16/10/2009

After the young woman fighting against the Mafia in Marco Amenta’s film, presented last year at the Rome International Film Festival, comes another “rebellious Sicilian girl”. In Donatella Maiorca’s Sea Violet [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the first Italian film in competition, Angela (Valeria Solarino) loves Sara (Isabella Ragonese) in a place and time in which homosexual unions were not at all accepted: Sicily in the second half of the 19th century.

Loosely adapted from Giacomo Pilati’s novel Minchia di Re, the melodrama is guaranteed. Angela’s father (Ennio Fantastichini), who considers her “better off dead than half-masculine”, beats both Angela and her mother, and locks his daughter in the basement until she decides to accept her arranged marriage.

However, her mother finds a way out: they will feign having made a mistake at the time of Angela’s birth and transform their daughter (cutting off her hair, binding her breasts and giving her men’s clothing), which her father never wanted anyway, into a man. “Angelo” and Sara can marry, but the sinful fate unite the two will not be a happy one, and numerous tragedies ensue.

"The [film’s] core, a story of love and freedom, is based on a true story, and thus all the more topical", said Maiorca at the press conference, in response to questions about the connection between the film’s plot and the reigning homophobic climate in Italy today.

Maria Grazia Cucinotta (one of the film’s producers, who also plays Angela’s aunt who preserves in a jar the unborn fetus conceived years ago with the village priest) brushed aside any possible controversy, saying, "When we chose this project, the newspapers were not yet talking so much about the homosexual issue. We simply chose a love story.” She added, however, that in the beginning many doors were slammed in their face due to the film’s theme.

Produced by Italian Dreams Factory, Sea Violet, scored by local rock star Gianna Nannini, is being released locally today, by Medusa, on 100 screens.

(Translated from Italian)