Few filmmakers embrace uncertainty as willingly as Iranian-born director Ramin Niami. His latest feature, Fade Away, was not born from years of development or elaborate financing. Instead, it emerged from a trip to Italy, a handful of trusted actors, an iPhone, and a willingness to trust instinct over convention.
Set against the haunting beauty of the Umbrian town of Narni, Fade Away explores memory, exile, love, and emotional displacement through an intimate, psychologically charged story. Produced on a micro-budget and filmed with an almost nonexistent crew, the film represents one of Niami’s boldest creative experiments.
In this conversation with Cinema Without Borders, Niami reflects on improvisation, Italian cinema, the emotional weight of exile, and why sometimes limitations become a filmmaker’s greatest creative freedom.
Cinema Without Borders: Fade Away seems to have come together in a very unconventional way. How did the idea first emerge?
Ramin Niami: It really began while I was traveling to Italy. I was already developing another feature in Umbria and planned to spend some time there with my longtime friend, actor Nicolas (Nic) Porcelli. Anastasia Bay, an actress I’d met in Cannes and had been coaching over Zoom, was also coming to visit. Suddenly I realized that I had actors, a beautiful apartment, and an extraordinary location. So I asked myself, “Why not make a film?”
The story actually began taking shape on my flight there. I started imagining relationships between these people—what if they were married, what emotional conflicts might arise? By the time I landed, I had the foundation of a film. When I told everyone we were going to make it, they looked at me as if I were joking. I wasn’t.
CWB: Do you usually begin with plot or with characters?
Niami: Almost always with characters. I don’t like forcing a story onto people. I prefer discovering who they are first and then asking what they would naturally do. For Fade Away that process became even more immediate because we began filming almost immediately. Every night I would develop the characters and imagine what would happen next, and the following morning we shot those scenes. There wasn’t much sleep involved.
CWB: One of the film’s emotional strengths is that the characters never feel manipulated by the screenplay.
Niami: That’s exactly what I wanted. Too often stories push characters toward predetermined dramatic moments. I prefer allowing the characters to lead the narrative. Fade Away was also an experiment for me. Rather than writing every line of dialogue, I developed each scene, explained the emotional direction to the actors, and encouraged them to improvise. It was very different from my previous films, which were much more traditionally scripted.
CWB: Why did you choose Italy—and specifically Narni—as the setting?
Niami: A few years ago my son studied in Italy for a semester, and I completely fell in love with the country. I wrote a screenplay for another film that takes place there, so I knew I wanted to return. Then Nic offered to share an apartment in Narni, and everything suddenly seemed possible.
Narni is an extraordinary medieval town. It’s actually the place that inspired C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. Unlike Rome, Tuscany, or Sicily, it isn’t a location that audiences have often seen in films. It has a quieter beauty. For me, the town of Narni became the film’s fifth character. Ironically, the script I had written prior to making this film is a romantic drama full of light. Fade Away became its emotional opposite. While making the film, I was dealing with painful family issues, and naturally I found myself drawn toward something much darker and more introspective.
CWB: As an Iranian filmmaker, did your own experience of displacement help you understand Lara, whose family has been affected by war?
Niami: Absolutely. Anyone who has lived in exile understands what it means to carry your homeland with you while watching it go through a crisis from afar. Although Lara comes from a different background than my own, Ukraine, those emotional experiences are universal. We all understand uncertainty, separation, and longing for home.
Italy also has a very personal significance for me. While I was growing up in Iran, Italian cinema had a tremendous influence on me. I wrote my university thesis on Italian Neorealism. Walking around Italy often feels like walking into the films I have loved my entire life.
CWB: The town itself also seems to offer the characters something they are searching for—a sense of belonging.
Niami: That’s beautifully put. The people of Narni were incredibly welcoming. Everywhere we went, people wanted to help. They love cinema, and once they realized we were making a film, they opened doors for us. That generosity became part of the film’s atmosphere.
CWB: How did you approach casting?
