Only 55 days after the island’s independence was declared on June 24, 1968, the Italians sent troops to control the island. They destroyed Rose Island with explosives on February 11, 1969. A few days later, a storm completely flooded the building.
After Rose Island was destroyed by explosives, a storm submerged the entire building. Today, its remains remain on the bottom of the Adriatic Sea, but a piece of the original structure is preserved in the home of Rosa's son Lorenzo. "I have a brick that the divers took from there, and they wrote some wonderful words on it-the divers in Rimini are honored to be able to return the pieces of their dreams to a dreamer."
The protagonist of the story, Rosa, died at the age of 92 in 2017. Before his death, he met with filmmakers, and after some persuasion from them, Rosa agreed to their request to adapt this story into a movie. During the communication process, Rosa was not very interested in the idea of the story, but very enthusiastically introduced his proud island-building technology to the film production team.
"My father is an engineer, in Italy, this description of him is enough to understand what kind of person he is. He is a very meticulous person, very organized, almost like a German engineer." Rosa's son Luo Renzo said.
Rosa’s original intention was to add a floor to Rose Island every year.
Rosa’s son also said: "I like this island very much. I have visited many times-it was a wonderful experience. I like being with my father. As an engineer, he works hard and makes money to build the island. Four or five in the morning. At one o'clock, he left Bologna, went to Rimini, got on the boat, and then worked on the island.”-Yes, Rosa was married before the island was built.
In order to destroy the image of Rosa Island, some politicians even suggested that the island poses a threat to national security and may provide cover for Soviet nuclear submarines. They even said that there are Russian submarines under the island. In addition, they also said that Rosa Island is a security risk because the structure is very unstable (but it was only destroyed in the last three rounds of explosives).
"After the destruction of Rose Island, my father was very depressed, regretful, and painful. He never took the initiative to bring up this matter. Although he would answer questions if asked."
"Father received a letter from the Italian government, asking him to pay for the cost of destroying the island, which was 11 million lire (about 5200 pounds in total) at the time."
The movie was shot in an infinity pool in Malta, and the water surface is much shallower than in real life. Because shooting on the water, there are many technical problems that need to be solved. "Every day we have to explode something with water or do some complicated things. When we shoot a movie on the water, it is fluid and it is difficult to control the camera." "Young directors often ask me for advice. My advice is ——The movie should be shot on the ground!"
The film plan has been shelved because of the budget. For Italian films, this is the first time for such a filming method.
Neither of the film’s leading actors had been exposed to this story before. D'Angis, who plays the heroine Gabriella, said, “I’m from Bologna and my family and friends don’t know this story. It’s crazy. When I read the script, I was thinking why no one had filmed it before. A movie about this story, because it’s really incredible.”
One disadvantage of the obscurity of this story is that the actors don’t have much material to use as the basis for the character. "The creation of characters really depends on our imagination, so it is important to reproduce the atmosphere of the 1960s, the clothes, the atmosphere, the attitude, and the idea of freedom." DeAngis said.
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