Cine Lumiere, 15-19 June
Italian film lovers in London are in for a treat next weekend when Cinecittà will be presenting a short season of films made by women at Cine Lumiere in South Kensington, already the home of the annual Cinema Made in Italy festival each spring.
Audiences will be able to sample a rich and diverse programme where they can revisit or discover the early works from some of the greatest female Italian filmmakers working today, plus some classics. Italy has seen a surge in female filmmakers over the past decade and prior to this, the only notable female directors were Liliana Cavani, Lina Wertmuller, and very few others. This stellar selection of films has been curated by Head of Programming and Exhibition at Ciné Lumière, Diane Gabrysiak who will be hosting the filmmakers from Italy in filmmaker Q&A sessions.
Opening the season is Chiara Bellosi’s SWING RIDE (Calcinculo, 2022), premiered at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. The film follows Benedetta, an obese fifteen-year-old yearning for attention, who falls in love with a young transvestite, Amanda, detailing a story of intoxication and family rebellion as Benedetta completes her rite of passage into adulthood.
Additional festival highlights include Alice Rohrwacher’s feature directorial debut HEAVENLY BODY (Corpo celeste, 2011) which observes 13-year-old Marta, who is struggling to adjust to life after relocating from Switzerland to the deep south of Italy and beginning to question her faith. The film cemented Rohrwacher as a distinctive young voice in Italian cinema and she has gone on to direct festival favourites HAPPY AS LAZZARO and THE WONDERS.
Laura Bispuri’s (The Peacock’s Paradise) directorial debut feature SWORN VIRGIN (Vergine giurata, 2015) stars the great Alba Rohrwacher as Hana, a woman who escapes her future as a subservient housewife to live a celibate life as a male in an isolated Albanian community. She begins to resist her current lifestyle and decides to undergo a journey of rediscovery.
Other titles include:
Maura Delpero’s heart breaking MATERNAL (2019) which details the story of three women living in a Catholic refuge in a sensitively realised portrait of motherhood.
Adele Tulli’s NORMAL (2019) a genre-bending documentary, reflects on how female and male identities are performed in everyday interactions by capturing some of the most intimate moments in people’s lives.
Michela Occhipinti’s FLESH OUT (Il Corpo della sposa, 2019) tells the story of a modern woman challenging the Mauritanian tradition of arranged marriage. (See review here)
Emma Dante’s A STREET IN PALERMO (Via Castellana Bandiera, 2013) observes the lengths that two women will go after their cars come face to face in a narrow street in Italy. What ensues is a cutting tale of stubbornness, with neither woman willing to back down.
Susanna Nicchiarelli’s COSMONAUT (Cosmonauta, 2009) explores the fractured relationship of two die-hard communist siblings as they follow the progress of the space race in the early sixties.
The programme also includes two classic titles from female filmmakers that paved the way for the filmmakers in our contemporary selection which include:
Lina Wertmüller’s directorial debut THE BASILISKS (I Basilischi, 1963) which follows the uneventful lives of three men living in an impoverished town in Southern Italy, and Elvira Notari’s A SANTANOTTE (1922) explores the relationship between an oppressed young girl and her abusive father.
Finally, as a tribute to actress Monica Vitti, who died last February, the programme will include DUCK IN ORANGE SAUCE (L’anatra all’arancia, 1975) by Luciano Salce, the story of the fallout of a wife asking to leave her husband.
The season will also present a selection of short animation films which includes: SUGARLOVE (2018) and TOILETS (Bagni, 2016), Laura Luchetti, LIVE BAIT, Susanna Nicchiarelli (Esca viva, 2012), THIN DUST, Alessandra Boatto, Gloria Cianci, Sofia Zanonato (Polvere sottile, 2018), NEW NEIGHBOURS, Sara Burgio, Andrea Mannino, Giacomo Rinaldi (2018), MERLOT, Marta Gennari, Giulia Martinelli, (2015), COSMOETICO, Martina Scarpelli (2015), WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO DARWIN?, Leonardo Altieri, Sara Crippa, Giulia Manna, Maria Nocerino (2019)
The Wave is organized by Cinecittà with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute in London.
For full details and tickets see here
A seat in the dark 