Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
Just as the Venice International Film Festival wrapped up in September with the Best Actor prize awarded to Toni Servillo for his role in Paolo Sorrentino’s “La grazia,” the Toronto International Film Festival began with 10 Italian films making their North American premiere.
Among them was Pietro Marcello’s much anticipated “Duse,” which was featured in the festivals Centerpiece program. The film follows the last years of Italian stage actress Eleonora Duse who was active in the later part of the 1800’s until 1909 when she retired from acting.
“The choice to focus on the last years of her life came naturally,” Marcello told Cinecittà. “Duse faces her final assessment: with her talent, with her body, with motherhood, with D’Annunzio, with the history of Italy. I didn’t want to make a biopic, but rather to recount the soul of a woman, an artist, in an era of great historical upheaval, with the opportunity to explore themes dear to me.”
Marcello further explained that the film examines the role of the artist amid tragedies such as war, poverty and pain, as well as the complex relationship between art and power. “It’s not just the call to acting that drives her, but a profound urgency: the need to reaffirm herself in a world that is inexorably changing and threatens to take everything from her, even the independence she earned with a lifetime of work,” he said.
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi stars as Eleonora Duse, portraying an artist who, despite health challenges and an unfamiliar contemporary world, returns to her career with fervor. The film, shot on 16 mm film, includes archival footage of real events, a hallmark of Marcello’s work.
Marcello’s 2019 “Martin Eden” won TIFF’s 2019 Platform Award. We’ll keep you posted on its availability stateside.
