Trudie Styler will be attending the UK premiere of “Posso entrare? aode to Naples” in London on January 21, 2025.
Dave Bennett | Getty Images | Disney+
When Trudie Styler grew up in working-class England in the 1960s, her family was hoping she would become a typist in a paintbrush factory.
But life has become quite epic. Going to a good high school made Styler “started to dream much bigger,” she told CNBC on a video call. She trained as an actress, joined the Royal Shakespeare company, met Gordon Sumner, known as Rockstarsting, and later married. The couple has homes in New York, the UK and Italy.
Now the film’s producer and director, Styler says it was her “very tough” childhood that helped give her confidence to direct her latest film, “Pospo entrare? an ode to Naples” (streaming in the UK on Disney+ and Hulu in the US). In the film, Styler wanders through the small lava-paved streets of an Italian city, knocking on the door and asking, “Can I enter?” Interviewing people about their daily lives and influential residents of the city, known as Kamora, are the city’s infamous mafia.
Growing up in a terraced house in Worcestershire County, England, in the former Stoke village, “we were coming and going from each other’s houses,” Styler told CNBC. Her mother was a dinner woman and her father was a factory worker, and one day she wondered when her dinner would be prepared, so Styler helped her give birth to a baby at her neighbor’s house, seeking her mother. “I said something like, ‘I’m hungry.’ And my mother said: “I’m off!” she recalled.
And when Styler told his parents he wanted to act, it didn’t work very well. “It started a very big fight with my dad, Harry,” Styler said. “I don’t think he understood that… I went to grammar school, learned languages, learned science, you know that your horizons have broadened,” she said.
“That kind of confidence I had when I arrived in Naples,” she said.
Go to Naples with “blank canvas”
Styler has long been associated with Italy, starring in three national films in the 1980s, and in 1990 he gave birth to his third child, Elliot, in Pisa.
Trudie Styler and her husband Sting will be taking part in the Ischia Global Festival, which will be held in Ischia, Italy on July 8, 2024.
Daniel Venturelli | Getty Images
However, when Styler’s producer asked if she wanted to direct a documentary about the city, she realized she didn’t know much about it. “Do you know Naples?” she asked her friend, repeatedly “hearsay” about how dangerous it was. However, she decided to go with a “blank canvas,” she told CNBC.
“I’m trying to remove this feeling that was bestowed on me, I’m afraid of Naples, I’m very afraid of Naples, I’m researching it myself… I’m really trying to find out what I’ve thought about my city from the locals,” Styler said of her approach.
“People will pour personal stories,” she said of the door knock. Among the characters in the film are Michelle, a glovemaker and her 8-year-old grandson, who have been caring for them since their mother passed away. Also, Nora, a swimmer in the 90s, remembers Hitler’s 1938 tour of Naples with Mussolini.
“It’s so fascinating to go to places with ideas with preconceived ideas, and it’s so fascinating to have yourself the magical, rich experience of discovering all of that (BE) city and its people,” Styler said.
Roberto Saviano, author of “Gomora,” hides after his book unveiled the activities of the Naples’ mafia known as Camora.
Franco Origlia | Getty Images
In an organized interview, Styler also met Roberto Saviano, author of Gomora, the book, which tells the story of Camora’s “monster” activities in Naples. He has been hiding under police escorts since his publication in 2006. “But I didn’t think it caused any military or physical rage,” he told Styler in the film.
The woman in the movie
One of the most memorable groups in Styler’s interviews is campaign organisation Forty Guerriere. It was founded by several women after her friend Fortuna was killed by her husband in the city. They successfully campaigned for his sentence to increase from 10 to 30 years. “Women are now really taking a huge stance towards home murder and violence, and it’s very encouraging to see that,” Styler told CNBC.
Meanwhile, former mayoral candidate Alessandra Clemente talks to Styler about Camora’s accidental murder of her mother in Naples and her efforts to help the town’s young men seek a non-violent life, and the film also introduces Antonio Rofredo, a priest who opens his church to local groups.
Styler knocked on people’s doors in the narrow streets of Naples and asked, “Posso Entrea?” Or “Can I come in?”
©Marco Bottigelli |Moment |Getty Images
Through her production company Maven Pictures, which she founded alongside producer Celine Ratttrey, Styler is about to “push the dial” for women in the film industry. “When we set up Maven, we’re going to give them more opportunity to bring their projects to us and become our co-producer if we really like the scripts and feel we can do that,” Styler said.
Styler’s advice for women early in their production careers is to “find stories with strong female stories so that they can create jobs for women,” but she lamented that most screenwriters are men.
Styler said some production roles, such as cinematography and photography director, are still male-dominated. “For many years, oh well, the woman was probably not the director of cinematography who filmed around that camera. So I mean, I’m very upset when I hear such a language,” she said.
But streaming services employ “far more” women than they have in the past, Styler said. And she said the film industry has “been better for the actresses.” “Now, it’s not like I was sent to the pasture at age 40 like I used to. It’s good to see women’s careers become quite long, but it’s a long way to go,” Styler said.