Niami: Normally I write first and cast later. This time I did the opposite. Nic, who plays Anthony, has been a close friend for more than thirty years and as I mentioned, Anastasia Bay was already coming to Narni. I’d also come to know two wonderful local actors Amedeo Carlo Capitanelli and Elisa Gabrielli from previous visits. Instead of searching for actors to cast, I wrote the characters specifically for these four people. That completely changed my writing process.
CWB: Did you rehearse much before filming?
Niami: Hardly at all. I explained the emotional objective of each scene rather than prescribing every line. For example, instead of telling Nic exactly what to say about New York, I simply asked him to explain, in his own words, why he genuinely missed living there. Those personal memories gave the performances an authenticity that rehearsed dialogue rarely achieves. Because we had so little time, we often shot only one or two takes.
CWB: You also made the remarkable decision to shoot the film yourself.
Niami: Yes. I did not have a conventional crew. My previous feature had a crew of more than thirty people. Suddenly with Fade Away, I found myself doing almost everything on my own—camera, lighting, and directing, with just one person assisting me, Valentino Ferraro, who recorded sound.
I bought the iPhone only two days before leaving for Italy. In many ways the production itself became an experiment. I wanted to discover whether I could still tell a compelling cinematic story with almost no equipment. Technology has always fascinated me. Years ago I made Paris, which was shot on digital video at a time when very few narrative genre features were using that format. I’m always interested in exploring new tools, provided they serve the story.
CWB: The remarkable thing is that the film never feels like it was shot on a phone.
Niami: Thank you. That was very important to me. I approached the iPhone exactly as I would a traditional motion-picture camera—thinking about composition, long shots, medium shots, close-ups, camera movement, and rhythm. The device changes, but cinematic language shouldn’t. Many viewers—including one Academy Award nominee cinematographer—have told me he would never have guessed the film was shot that way.
CWB: Considering how much improvisation was involved, how carefully did you plan the visual style?
Niami: Very carefully. Every night I was imagining the next day’s scenes and planning the visual approach.
Because the story moves through memories and emotional fragments, I wanted the camera to feel almost like human recollection—not mechanically perfect, but intimate and alive.
I had almost no equipment beyond the phone and a simple handheld support. However, limitations often force you to be more creative. I consulted my cinematographer daughter Tara on the visual style of the film and the technical side of things, and later on she assisted me with additional photography. The real writing continued during editing. I spent countless hours shaping the story before bringing in my very experienced and skilled editor Sohrab Khosravi for the final cut. Then I worked with a wonderful colorist Shaley Brooks who brought to life the look and feel I wanted.
CWB: Music plays a subtle but important psychological role throughout the film.
Niami: It had to.
This is a psychological film, and conventional orchestral music simply wasn’t working. My editor suggested I listen to the music of Iranian composer Hamed Sabet. His music immediately felt emotionally right.
The psychological score contrasts beautifully with the Italian popular music heard naturally in cafés and public spaces. That combination creates two emotional worlds existing simultaneously. Lara’s theme is written by Anastasia’s mother, is deeply emotional piece, by Tatiana Klement. My sound design is by frequent collaborator Reza Narimizadeh.
CWB: Amir Naderi served as executive producer. How important was his involvement?
Niami: Invaluable. During production I constantly sent him stills from my footage. His encouragement gave me confidence to continue.
Later, during post-production, I showed him different cuts of the film and asked for honest criticism. His feedback on the narrative, what was working and what I should rework, helped shape the final version.
When someone whose work you deeply respect tells you the film is finished, it gives you tremendous confidence.
CWB: What’s next for you?
Niami: I’m preparing a larger romantic drama titled Umbria. It follows an Australian woman who abandoned her artistic ambitions years earlier and returns to Italy, where she rediscovers both her creativity and herself. Radha Mitchell and Italian actor Alessio Boni are attached to the project, and we’re currently assembling the financing.
At the same time, I’ve completed a documentary called Michael Now and Then. Fifty years ago, while I was in film school, I made a docudrama about a Welsh miner and his son. I recently returned with Tara who served as my cinematographer, to revisit the same people and community half a century later.
The children had become grandparents. The mining villages had been transformed. In many ways, the documentary became a meditation on memory, time, and change. And while I’m preparing Umbria, I continue thinking about other films. That’s simply what I do.
