Echo Chamber Movie Interview - Chicago International Film Festival 2026
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Andrea Pallaoro’s The Echo Chamber was featured in the International Competition program at the 62nd Chicago International Film Festival, held October 14 - 25, 2026. The film screened on October 20th and 21st, bringing its intimate and emotionally complex story to the windy city audiences. Starring Alicia Vikander, Luca Marinelli, and Susan Sarandon, the Italy-Belgium production follows Anne, a physical therapist, and Leo, a successful music producer, whose professional relationship develops into an intense and complicated affair. Based on the final screenplay by legendary filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, the film reflects on the ways relationships can become both a source of connection and a form of emotional entrapment.
Interview Transcript with Director Andrea Pallaoro
AtZ: You made the movie Monica that played Chicago a couple years ago. That was one of my favorites coming out of the festival. So when I heard that you had another one, I was really excited to catch it.
AP: I'm so happy that you love that.
AtZ: So starting off with the title, I think when you see the movie, it feels like it could play in a bunch of different ways.
AP: That is the original title of the screenplay that I was offered to direct and the title that Bertolucci, Rampoldi and Bernardini gave the film right from the start. It is, as you say, a title that has multiple readings. For me, what really stands out is being a film about the boundaries between independence and intimacy. About presence and absence. The need to control another person in a relationship. Also the need to take care of them. The title reminds one of how the relationships that we have had in our lives, the people we have loved, the people who loved us, they keep living within us, echoing inside of us even when we stop being with those people. I feel like we are all made of echoes in a way. At its heart, it is an exploration of that space of missing another person by looking for them through memories and how that person has played a role in our lives.
AtZ: I really like the use of the location and how certain things that have been left behind become the memory of a person. What you remember them to be is almost what's entrapping you and becomes its own echo.
I was curious on the music side, which plays a massive part. How did you approach it? Did you have the music going in or was it more impulsive?
AP: Well, I was lucky to collaborate with a magnificent composer called Clément Ducol and Émilie Gassin who wrote the lyrics. That was my first time collaborating with the composer on creating diegetic music for a film and I loved that process. Especially once Luca Marinelli and Susan Sarandon became involved, to see how they contributed to giving birth to these sounds. Through their voices, through their personalities, through their sensibilities. So to witness and observe the process of giving birth to these songs that help the spectator understand the characters and their dynamics was a joy. They give a very specific identity to the film.
AtZ: I also like the way that it's edited because the narrative jumps around. Was that the approach starting off?
AP: Yeah, that was actually the way the script was written with the way the timeline interweaves. It's also another reading of the echoes. How the past and the present intertwine with one another and creates a feeling as you watch it of experiencing echoes.
AtZ: I guess even getting into that meta level, do you feel that in getting a script that has been out there for so long, are you also playing with echoes as a filmmaker?
AP: Yes, of course there was. It was really interesting because I felt the spirit and the energy of Bernardo echoing through the making of the film. This is one of the, I would say, maybe one of the most, autobiographical works of Bernardo and I really felt like I got to know him as a man. Not so much the filmmaker, but Bernardo Bertolucci the man through this. I felt his presence, I really did.
AtZ: Speaking of echoes through the performances and the location: how did you use the apartment to play out the mental state of the characters?
AP: The apartment is a character in the film. My collaborators and I were looking for a place that could create a visual language, that had the opportunity to elevate these dynamics and cinematic grammar. To create the images that could reflect or could suggest certain readings to the spectator. And in this case, this is really a film about the characters that chase one another. They use the objects in the location to communicate with one another.
AtZ: Like a haunting.
AP: Yes. And, you know, like the pillow, the coffee cup, the scar - they're the ways that this dialog between them is manifested. So for me, it was very important to find a place where we could transform into an architecture of desire and control. Especially to play with that dichotomy visually. Even the fact that we could see multiple rooms from different angles in the apartment to create a visual representation of echoes. Also of different thoughts and ideas that could connect and play off of each other. We really try to approach the location with that ambivalence. The apartment is both a place of emotional prison and of refuge. But also it's a container of memories and a place of control and surveillance. It was very interesting to be able to hear out the cinematic language.
AtZ: Well, I appreciate your time. I thought it had great performances and I look forward to the next film as well.
AP: Thank you so much. Thank you.
THE ECHO CHAMBER
A love story where the boundaries between presence and absence, care and dependence, desire and control blur until dissolving. Leo and Anne circle each other in an endless cycle of longing and separation, intimacy and distance. They cannot let go, nor break free. Through the rooms, Ava’s voice echoes across time, carrying to the surface what endures – and what can no longer be held back.
DIRECTOR: Andrea Pallaoro
WRITERS: Bernardo Bertolucci, Ilaria Bernardini, Ludovica Rampoldi
STARS: Alicia Vikander, Luca Marinelli, Susan Sarandon, Ann Akinjirin, Peter Coonan, Aomi Muyock
Italy, Belgium | 120m | International Competition
