Italian filmmaker Marco Perego joins his creative collaborator and wife Zoe Saldaña for Dovecote, a slow-burning prison drama shortlisted at the 2025 Oscars for Best Live-Action Short Film. Perego breaks down how he filmed a short film in an actual Venetian prison, using female inmates as extras, and the incredible sense of community he discovered among them.
Listen here. The following transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity:
For our listeners who might not have watched Dovecote for now, I would like to tell them that Dovecote stars Zoe Saldaña, who is dominating this year's awards race for her performance in Emilia Perez. And Saldaña, in the short film, plays an inmate in a prison in Venice who has just completed a sentence and is now preparing to face the outside world again. So Marco, how did you get inspired to direct an emotional prison film like this?
I was invited to be part of the Venice Biennale this year, and the pavilion was on the inside of the women's prison, the institution Giudecca. I was lucky to meet all these women and ask them about the emotion[s] they were going through. And the question that came up a lot was about what freedom is. In the film, the discussion we try to have is about what really freedom is. Is freedom more outside, or is freedom more inside? It's inside where people can see you and you belong. Where is really freedom is. And that's all the question of Dovecote.
I believe that in Dovecote, that was a real-life prison in Venice.
It's still a prison. The majority of the women inside the film are inmates, and the prison is a facility, working for women. That actually is a great facility because it was an old monastery. {It} can now transform in[to] an active prison. And they were super collaborative to [let us] shoot the film Dovecote, inside.
So, as you said, most of the extras were real-life inmates, and they were collaborators. But as a filmmaker yourself, you have to be sensitive as well that nowhere is my camera feeling too invasive or nowhere am I feeling like exploiting their story.
That's a good question. And when we met them, the idea was [that[ they can trust us. And I remember when Alex {Dinelaris], my co-writer and mentor, myself, and Zoe, we went up and we showed the film to this inmate. They say, thank you, you guys see us. And for us, it was the more important gift. At the beginning, [it] was difficult to own their own trust. But slowly, slowly, what we tried to do was to show an intimate portrait of all these women. At the end of the day, there is a sense of belonging, [and] a sense of humanity in this great community.
For me as a viewer, what I found different about Dovecote was that often, especially in Western Hollywood movies and in all these Instagram tourist videos, Venice is often depicted as this touristy city. It just has boats, canals, [and] artworks; this is the Renaissance city. We just see the bright side of the city. In your film, it starts with a boat and a canal. So I'm like, oh yeah, that's just another Venice film. Your film has these black-and-white sequences where we see what goes on inside this woman's prison in Venice. So that was very different for me. Was the city of Venice a conscious decision for you? Do you feel like Dovecote can work in any other city, or do you feel like there's an appeal to it?
I don't know if Venice had a prison. In Giudecca, there is this incredible hotel in Venice, people going, tourists — these women inside the prison, they actually clean the shit bed of this hotel. And this is something really touching for me. The idea to choose the black and white and the blue; it was very meaningful.
Outside, the movie is shot in 4 by 3, all square, contained, [and] cut all the time. Inside, it's shot [in] black or white, and the camera never stops. It's one long take. And it's a big frame of 239. Why? The question is, is freedom inside or outside? The question of, and the idea, the gesture to go in. Oh, look inside here. Start to walk around [and] look at all these tours. This is all beautiful, but now look, there are women, there is life there. Each one of them has a story. And I think the shot with all the women, they look in the camera, they have a very, very sense of, look at me, I'm here. Well, everybody can have their own explanation and own feeling[s], but look at me; I'm a woman; look at me in the eyes.
Was it a conscious decision to make the film very low on dialogue? There are more emotions than speaking parts.
Yeah, actually, it's a very, very good question. I tell you why. When we were in Venice, I was walking [for] the first time around the prison, and I really felt rumors. And I discovered, say, what are these rumors? All these women were sharing, 10 women at a time, one cell. And what we did [was] we put a little microphone with permission, of course. And we understand that everybody is speaking different dialects. There are 81 women inside, 23. They are from Italy, some from all [over] the rest of the world, and Northern Africa, East of Europe. And what we learned was [that] it was like a Babel Tower. I think the idea of Alex was no language, no dialogue, and just the feeling, the visual sensation about the feeling of you leaving that in the images.
As you mentioned, the women are of different languages, communities, [and] backgrounds, but you see them living together. How did that make you feel as a filmmaker? You see the sense of community.
Sometimes, it's more important where you belong. I think the more important key is if you're watching the scene where Zoe decides to leave, and another woman comes in, you see a cycle. The idea is actually from storytelling; I think Alex did something very brilliant where in the second act of the film, [the] majority of the time the character is lost, and what he [Alex] did, he decided to send out the protagonist and bring inside a new person. It means every woman, they're going in, they go a cycle. The first women come in; it's a sense of loneliness, but with time, she's building this amazing community, building a place where it belongs. And because it belongs, you'll be seen. And sometimes, for that reason, sometimes it's much better to be inside where people see you, okay, outside where you're completely invisible, you're like a depiction.
I'm sure every journalist would have asked you this question. Zoe Saldaña is your creative partner and your wife as well. So working with Zoe, how did you manage to convince her, considering her busy schedule?
I love working with her; I learn everything from her. I really think she's always been one of the best actors of her generation. I feel blessed and grateful because she's my partner, both in my life and also in making art together because I really enjoy and learn so much from her.
She's in so many projects every year on TV or in film. How did she get the time to shoot this film with you?
We were both very grateful, thanks to Chiara Paris and Bruno Racine for being part of the Venice Biennale. And now it was a very beautiful gift.
How long did it [filming] take?
Five days to prep and five-day shooting.