The festival's Films

           DOCUMENTS

The Sorting Game (Il Gioco delle Soluzioni) director Carla Vestroni, 28 min. (She was born and lives in Rome). The film composes the portrait of Ann Price between Cornwall’s sea, where her mother Joan used to live, and Devon, where the protagonist lives. Life has for Ann natural sorting aims, and satisfying it helps in solving problems and creating order, like a benevolent game she learned when she was a child. Ann’s voice, ironic, joyful and nostalgic, reveals the mixture – of life and death, nature and colours, intimate relationships with things and persons – that rises in her life’s recipe.



La Luna di Kiev (Kiev’s Moon) director Marcella Piccinini, 22 min. (She was born in Montichiari and lives in Bologna). A bus heading for Rome leaves every week from Kiev and comes to destination after three long days. The voyagers are the women we Europeans call nurses: a trip made of images tells us their experience: the separation from land and relationships, the arrival in Italy. It is a women’s history , and the history of a land, of a nation. Women nursing our elder people, speaking of them as of a second family.



Storia del movimento femminista in Italia (Italian Feminist Movement’s History) director Lorella Reale, 94 min. (She was born in Catania, lives in Roma). This history of feminist movement is narrated in two parts – first one from 1945 to 1968, second one from 1968 to our days – using video repertories of Italian TV, crime news, movie, music, and contemporary interviews of witnesses, protagonists, and experts (historians, philosophers, doctors, journalists…



Róska director Ásthildur Kjartansdóttir, 78 min. (Reykjavik, Iceland). The documentary is dedicated to Róska Óskarsdóttir, better known as Róska (1940-1996), an eclectic character among the most famous in contemporary Icelandic art. The director affords the uneasy task of convey in images the history of an artist, painter, photographer, independent movie director, a feminist, an anarchic, a surrealist – who lived in Rome for 30 years.

Inventata da un dio distratto (Invented by a distracted god) director Marilisa Piga & Nico Di Tarsia, 45 min. (They live and work in Cagliari and in Rome). The film is dedicated to Maria Lai, artist born in 1919 in Ulassai, Sardinia. Through her narrating and visionary voice, to which the authors entrusted an affabulation’s role, the film receives and learns fairy tales and autochthones or cosmic legends, inexpressible if Maria wouldn’t be invented by a distracted god.



Donne contro l’in-differenza (Women against in-difference) director Laura Cardone, 4 min. (She was born and lives in Lecce). Quotations and images edited by the author in September 2007, after “a night full of memory, thoughts and inspiration” as final document of the Stage Women, Politics and Institutions organized and directed by professor Marisa Forcina of Salento’s University: “A great woman to whom now I owe really much” says Laura.



Nella Casa di Borgo San Nicola (In The House of Borgo San Nicola) director Caterina Gerardi, 62 min. (She lives in Lecce). Shot in Lecce’s feminine prison, this realisation – without prejudices indulgences, through interviews and meetings – investigates life, considerations, expectations and nostalgias of a women’s group detained in high security regime for criminal association of Mafioso type. Caterina Gerardi says: “Prison is not for women.”



Meio de pesce che d’oio santo (Better stinking of fish than of Holy oil) director Roberta Saccoccio, 30 min. (She was born and lives in Civitanova Marche). They wander in the streets, among passers-by and cars, dragging a two wheels cart, and they screams with all their voices; we are in Civitanova Marche and they are the Pesciarole, the fish sellers: historic characters for local people and out of time for all the others. Who really are they? This film narrates the life of the last Pesciarole.



Le Famiglie Arcobaleno (The Rainbow Families) directors Lucia Stano & Nadia Dalle Vedove, 22 min. Lucia Stano and Nadia Dalle Vedove work together since years doing shorts and documentaries. They created the productions’ study Fåröfilm, named by Fårö island where Ingmar Bergman used to live. This work has been realized to present the Rainbow Families Association of Homosexuals’ Parents during an important Meeting hold in Milano in November 2006.



B-movie, ragazze in B (B-movie, Girls in Second League) director Silvia Novelli, 25 min. (She was born and lives in Turin). This is a passions’ history. A video about feminine soccer, an unknown world full of commonplaces and a dazzling example of how women yet stay, in some realities, at the borders. This documentary is a pretext to show how the women’s cultural change even enriched a conservative worlds like the soccer’s one.



