Taxiderman: Q&A with Rossella Laeng
Happy Birthday and Auguri Ross! May the coming natal year bring the weirdest and most welcome adventures yet.
I like to think I have Scarlett & skulls to thank for bringing me and my husband together and thus heralding a new life chapter. Rossella — that’s Scarlett in Italian — and I struck up a friendship through a Brooklyn art collective nearly a decade ago, and an invitation to assist with the initial shooting of a documentary about a taxidermist in Padua in August 2016 was certainly the type only a special kind of badass friend extends.
Taxiderman follows the life and work of Dr. Alberto Michelon, Padua’s only taxidermical artist and perhaps Italy’s only taxidermist who specializes in pet taxidermy. Through her lens Rossella captures the “poignant, poetic and sometimes hilarious truths that come to light when death is both object and subject,” inviting the viewer to revisit the oft-taboo world of taxidermy with Alberto a surprisingly personable host and guide.
What is the origin story of Taxiderman? How did you meet Alberto and what inspired you to tell his story?
In the spring of 2016 I was interning as an editing assistant at The American Museum Of Natural History in New York City. Most of my time there was spent watching and logging hours of footage of a scientific trip to a Natural Reserve, some of which would eventually be cut into a short video to be screened at an upcoming exhibit. The rest was to be archived as biological research, the rest being graphic videos of various bird specimens being killed, plucked, sliced and vialed for the noble purpose of doing science.
I like to think that this exposure planted a seed, an awareness of the layered nature of such a graphic and disturbing act. Besides it being “gross,” what I was witnessing (over and over again) was a lifeless body being rebirthed as a vessel for knowledge and meaning. Once I got over the initial repulsion, I started to see the beauty in its sacrifice.
Another seed was also planted at The Museum. I particularly cherished the privileged access to an establishment teeming with people, the “behind the curtains” perspective. I would walk through secret hallways, take shortcuts only employees knew about. I would also work past closing hours in order to treat myself to a meandering walk through the empty exhibit halls. It felt forbidden and exciting, like I was witnessing something rare, a secret. The feeling, I have since posed, is akin to making a documentary.
For some magical reason, the camera can compel people to lift the invisible curtain that normally separates you. Strangers allow you into their homes and their hearts, it is a most intimate and profoundly human experience, and I’m totally addicted!
All this prefacing, but the story is actually quite simple. I was on break at the museum, scrolling through social media, and I ran across an article about a taxidermist in Padua.
I don’t think taxidermy would have caught my eye had I not been so passively immersed in it at the time. The article described a ruggedly handsome, outgoing man who happened to stuff people’s dead pets for a living. I thought, “Italy plus taxidermy sounds like a winning visual storytelling combination!” and immediately sent Alberto an email. Shortly thereafter we spoke on the phone and I found him to be antithetical to shyness, but rather overwhelming, and almost hard to keep up with. He was eager for me to come to Padua and document his world, so I made arrangements. That summer changed both our lives: I started on this filmmaking journey that lasted years (I finally completed the film in 2021), and you met your husband and eventually relocated to Italy.
Taxidermy holds a morbidly divisive fascination; people seem to be either captivated or repulsed by it. Did anything in particular take you by surprise while documenting Alberto’s work? What were some of your own preconceived ideas about taxidermy and how did they evolve throughout filming?
What I found surprising / tried to convey in the film, is how joyous and full of life Alberto is, despite (and perhaps even because of) his profession. I love stories that shatter stereotypes, and this is one of them. Technically speaking, Alberto’s daily routine involves skinning, sawing, cleaning bones, harvesting organs… the stuff of nightmares for many. Taxidermists are generally thought of and portrayed as creepy weirdos. Most recently “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” on Netflix–an incredible, deeply disturbing show–makes a big fuss about Dahmer’s affinity for taxidermy from a young age. The trope is that if you enjoy dead animals as your medium, you are probably a deeply emotionally damaged person.
Working on this film shifted my perception, as I started to think of Alberto more as a skilled artisan than a butcher. Perfectly skinning a dog is a hard earned skill, as is recreating its lifelike appearance through sculpture. You have to be knowledgeable and patient to perfectly re-assemble a skeleton. And turning body bits into artwork that’s beautiful, inspiring, even humorous (but not ridiculous), well, that’s art!
Working with Alberto I learned how taxidermy, perhaps like any other profession that exposes you to death, grief, and the inevitability of suffering; can lead to a very even keel, healthy lifestyle. Alberto is one of the most emotionally intelligent, friendly, optimistic people I know. He unapologetically walks to the beat of his own drum, and I think taxidermy has somehow fostered that confidence.
Your mother is American and your father is Italian, and while you primarily grew up in Italy I think it’s safe to say you’ve lived a transatlantic life. Do you feel and respond to those dual influences differently in your work and perhaps life at large?
