‘Elsinore’ Producer Andrea Occhipinti on Bringing Ian Charleson’s Story to the Screen and His Personal Connection to the AIDS Crisis: ‘I Lost a Lot of Friends’

For Italian producer and distributor Andrea Occhipinti, shepherding “Elsinore” to the big screen carries a significance that transcends being lead producer of the buzzy movie that last night opened the London Film Festival to a standing ovation, with few dry eyes in the Royal Festival Hall, after making a major splash in Telluride and Toronto.

This moving but also very funny film about Scottish “Chariots of Fire” actor Ian Charleson who gave a triumphant final performance as Hamlet at London’s National Theatre in late 1989, shortly before dying of AIDS at the age of 40, germinated from an encounter in Rome between Occhipinti and Charleson in 1987.

That year Occhipinti, a former actor, co-founded his Lucky Red shingle with American business partner Kermit Smith, “who at the time was HIV positive,” he says. Smith passed away in 2001. “It was a time when AIDS was devastating. I lost a lot of friends,” he says. “That’s why this story is so important to me,” Occhipinti points out.

On the day after “Elsinore’s” triumph in the city where the film is set, Occhipinti spoke to Variety about its long journey.

How did Elsinore originate from a production standpoint?

I met Ian Charleson in Spain in 1984 on the set of the mini-series “The Sun Also Rises” in which I played a small part as a bullfighter. It was summer and we were a group of actors: Leonard Nimoy, James Seymour, Robert Carradine and Ian were the leads. Ian was the finest of the group, the most wicked. Then I saw him again, three years later, in Rome. He was shooting Dario Argento’s “Opera.” He was completely different. He was depressed. And probably at the time, though he didn’t tell me, he was already HIV positive. I remember Ian told me, “my life is a mess.” He was not happy, and he introduced me in Rome to his friend Ethan Silverman. So then Ian dies, and Silverman came to Rome because he was preparing a film with Barry Levinson, and he said to me: “It’s so sad about Ian. Do you know what happened the last months of his life?” And he told me the story. He told me that Ian wanted very badly to play Hamlet, and that when he was called to play Hamlet, he was sick. He had AIDS, but he really wanted to do it, and so on. So I said: “Ethan, there is a film here.”

Then what?

I had emailed Ethan saying: “I cannot forget that story about Ian wanting to play Hamlet. We should do a film.” That was 2005. Fifteen years later, Ethan came to me and said: “Listen, let’s do this film. I convinced him that we should find an English screenwriter. He accepted. So I went to Cameron McCracken at Pathé UK, with whom I had done many Stephen Frears movies [as a distributor]. He loved the story, and liked the fact that we had thought of Andrew Scott [to play the lead] because Scott looked like Ian, and he’s Irish while Ian was Scottish. They are both theatre actors and movie actors. Andrew had done Hamlet, so he was perfect.

McCracken suggested we meet Stephen Beresford as a writer because he wrote “Pride,” in which Andrew had starred. So we did. This film has been a real adventure, because at first it was supposed to be shot in Italy and in London. Then Cameron McCracken decided to retire, so the project reverted to us [Lucky Red]. Two years later, I brought on board Gabrielle Tana with whom I was doing Anton Corbijn’s “A Talent for Murder.”

How did you finance “Elsinore”

When Gabrielle and Pete Shilaimon joined, with the screenplay and Andrew Scott’s attachment already in place, she suggested Simon Stone as director. I pitched the project to Studiocanal’s CEO Anna Marsh and to Ron Halpern, the company’s EVP of global production, and they were interested and decided to finance the film. At the same time I was already in talks with Studiocanal who, as you know, bought 51% of Lucky Red.

What are the next steps?

Elsinore will be playing at the Rome Film Festival next week and then lots of other festivals. Focus Features is opening the film in the U.S. on Nov. 20 and we will be doing a lot of screenings for Ampas and Golden Globes voters. Word of mouth is already very good. People are very aware of this film. Most of the releases in other countries will be in January.

Besides the significance of the AIDS theme, what are other aspects that make this movie so important for you?

As an Italian producer to make such a quintessentially British film, is unbelievable. And to be able to finance it through Studiocanal is really crucial and stands as testimony to the fact that joining forces with them has been a good move in terms of obtaining the financial muscle to make quality indie films, which are a dying breed. Getting this movie made is really about teamwork. The film is also thematically very much about this. It’s about community. It’s about this theatre community protecting Ian’s character, you know, with his difficulty of being sick with AIDS. There is this great line in the film that says, “I’d rather die of Hamlet than AIDS.” That was the spirit.