Francisca, Concetta, Catarina and Maria director Vivian Celestino, 13,30 min. (She was born and lives in Caltanissetta). The women protagonists of Maria Attanasio’s novels, writing, life. Three micro-stories narrated in little sections: a visual mosaic places the accounts in layers of time. The storyline moves on three degrees: writer’s words, figurative evocations, and the text. Three visual registers, where protagonists’ lives are shaped in words and images.



Voci di donne native e migranti (Native and Migrant Women’s Voices) director Rossella Piccinno, 14 min. (Born in Tricase, she lives in Supersano). Naemi is the forum of Native and Migrant Women in Lecce, founded to promote knowledge, intercultural dialogue, social and personal freedom of women of any age, origin, religion, culture. In this investigation they faces the uncomfortable condition of immigrants in Salento, particularly dealing the question of rights, in work and citizenship.



A cavallo tra i mondi (Between The Worlds) director Cristina Capone – Sirka , 46 min. (Born in Rome, she lives in Castel D’Aiano). The film’s subtitle is Lesbian Visibility’s routes in Italy, and Sirka says: ”I grew up fearing the word Lesbian, avoiding even to pronounce it. The documentary’s germ rises from my wish of listening to the realities experienced by Italian Lesbians. Where, how and how we allow ourselves to be visible, without caring of others’ judgment. I hope through this video to give some courage and strength to Lesbians more isolated, more hidden…

L’altro ieri (The Day Before Yesterday) director Gabriella Romano, 25 min. (Born in Turin, she lives in Rome). This is the first documentary about feminine homosexuality in Italy during Fascism. Five women describe the ambience of that time, filled by repression, fear, and silence above all. Their narration leads us into the restricted space women were forced to occupy, yet revealing at the same time their inner world’s richness, their aspirations, dreams, unsaid wishes. Referring an oral history, the documentary avails itself of Fascist propaganda’s materials, and of images taken from North American didactic films shot in Italy during that period: rare documents – not submitted to Regime’s censorship - of Italian daily life during the twenty years of Fascism.



Il nostro sguardo (Our Gaze) director Gisella Bianchi, 41 min. (She was born in Sanremo, lives in Milan). This work reports the formation’s project achieved by Crinali Association of Milan, with Gruaja per progress of Rreshen, in Albanian district of Mirdita. The project rises from friendship’s and solidarity’s relationships born among women voluntarily committed in building bonds of acquaintance and understanding between different cultures. Albanian women still live in a social exclusion’s position. It is a long way, but women, since ever patient, can plan plots able to transform the place where they live. Only from consciousness actually rises the gaze, our gaze…

Venezia – Una donna (Venice – A Woman) director Anette von Zitzewitz, 82 min. (Born in Lüchow, she lives in Berlin). Through different and multicoloured tales, from 1500 until nowadays, a feminine history of Venice. Historians and artists accompany us across the sestieri, towards places connected to excellent Venetian women. We meet nuns, courtesans, artists, ladies of the house in the middle of famous lounges in Jewish Ghetto, orphanages and feminine conservatoires (hospitals), the fight of impiraresse, the relays during Resistance, and contemporary women’s initiatives.

La prima volta Il voto alle donne compie sessant’anni (The First Time, Feminine Vote’s 60^th Anniversary) director Antonella Restelli, 50 min. (Born in Brindisi, she lives in Bologna). The film is dedicated to Nadia Gallico Spano, Mother Constituent with other 20 women (among 556 in total). With her, Isolina Turrini, partisan relay, Katia Zanotti, democratic MP, Luna Cosenza, student, and Rita Borsellino, build a passionate plot of history – from vote’s conquest in 1946 to actual manifestations.



Grazie a tutte! (Thanks to all women!) director Cristina Comperini, 13 min. (Born in Bolzano, she lives in Bologna). Rome, November 24^th 2008, National Manifestation Against male violence. A documentary about the political strength and the energy of thousands of women gone to the streets, manifesting with their bodies, without delegations.

Chiara Carrer Nel mondo dell’illustrazione per bambini (Chiara Carrer In Children’s Illustration’s World) director Elisabetta Lodoli, 23 min. (Born near Bologna, she lives in Rome). In this portrait of Chiara Carrer, one of the greatest Italian contemporary illustrator, the director follows the artist during her work, explains her technique and shows her artistic primary intentions. A dialogue between Chiara’s expressive and Elisabetta’s cinematographic languages: the meeting between two ways of looking, tell, reinvent the reality.

