WHEN THE writer-director Emanuele Crialese went to stay on Lampedusa, a small island west of Sicily, it was with the intention of having a rest. Instead, he was entranced by what he found there — not only the arid landscape that held more for him than a mere postcard beauty, or the people, described by Crialese as “uncontaminated”, but the island legend of a young woman, looked down upon by her local community, who committed suicide only to be brought back to life by the remorseful prayers of the townsfolk.

From these elements, Crialese fashioned Respiro (I Breathe), a blend of fable and realism, using a cast mainly peopled by non-actors from Lampedusa that has won, among other plaudits, the Critic’s Grand Prize at Cannes, the Discovery of the Year award at the European Film Awards, and the Silver Ribbon from the Italian critics’ circle.

Grazia (the remarkable Valeria Golino), is a free spirit and young mother of three whose unusual approach to life cause problems within her community. When her devoted husband, Pietro (Vincenzo Amato), is prevailed upon to find her psychiatric help, Grazia runs off to hide in a cave, aided by her young son, Pasquale (Francesco Casisa). Throughout the film it is never really spelt out whether Grazia is merely unconventional or totally mad (she has a fit at one point). At the same time, juxtaposed against the rawness of life in Lampedusa, the sea lurks as a multi-purpose metaphor for everything from sex and rebellion to freedom, grace and release.

It would take an unusual man to have made Respiro and an unusual man the 38-year-old Crialese is — unusually funny and honest for a start. When I ask if he enjoyed making Respiro, he responds: “No, it was very hard and very hot. By the end of each day we wanted to punch each other.”

Film-making, he later declares, is a world of pain. “You have to be masochistic to do this work. Every morning I wake up with cramps in my stomach, feeling that I can’t make it to the end of the day.”

But then Crialese is conducting this interview lying on a couch with an evil hangover, so that could explain a lot.

Crialese first became interested in movie-making at 12 when he started hating his mother leaving the house. “I thought she would not come back, that she would die. I was desperate. They had to give me injections to calm me down. To try not to think about my mother and death and everything I started to fantasise a lot, hoping to solve my problems with stories.”

As a young man, he left for New York, where he lived for nine years. Here he made his first feature, Once We Were Strangers. It was successful, but the fight to get it made makes the success of Respiro taste all the sweeter. “This is the first big recognition for me. I really had to struggle for my first film. It’s like food — before I was at an empty table trying to imagine some food, now I can pick what I want to eat.”

That’s great isn’t it? “Yes. But now I don’t dare eat anything because I’m afraid it will be the wrong choice.”

As played by Golino, the character of Grazia is as wild and uncompromising as the sea she loves. While there is brief nudity it is not done in a sexual way, although Grazia is evidently a very sexual being. Crialese agrees that complicated women like Grazia rarely get their stories told in cinema. “I wanted to get out of the sexy clichés — the idea that women only exist in terms of seduction. What I like about this woman, what I like about women in general, is that they can be childish, playful, physical and more.

“On a superficial level you might think that Grazia is a victim, but women like her are the most courageous creatures in the world. They break rules and are stigmatised for it.”

Crialese’s influences are Fellini, Antonioni and the British directors Mike Leigh and Ken Loach — “Anybody who ever managed to transcend reality and dignify the human.”

He doesn’t want to talk too much about his next project, but does say it’s about immigrants and America in the 1900s, which could turn out to be “the Titanic of the poor”.

And what about Hollywood, surely soon to beckon after the success of Respiro? “I would have to be desperate,” he says. “I would have to have a big need for money; I wouldn’t do it for any other reason.”

Respiro opens on August 1

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