The actress talks about her new film and her directorial debut

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The Taormina Film Festival opened this weekend with the world premiere screening of Mitzi Peirone’s film Saint Clairewith Bella Thorne, Rebecca De Mornay and Ryan Phillippe.

At the film’s premiere at the open-air Teatro Antico in the Sicilian hilltop town, Thorne thanked attendees for their support of independent cinema “that moves our hearts” and its director for his “hardcore fuck you, I’m not going to take no for an answer” attitude.

This is a return to Taormina for Thorne after last year presenting a short film she directed and guest curating the festival’s “Influential Shorts” evening. She also has a new short film screening here on Sunday, titled Unstable.

This 15-minute film tells the true story of Jason Parks, a young man who was drugged and kidnapped from a gay nightclub before escaping and seeking to bring his tormentors to justice. His story was not believed by the authorities.

Thorne is embarking on her first feature film as a director, Color your painwhich she says will be a coming-of-age thriller that will follow Parks over the course of 37 years. As a survivor of sexual abuse, Thorne told Deadline, “I felt it was unfair to me and to all the other survivors to tell my whole story as this horrible thing that happened to you. It’s really unfair and I thought if someone was going to make a movie about my life, the fact that I was sexually abused growing up would be a small part of my movie.”

Thorne will incorporate images from Unstable in functionality.

There are stylistic and genre parallels between Unstable And Saint Claire. The latter is set in a small town where a lonely young woman (Thorne) is haunted by voices that drive her to murder evildoers and get away with it, until her latest murder leads her down a rabbit hole riddled with corruption, trafficking in young women, and visions of the afterlife. It is based on the novel by Don Roff, Clare at sixteen.

Thorne, who has worked on and off set since she was six, says the similarities may come from the fact that she has been “re-editing” Saint Claire.”

Thorne explains that this new cut, which is the version shown in Taormina, was not planned, but she “didn’t like the way the first film was edited – I think not everyone was happy. And then I thought, ‘I know these takes, I know there’s better stuff, I know it’s being edited. Let me try and I’ll bring you a better draft.'” Thorne worked with Peirone on the new cut and is currently negotiating for a credit. The film’s credited editor is Patrick Sanchez Smith.

Thorne “wouldn’t say there wasn’t resistance,” but adds: “Editing is such a fickle thing. If you have a great editor and you have multiple sessions to really understand the film and talk about it with them, you end up with a much better project.”

Saint Claire The film was originally planned to be distributed in the United States through Screen Media, but the owner of that company recently filed for bankruptcy, so the film is now seeking distribution in the United States.

Thorne says she is drawn to “socially conscious films,” such as Saint Claireand especially in the independent field. “I think there are fewer people to ask questions of, and sometimes asking too many questions can destroy the art of something.”

Clare says, “We have to find as much empathy as we can for every character that we play, even when we’re playing a serial killer. But of course, the brain naturally judges itself in general, so we don’t want to completely not judge the character because they’re the ones judging themselves at that moment and that’s one of the biggest aspects of Clare. She’s afraid that what she’s doing is wrong… So for me, I think with Clare, it was just about finding humanity but also anger, like how angry can you be in your heart that you want to hunt people down and murder them? Luckily, we’re killing a bunch of bad men who do horrible things to girls, so when we watch the movie, we’re like, ‘Yeah!’”