Reinalda del Carmen, mi mamá y yo (Reinalda del Carmen, my Mother and Me) director Lorena Giachino Torréns, 85 min. (born in Castro, Chile, lives in Santiago). Lorena tries to recuperate and rebuild the relationship’s story between her mother Jacqueline Torréns Rein, who is recovering from a near-death encounter with diabetic coma and suffers sudden lapses of memory, and her closest friend, Reinalda del Carmen, a Communist Party’s militant, disappeared during the Chilean dictatorship and repression. A destiny we do not know, a missed act in memory’s recovering, a thought about friendship, motherhood and lost.



Ladyfest Grenoble director Séverine Rambaud, 15 min. (She was born in Poitiers, France, and lives in Turin). Ladyfest begins in 2000 in Olympia, US, as a non-commercial event organized by women for women. For celebrating and encouraging women’s artistic, organizing and political work. Since then, there have been many – and different, and multi-faced - Ladyfest in Europe as well. This documentary reports the one of Grenoble, France, in May 2007. Images of some shows, workshops, party’s evenings – but above all interviews with attending women.

      SHORTS

Un’ora di lavoro, cent’anni di bellezza (One Hour of Work, One Hundred Years of Beauty) director Réjane Kerdaffrec, 32 min. (Born in Saint Germain en Laye, she lives in Paris). In Corigliano d’Otranto, a little town of Salento’s Grecìa, aunt Dina receives her niece Clara: she arrives from Paris, has problems at school and is in fight with her parents, so they decide to send her with father’s family in Southern Italy. Dina has many difficulties wit the adolescent niece… but there is old signora Lucia, a neighbour, an embroidery expert…


Lisbonsensible director Eleonora Ievolella, 47 min. (Born in Verona, lives in Milan). Chiara is a girl in crisis; she dreams her grandma, who suggests her to travel, assuring that “where the water meets the stone she’ll find her true Self.” Chiara begins her adventurous search and arrives in Lisbon. A trip discovering places, customs, people – as well as, or maybe particularly, an inner trip.

        La grande menzogna (The Big Lie) director Carmen Giardina, 14 min. (Born in Genova, she lives in Rome). 1957. Anna Magnani is in US, for Oscars’ delivering Ceremony (she won the Prize the year before) – and Bette Davis seizes the occasion for meeting her and inviting her at home. Helped by an interpreter, the two actresses exchange compliments and flatteries.


Split director Luki Massa, 12 min. (Born in San Sostene, she lives in Bologna). Camilla and Sofia meet for debating a problem in their research field: philology. While they passionately examine details about a mysterious –za particle and the burning question of split intransitivity, tension between them begins to raise…


Una mela al giorno (An Apple a Day) director Emanuela Cau, 15 min. (She was born and lives in Cagliari). A group of young girls and boys furtively burst into some houses… leaving an apple before running away. We’ll find out these unusual visits’ reason.


Art. 29 director Silvia Eleonora Longo, 11 min. (She was born and lives in Milan). A woman, completely paralyzed after a car accident, lives - in a awful condition of isolation and incommunicability – her seclusion inside the house, while time slowly passes by. Her husband and adolescent daughter perceive her almost like an object. The only one maintaining a communication’s relationships is the physiotherapist, which we’ll discover is…


The Attack of the Bride Monster director Vicky Boone, 17 min.
Leslie Belt, the writer, says: Film’s focus is not the question if gays should have the right to get married, but if we should get married just because we can. A Bride Monster is loose in the gay community; can Betty and Stella’s 25-year relationship survive? When Betty falls under the Bride Monster ‘s bedazzling spell, Stella watches in horror as her long-time companion is transformed…


Amelia director Chiara Idrusa Scrimieri, 17 min. (Born in Galatina, she lives between Bologna and Lecce). Amelia passes the time, or waits time passes by – being 94 years old. She writes, she reads, blows her nose, takes a quick short-sighted look to TV, makes gymnastics. She dreams of being on a desert island, alone and naked, or underwater, - as when she was young.


Il pelo nell’occhio (The Hair in the Eye) director Consuelo Pascali, 10 min. (Born in Rome, she lives in Fregene). Alina serenely lives her own diversity, while a group of same age’s people makes fun of her strangeness. But… be careful! attention! Nobody is perfect...


Rappresentazioni-L’università come laboratorio teatral(Representations, University as a Theatre Laboratory) director Maria Francesca De Pasquale, 13 min. (Born in Galatina, she lives in Maglie). Collage of significant moments of the formative route – in search of her life’s sense – made by Maria Francesca, a down girl, helped by her family, sensible friends, and Lecce’s University.