Songwriter, actor, singer, filmmaker, and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda said once during an interview: “If you want to make a recipe for making a writer, have them feel a little out of place everywhere, have them be an observer kind of all the time.” I suspect this resonates with you as an “expat” writer, and it certainly resonates with me as a “Third Culture Kid” filmmaker. Perhaps my biggest asset as a documentarian is my unique perspective on Italy, the country that raised me, that I understand and feel a part of in many ways, whilst simultaneously feeling like an alien. I think this country is rich in incredible stories, but the ones I tend to be drawn to are the ones most Italians ignore. I love the underdogs, the niches, the obscure and unlikely. I am also very disenchanted / bored with the way Italians are typically portrayed in the media (their own as well as international). We are so much more complex and sophisticated than “pasta, pizza, soccer, mafia.” So I’ve sort of made it my mission to try and diversify the Italian voices and stories that are put out there. Perhaps I am subconsciously reacting to a lifetime of feeling like an outsider wherever I go…
What drew you to the documentary medium and what do you personally look for when considering subjects? What work inspires you and who are your aspirational agitators shaking things up in the field?
As a teenager I loved visual arts and photography. This was before smartphones, so I was the kid with the camera. I brought it with me everywhere, documented life and events before it was ubiquitous to do so.
In my early twenties I was mostly in survival mode, working odd jobs and trying to figure out who I was. I abandoned the arts and photography for a while, although my desire to create and communicate found other ways of flowing out of me. I processed my feelings by writing essay-like accounts of my adventures and misadventures (blogging). So in a way I always had the instinct to creatively document the world around me. When I finally went back to school in my late twenties, I studied journalism and formalized these different forms of non-fiction storytelling. I learned to report, pen profiles, and interview subjects. Finally, I took a “multimedia storytelling” class that was the catalyst for everything. I learned to combine these methods of documentation and storytelling, and distill them into a documentary. I never looked back. Once I found documentary filmmaking, I came into my own as an artist.
When considering subjects I look for a topic/character that really interests me. Documentary films can take a long time to make, and they require a lot of hard work and dedication. If I don’t find the subject endlessly interesting, I won’t be able to finish the film. So I like stories that are complex and layered, that hold no yes or no answer, but rather are thought provoking and challenging. I love hearing comments like “I’ve never heard of that!” or “That’s so different!”
The documentary that changed my life was “Searching for Sugar Man” directed by Malik Bendjelloul (RIP). I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, but it has all the elements I love: surprising twists, a story that reaches across continents and connects humanity in unexpected ways. Behind the scenes, the director was fearlessly passionate and indie: he gathered the material, directed, filmed some sections himself, wrote incidental music, added his own illustrations, made the title sequence, and edited himself. During filming he ran out of money and could no longer afford film, so he shot some scenes on a smartphone (before it was cool to do so). He overcame several other setbacks, eventually opening at Sundance in 2012, where the film won the special jury prize and audience award for best international documentary. It went on to win a Bafta, and an Academy Award.
What are the challenges of being a documentary filmmaker today and especially in Italy?
Oof.
Obstacle #1 for filmmaking in general is money. It is very expensive to make films, and even documentaries (which are generally much cheaper than fiction films) are very hard to fund.
I am tremendously privileged to have gotten this far. I applied for grants for Taxiderman to no avail, so I was ultimately able to complete the short because I have parents who could afford to help me buy expensive film gear, friends in the industry who helped me for free, and (like Bendjelloul) I scrappily pulled resources and did all the work myself (producer, DP, editor, distributor).
Now I’m working on my first feature, and figuring out how to fund it is a whole new challenge. There are international grants for filmmakers, but of course these opportunities are coveted and competitive. In Italy the circle is even smaller and more closed off. There are public funds, but only companies qualify for them. It is prohibitively expensive to start a company in Italy, so the only option is to partner with an existing production company. I’ve tried to forge such collaborations, but have yet to find the right partner (it probably doesn’t help that my pitches are so fringe, in a world that prioritizes what is lucratively mainstream). So money is the biggest hurdle, but it’s by far the only one. There are so many complications, ethical dilemmas, and sudden changes that can come up. When you are making a documentary you are de facto chasing a moving target. It’s a great exercise in giving up on the illusion of control! It is truly a thankless labor of love, which is why you have to be very passionate and a bit crazy to pursue it.
Now for the fun question: who would be on your dream guest list, living or lain to rest, at your next screening party? (Friends, family, and partner are a given)
Isabella Rossellini, Tom Waits, Jonathan Van Ness, Roxane Gay, Anthony Bourdain (RIP), Stevie Nicks… it’s a tricky question because I want to both list a bunch of people I think are cool / would want to host, but then I’m also thinking it’s the same party, so they should make sense as a group? Sigh…
To better acquaint yourself with Ross & her work you are cordially invited here
