In his film La Grazia, Paolo Sorrentino turns once again to power, but this time through a more intimate lens. At the centre of the film is Mariano De Santis, a fictional Italian president nearing the end of his term, caught between public duty and private conscience. What unfolds is a meditation on responsibility, compassion and the moral weight of decision-making.

In our conversation with Sorrentino, we speak about doubt, ethics and how ambiguity manifests in a world dominated by blunt certainties. As in much of his cinema, the political and the personal remain inseparable. Beneath the grandeur and composure lies a deeper question not only about leadership, but about all of us: who shapes our lives, and what forms of conscience still remain possible today?

INTERVIEW BY ESRA YILMAZ 
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREA PIRRELLO