Tinny Andreatta & ‘Supersex’ Creator Francesca Manieri On Why Their Rocco Siffredi Drama Won’t Be The New ‘Boogie Nights’ & Netflix’s Ambitions In Italy

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: It was on the set of Sky and HBO’s We Are Who We Are where Lorenzo Mieli asked Francesca Manieri, a feminist screenwriter, to pen a TV series about Rocco Siffredi, the infamous hardcore porn star.

Initially, she could barely believe it. “I laughed,” she recalls. “I was sure he was joking.” Only he wasn’t, and after a week of deliberation, she said yes, having realized it would give her the chance to explore “the core of contemporary masculinity.” Manieri — known for films such as Rose Island, Italian Race, The First King and The Miracle and as co-writer of We Are Who We Are — went away and drew up her plan for a series that would allow her to “turn the tables” on the narratives men have dictated to women for, well, probably ever: a series about what porn represents and how modern masculinity is constructed.

She chose to tell an intimate, surprisingly warm, character-driven coming-of-age story exploring the male super-ego. It would follow Siffredi, with whom she has formed an unlikely bond of “opposites,” through his younger years as he formed dual personalities — one for the cold world of filmed sex and the other for the warmth he desired from his personal and family life. “That was my dramatological plan,” says Manieri. “I went back to my producer, Lorenzo, and said that we were not going to be making Boogie Nights.” The result will debut tomorrow on Netflix globally.

Supersex is a co-production between Fremantle-owned The Apartment, the Italian indie Mieli recently exited to form a new production house with Mario Gianani, and Banijay’s Groenlandia, with Alessandro Borghi playing Siffredi, who is known for his rough sex scenes and domineering on-screen personality.