PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Michael O’Shea, director of the film The Transfiguration.
The 34th Torino Film Festival is the tenth festival that Michael O’Shea participates to with his first feature film The Transfiguration. It all started at the last Festival de Cannes where the film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section. At the Torino Film Festival, this story of a young boy escaping reality and pretending to be a vampire, is programmed in the perfect section for a horror film, Afterhours. The choice of the horror genre can be easily defined as a device to actually tell a very profound and troubled coming of age story that O’Shea dedicated to all the people, especially adolescents, that are struggling to find their place in the world and feel like outsiders.
The Transfiguration. Adolescent Milo lives an isolated life in New York: a friendless orphan, he is the victim of violence and bullying at school. His only refuge is his brother’s apartment, where he escapes his solitude and frustration by immersing himself in the world of vampires through movies and novels. When he meets Sophie, the next-door-neighbor, unfamiliar feelings are sparked in him. This is an unexpected change for Milo and it forces him to control the secret, disquieting urges which prey on him.