Ciò esula (That’s beyond) director Maria Inversi, 50 min. (Born in Minervino, she lives in Rome). Theatre Monologue. Luciana is in Court: entirely conscious of limits between good and evil, discerning between reason and romance, love and desolation, beauty and squalor – she accuses Mario, who introduced her to sex, made her abort several times, married her…


E’ femmina, no? (She is a female, isn’t she?) director Silvia Novelli, 17 min. (She was born and lives in Turin). Turin, next future. In a banister house, microcosm of a less and less laic society, live the families with their rights – and all the others. Among them, two girls have a wish. But, is reality actually what she looks like?


Tilt director MovingKnickersCollective, 12 min. (Newcastle, Great Britain). Tilt: to incline; to bend; to point; to fight; to charge. What happens when five women go out for a long walk in the provincial city of Newcastle wearing sex toys in their pants? They tilt towards each other, with curiosity and trust, they create a space to lean into. A film about female masturbation and taking control of our sexual lives.

                                                                VIDEO ART

Luci In The Sky (Lights in The Sky) director Sabrina Mazzuoli, 16 min. (She was born and lives in Florence). Lights in The Sky in an intimate vision of the moments that anybody faces in life. Girls’ bodies, placed in different landscapes, move in space varying dynamic, rhythm, sense, describing trough their attitudes moments of waiting, happiness, fight, or fall. The story is divided into chapters, almost in form of a fairy tale narrated by a mute character, who is destroying and rebuilding a mini-digger wall. The film wants, to suggest an idea more than to impose it, and let us freely imagine.

Le inutili coincidenze (Useless Coincidences) director Cristina Savelli, 3 min. (She was born and lives in Florence.) A poem, written by a woman for a woman: For Monica

In principio è stato il pensiero          In the beginning there was the thought

- dolore sommesso                          - a quiet, slipped,

scivolato trasversale                          transversal pain

che riaprivi e curavi -                          that you reopened and treated -

compagno costante…                        constant fellow…



Questa notte è volata via (The Night just flew away) director Elisa Bertolotti, 6 min. (Born in Parma, she lives in Milan). A pregnant woman wakes up in the night.. Silently got out of bed, she enters into a basin and swims with fishes, polyps, starfishes, until she appears on the other side of the world, in a wood…



Appunti per un esserci (Notes for One’s Being) director Monica Petracci, 4 min. (She was born and lives in Forlì). Monica says: It is about that question without answer, animating everybody. The pulsating mistery moving things forward.

Fancy director Eleonora Ievolella, 9 min. (She was born in Verona, lives in Milan). Fancy’s walk from grass to asphalt: a passage among cars, men, animals, lights, sounds… water. A natural being enters the civilized word, attracted and terrified by it. Integration is often impossible: who can’t enter the system is forced to run away. Return to nature, to water, to origins of everything, is sign of the limpidness still existing in the uncontaminated world, adjacent to ours.



Le Amazzoni (The Amazones) director Grazia Dentoni, 15 min. (Born in Cagliari, she lives in Sinnai, Sardinia). A research, a documentary, a fiction, a melting pot of languages serving contents. The director is interested in poetical documentation of feminine routes.

Frammenti di libertà (Freedom’s Fragments) director Grazia Dentoni, 5 min. Two women saturated by constraints of town’s life run to country in order to accomplish a psycho magic act.

                                                        Out of Competition

L’ordine delle stelle (Stars’ Order) director Milli Toja, 95 min. (She was born and lives in Turin).Three women riding in cloaks arrive to a house, looking for a mysterious bundle. Along with their guest’s astonishment and a confuse shrink’s consciousness, the treasure hunt moves on with intrigues, magic and dark presences. Stars offer indications we must be able to follow, they give and take away energy. Stick to their path is hard, and it is necessary to move fast in order to avoid knowledge’s stones’ destruction.



La Visita (The Visit) An imaginary meeting with Germaine Dulac director Ester Carla de Miro d’Ajeta, 68 min. The visit we attend to, narrated using authentic materials as well as fiction, occurs in Spring 1941. Germaine Dulac, old socialist and Front Populaire’s member, after Paris’ Nazis occupation took refuge in Provence: she lives with her friend Marie Anne Malleville in a country cottage, where she welcomes an Italian man, a young director longing for knowing her work…