The film was chosen at the 60th Venice Biennale as part of the Vatican Pavilion.
MARCO PEREGO:No, I was selected this year to be part of the Venice Biennale.
Its where each country selects one artist or multiple artists to represent.
Zoe Saldaña in DovecoteVenice Biennale/Marco Perego
Myself and Zoe represented.
They asked us, Do you want to be a part of this?
I met all the inmates and talked to them.
Marco Perego and Zoe Saldaña attend the screening ofThe Absence Of Edenduring the Red Sea International Film Festival 2023 at the Souk Cinema.
It was a very beautiful process.
We thought about two questions we were asking the women.
First, we learned that all these women were sharing a room, like 10 women to one room.
99% of the women in that prison were abused by men.
So, thats where the title came from.
What was very interesting was this perspective that came from the women.
The second thing is how amazing it is that they built this community for each other.
DEADLINE: You actually worked with some of the inmates for the short, right?
Theres only Zoe, Marcello Fonte, the guard and Gaia Scodellar.
The rest were all inmates or real guards.
I learned so much by being with them.
DEADLINE: The film mainly focuses on the last moments of Zoes characters time in prison.
But theres also plenty of shots of the women themselves in the prison.
How would you describe what the short is about?
That corridor shot is them looking at us and who we are.
Zoes character goes out, and other women come in.
And it should make you ask yourself what freedom is.
Shes coming with me to the HollyShorts film panel.
She did more than 20 years there, and she came out on parole and she talked with us.
When I was outside, I was invisible.
Inside, theres no frame, its one take.
Its very big, large and floaty.
The question is really thinking about what freedom is.
Is it inside the prison or outside in the real world?
Because sometimes, you have this rigidity about human behavior, and thats what I was thinking about.
DEADLINE: Did the prison give you a hard time filming there?
How did that work?
It was a very beautiful experience.
There were some artists who wrote poetry of them or did a portrait of them.
My idea with my wife was, OK, lets make a film.
And they were so open about it.
Also, the women left these letters to me and my wife every night we were shooting.
And then, every time we went back to the hotel, we read their story.
It was very fascinating.
It was a transformative experience.
But its very hardcore in the U.S. to bring anything inside prisons.
DEADLINE: There is something really innocent about the way the film is shot.
Its not judgmental at all.
PEREGO:I felt the same.
My wife did a lot of work with prisons at the early age of her life.
Our family is also very involved with womens rights.
Its something very important for us to try and really support.
When I started to meet these women, I just felt this purity and innocence there.
And the truth is maybe some of them just snap, I dont know.
Life goes a different way sometimes.
Im happy to hear you feel the same way.
DEADLINE: This is probably really obvious.
But I would love to know how you cast Zoe for this project.
I assume you just turned to her and was like, I know where you live.
So, she had no other choice but to join in.
PEREGO:No, my wife is the best.
I just really asked her, Do you want a part of Venice Biennale?
And she said yes.
And the women started to cry, but this helped them all to bond.
At the end of the project, we all became so close.
