To be fair: what follows is a conversation between two people who have been trying to remain friends for 20 years. Valerio Mastandrea is a cinema icon and needs no introduction. That's why the Villasimius Marina Festival has invited him to the stage on Saturday (at 9:30 pm in conversation with Francesca Serafini) alongside Valeria Golino and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. On Friday, he'll also give a glimpse of himself as a director to the Cagliari audience at the Manifattura after a screening of his film "Nonostante," scheduled for that evening.

And here's where we begin. Keeping in mind that little can be revealed about the film, the viewer shouldn't know from the outset who those three characters chatting in front of a mortuary are.

When you finished "Nonostante," you did something you've never done in all your years of friendship and so many films. You called me and said, "Go see it. We're all in it." Why did you do that? And what did you mean by "We're all in it"?

Because it's a story in which I wanted to portray the person I am and those around me. All united by a common feeling about the things in life, the good and the bad. If I ever continue telling stories from this perspective, I think the films I would make would be full of me and others, just as they have been full in my acting career for 32 years now.

You've explained the origin of the title several times: it comes from a phrase by the poet Angelo Maria Ripellino. Okay, but "Despite" what?

"The Despite," said Ripellino, "are a type of people in contact with the suffering of existence and who do everything they can to hold their ground and react."

What's the message?

I don't like messages. Sending or receiving them. Cinema remains a stimulating tool, not a consolatory or pedagogical one. I simply wanted to use the potential poetry that cinema offers to explain how much courage it takes to embrace emotions, one of all, the mother of all, love, and the possibility of changing one's life because of it.