ON THIS PAGE:
- Diva futura by Giulia Louise Steigerwalt
- Jouer avec le feu by Delphine e Muriel Coulin
DIVA FUTURA
Venice 81 – Competition
Italy, 2024 Director Giulia Louise Steigerwalt Starring Pietro Castellitto, Barbara Ronchi, Denise Capezza, Tesa Litvan, Lidija Kordić, Davide Iachini, Marco Iermanò Distribution PiperFilm Running time 128′
The world of porn made in Italy has never been so pop, in the proper, popular sense of the word. After Supersex, the Netflix series inspired by the life of Rocco Siffredi, this time we delve into the famous (for porn experts and not) pioneer Riccardo Schicchi, founder of the Diva Futura agency. The idea comes from a tremendous Italian talent, Giulia Louise Steigerwalt, director of the surprising Settembre (2022), who takes over the Venice Competition with her second work movie. Diva Futura is again produced by Matteo Rovere’s Groenlandia with PiperFilm and Rai Cinema. The script is by Steigerwalt but based on the book ‘Non dite alla mamma che faccio la Segretaria‘ (Don’t Tell Mama I’m a secretary, Sperling & Kupfer, 2013) by Debora Attanasio, the real secretary who worked in the famous agency in the 1980s and 1990s and became a direct witness of an era that, for better or worse, changed Italian society. Barbara Ronchi plays Attanasio. The actress was also the protagonist of Settembre. Through her is told the story of Riccardo Schicchi (Pietro Castellitto), who revolutionised mass culture, transforming the hippy utopia of free love into a new phenomenon: porn. Under Schicchi’s leadership, ‘girls from next door’ like Ilona Staller (Lidija Kordic), Moana Pozzi (Denise Capezza), Eva Henger (Tesa Litvan) and many others suddenly became world-famous divas. They entered the homes of Italians thanks to commercial broadcasters and the home video market. The media impact is overwhelming, but as in any big ‘family’, there are jealousies, torments, and contradictions ready to explode. ‘Diva Futura is a movie about the dream of revolutionising the world of eroticism in a country that until then had only experienced it with taboos and censorship,’ explained the director. ‘The desire to liberate the collective erotic imaginary was betrayed by having contributed to creating a distorted image of sexuality and the feminine, in which violence and the exploitation of the body took over‘.
Claudia Giampaolo
JOUER AVEC LE FEU (THE QUIET SON)
Venezia 81 – Concorso
France, 2024 Director Delphine Coulin, Muriel Coulin Starring Vincent Lindon, Benjamin Voisin, Stefan Crepo Running time 110′
In 2020, French writer Laurent Petitmangin made his debut with a novel, ‘What You Need from the Night’, which, through the painful and touching tale of a father grappling with his two almost adult sons, explores the current dramatic social crisis, not only in France, and the inability of the contemporary political class to offer prospects to the younger generations. The novel gained substantial critical acclaim and garnered numerous literary awards. French sisters Delphine and Muriel Coulin, known for 17 Girls (2011) César Award for Best First Feature, have adapted the novel for the screen. Jouer avec le feu (The Quiet Son) is in the official competition of the 81st Venice International Film Festival. Written by the Coulin sisters with Petitmangin himself, the film is the story of Pierre, a 50-year-old railwayman, played by Vincent Lindon, one of France’s leading actors, who finds himself raising his two sons, Louis (Stefan Crepon) and Fus (Benjamin Voisin), alone. The three are very close until the younger of the two boys, Louis, has to leave home to attend La Sorbonne in Paris. Fus, the older brother but less brilliant in his studies, then begins to withdraw into himself and, fascinated by violence, becomes involved in extreme right-wing groups with ideas and values opposite to those of his father. Jouer avec le feu ‘tackles a theme that could not be more topical’, comments artistic director Alberto Barbera, as he describes the acute pain and absolute sense of bewilderment and powerlessness of a father faced with the consequences of the current drift of right-wing populism, with his son going from a minor catastrophe to a major one.
Vania Amitrano
