Italian filmmaker Gabriele Salvatores is no stranger to awards, but he's still nervous whenever they come his way.
"Awards are always a double-edged sword. They are a wonderful recognition of your work, but they put unreasonable expectations on you," says Salvatores, whose Mediterraneo won the Oscar in 1992 for best foreign language film.
"Back in Italy after I won the Oscar, it gave me a great deal of power to get other movies made, but when they didn't get the same kind of international recognition as Mediterraneo people were disappointed.
"They thought I wasn't working to my potential."
That perception changed last year when Salvatores released I'm Not Scared, a kidnapping thriller that has enthralled audiences and critics across Europe.
It piled up nominations and awards in Italy and also at the Berlin Film Festival and the European Film Awards.
In preparation for its release this Friday, Salvatores has been making a series of whistle stops in Canada.
"I have followed my little cinema child to almost all of the 32 countries where it has already played," he says.
"I'm excited it is coming to Canada, because this is a country that embraces foreign films and doesn't mind subtitles."
I'm Not Scared is the haunting story of a young boy who discovers a boy his own age chained in a pit in an abandoned farm house.
Salvatores needed six children of varying ages including the two central boys who carry the film.
"I didn't want trained child actors," he says.
"When I work with established adult actors, I begin by tearing down their technique so I would never want to work with children someone else had taught."
To find his his young stars, Salvatores met with 600 children.
"I asked each of them to tell me a story from their lives. I chose the best little storytellers."
Salvatores filmed I'm Not Scared chronologically and turned it into a game.
"The children did not know the story.
"I just told them what they needed to know for each scene.
"The expression you see on Giuseppe Cristiano's face when he first sees the leg in the pit is real. He didn't know what was in the pit when he was told to lift the lid and look in."
The game worked.
The children were extremely focused and desperate to return each day.
"They were as eager as audiences have proven to be to find out what will happen to these new friends brought together by a horrible kidnapping event," says Salvatores.
Young Cristiano had such an incredible experience filming I'm Not Scared and has received so many accolades that he is now decided to take some acting classes.
Salvatores insists that is none of his concern.
He wishes the boy luck, but with someone else.
"I'm onto my next movie and new actors."
Salvatores says once he finishes promoting I'm Not Scared in North America he will head back to Italy to begin work on a new science fiction thriller.
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