Who Are You?, released in 1974, was your debut as director and screenwriter. Some have called the film “the Italian answer to The Exorcist,” but more than by the film, which was released almost at the same time, you were influenced mainly by William Peter Blatty’s book. By the way, I read that you wanted to buy the rights to the novel, but Warner Bros. anticipated you. But it was also from Polanski’s masterpiece, wasn’t it?

That’s right. Let’s say I had a desire to make a horror film, because I realized that in those years the genre had taken a different direction than the classic English horror film set in castles. It was Polanski’s film, Rosemary’s Baby, that influenced me, because it was that film that changed pretty much the whole orientation of the rules, that is, horror in the everyday, instead of the fantasy horror, away from the everyday reality.

There was also a lawsuit, later won, over an alleged “similarity” to Friedkin’s film. The reason, I believe, was its excellent success with audiences; in fact, it grossed several million dollars at the time….

Warner Bros. sued as a result of the success of my film, because it grossed too much. It was even competing with The Exorcist. They had come out around the same time. First The Exorcist and, months later, mine. The lawsuit was about “visual copyright” infringement, which made no legal or logical sense, because basically according to them I had stolen from The Exorcist the way of framing, the sound and certainly not the story, which was completely different. The copyright that makes sense is the literary copyright and not the “visual” copyright. It is as if one always has to pay a fee. For example, if a filmmaker puts a camera between the legs of a horse does he have to pay a royalty to John Ford?

That lawsuit in a way flattered me because it meant that they were afraid of a young European working in the United States (the set was in San Francisco) who was making an “American film,” with American elements and an American cast, with well-crafted special effects, similar to what they wanted to do.

In Italy, however, the takings were not as high…

It actually did well proportionally. It cost about $300,000. In the United States it grossed 20 million, in Italy it grossed one and a half million, another 20 million in the rest of the world. 40 million in all.

Was it intended to be a film with a more international scope, also considering the largely foreign cast and crew?

Except for Gabriele Lavia, the actors were foreigners, it was shot in English and filmed in San Francisco, but the crew was largely Italian.

The film is co-directed by Roberto Piazzoli, with whom he also divided the tasks at the script-writing stage. How, on the other hand, did you divide the tasks on the set?

I wanted to turn the direction over to classic horror film directors. At the time there was Fulci, Bava, and others. When I decided to make an American-style horror story, I called them to see if they were available. I told them how I intended to make the film, in a different way than the standards of that time. But none of them ever understood this possibility. I also wanted to outsource the script to classic horror film writers, but again no one ever understood what I intended to do. So I decided first to write the screenplay and then, since I could not find a director, I decided to do it myself, combining my work with that of a very dear collaborator of mine from the past who was a cinematographer, Roberto Piazzoli. It was a total collaboration. From a practical point of view, clearly he was technically better prepared than I was because I had no technical experience. But I knew what I wanted to do, and this combination worked very well, very correctly.

The film is full of very particular esoteric references and certainly “learned” in its genre. Since the screenplay was reworked several times, by multiple collaborators, and co-written with Antonio Troiso, do you recall whether these references were your own ideas?

The script was written by me, he only gave technical collaboration input. I wanted to do a scene and with him we discussed how to do it best. As for other writers, I always try to check the script also from other writers, they give me more ideas, they also improve the dialogues, they refine the work, eventually, but not always. It is an extra vision, sometimes I accepted their ideas, sometimes not. In the specific case there was a very good dialogist, Marini, a very good theatrical writer. There is a theatrical imprint within the film, this is a total collaboration.

What most sticks out at the end of the film, more than the possession, more than the violent exorcism, is the figure of Dimitri. A pawn in the Devil’s chessboard, who while believing herself to be endowed with “free will” and conscience, is part of a larger and indecipherable “diabolical” design. How did he come to create this character?

The story of the film, the storyline, the subject is totally mine, so Dimitri is also a character that I imagined and put into the film. In fact he is a Greek, like me. The elaboration of the other collaborators of mine was only a contribution, but most of what you see in the film is mine. So also the character of Dimitri.