02/08/2022 - The second feature film by the Roman director who debuted in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in 2017 with Pure Hearts is set to open Venice's Orizzonti section

Princess [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Roberto De Paolis
film profile] is a young, illegal Nigerian immigrant who sells her body on the outskirts of a major city. Played by Glory Kevin, the protagonist lends her name to this second feature film by Roberto De Paolis, who presented his brilliant debut film Pure Hearts [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Roberto De Paolis
film profile] in the Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight in 2017. Princess has been selected to open the Orizzonti section in competition, within the 79th Venice International Film Festival.

Like an Amazonian on the prowl, Princess stalks through a pine forest which reaches to the edge of the sea, an enchanted wood in which to take refuge, hide from life and earn a crust. In order to survive, you have to be able to sniff out cash, sidestep danger and emotion, one client after another, without any kind of contingency plan. Until the day she argues with her streetwalker friends and meets a man who seems to want to help her. The director, who also signs his name to the screenplay, claims to have developed the film blending his own viewpoint “with that of several Nigerian girls, real human trafficking victims who wrote it with me and then played themselves. In this sense, we created a new and free working space: we walked along alternative paths together, which I believe were more authentic than the often-pietistic roads we usually take when discussing immigration, the underworld or prostitution”. Continually treading the line between the depiction of a real-life insalubrious situation and a lyrical tale of wounded humanity, “the film is a coming-of-age story, because above all else, Princess is a nineteen-year-old girl who clings onto her own purity whilst trying to withstand the world’s ferocity”.

Supporting the protagonist in the cast, we find Lino Musella (recently seen in The King of Laughter [+see also:
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interview: Mario Martone
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interview: Paolo Sorrentino
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interview: Roberto Andò
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film profile] which is set to compete in Locarno), Sandra Osagie, Salvatore Striano (seen in last year’s The Inner Cage [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Leonardo Di Costanzo
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trailer
interview: Mario Martone
interview: Pierfrancesco Favino
film profile]) and Maurizio Lombardi (starring in Tapirulàn [+see also:
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film profile] and Monterossi – La serie this year). Photography comes courtesy of Claudio Cofrancesco, and editing is by Paola Freddi, while original music is by Emanuele De Raymondi, set design by Paola Peraro, and costumes by Loredana Buscemi.

Princess is produced by Carla Altieri and Roberto De Paolis on behalf of Young Films, and by Nicola Giuliano, Francesca Cima, Carlotta Valori and Viola Prestieri on behalf of Indigo Film and RAI Cinema, sponsored by the Migrant Integration Project: Piam Onlus. Distribution in Italy is managed by Lucky Red.

(Translated from Italian)