When Conor Allyn shot Into the Fire with Amber Heard as the film’s lead in February 2022, it was months before the actor’s defamation trial with ex-husband Johnny Depp. But now, a year on from that legal battle, the film is launching Heard back into the film industry as it world premiered at the Taormina Film Festival on Saturday evening.
Allyn and Italian actor Luca Calvani, who stars as Father Antonio in the supernatural thriller, stepped into Deadline’s studio at the festival to talk about working with Heard and the project’s messages of breaking down the barriers of mental health and human connection.
“I’m so happy that Amber went through something so awful and it didn’t change her as a person,” Allyn told Deadline. “She’s still the shining light that we explained earlier and to go through something that terrible and be able to come out the other side and be whole, well I can’t imagine it.”
Calvani was effusive about his experience working with Heard, stating the actor was “generous and encouraging” on set. “She’s a star and she has that light,” he said. “She glows and she pulls you in and she shares it with everybody. The last person on set will feel it and feel a connection with her.”
He added: “Anyone that suffers that sort of ordeal and is able to overcome it with grace, no matter what side you’re on, no matter what you believe or which social media [outlet] you plug into or whatever your hashtags are, you have to give credit for the incredible journey this woman has been through and she can teach us all a couple of things as far as resilience and courage.”
Luca Calvani at the Deadline Studio at Taormina Film Festival held at Teatro Antico on June 25, 2023 in Taormina, Italy. Photo courtesy of Vianney Le Caer.
The film, which also stars Eduardo Noriega and Lorenzo McGovern Zaini, sees Heard play an American psychiatrist who travels to a remote plantation in Colombia in the 1890s to treat a disturbed boy. There, she finds herself in a war of science versus religion with the local priest (played by Yari Gugliucci) who believes the child is possessed by the devil.
“This is a movie about people who aren’t talking to each other,” said Allyn. “People who are walled off from one another because of various flaws, fears and biases. We use psychiatry, or the study of psychology, in the film to basically break down those barriers a bit and look past them and find some human connection. The 1890s was right at the genesis of that science and it wasn’t a respected science at all at that time. Still, obviously mental health is something we’re talking about on a daily basis, and we still don’t understand it.”
The duo noted that while the film is set in a different time, there are many relevant themes that will align with modern day society, notably issues of increased polarization of beliefs and the lack of acceptance of new ideas.
“We tend to speak in absolutes now,” said Allyn. “Whatever side you’re on, we don’t reach across lines, we don’t communicate with any significance across tribal lines, and we should. I think that’s what I love about cinema, is that we all sort of sit in the dark and will watch the same movie and we’re doing it together.”
Calvani added, “We talked about absolutes and humanity, by definition, is just the opposite of that. And so, when the audience gets put into this space, where some of the characters display various aspects all over the spectrum of these absolutes and they are forced to question themselves, which is really rooted in our humanness in a way. And so, it starts the conversation and then walls crumble and connection happens.”
Check out the video above.