughout the country – launched from the Venice competition section in 2018. “The Damned,” which premieres on Thursday in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and is Minervini’s first fiction feature, is set during the American Civil War in the winter of 1862.
The naturalistic war drama follows a troupe of volunteer soldiers tasked with patrolling unchartered borderlands in Western territories.
Below, Minervini speaks to Variety about his the transition from making docs to fiction with a very realistic war movie and how he worked with armorers to ensure there was no risk of repeating the tragedy that occurred on the “Rust” set while “The Damned” was filming. “The Damned” is so naturalistic it feels like your docs.
How did you approach making it? My approach has never changed. I use storytellers, and I build stories around them.
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