PRODUCTION / FUNDING Italy / Belgium / Romania
Shooting is now underway on Catrinel Marlon’s first work Girasoli
- The impossible love between two girls in a 1960s psychiatric hospital is at the heart of the debut film by the Romanian actress from The Whistlers
December saw filming kick off in Rome on Girasoli [+see also:
film review
film profile], the directorial debut of actress Catrinel Marlon who played the lead in Corneliu Porumboiu’s 2019 movie The Whistlers [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Corneliu Porumboiu
film profile], which was presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Girasoli is based on a true story and was written by the director alongside Francesca Nozzolillo and Heidrun Schleef, recounting how, in the 1960s, an impossible love takes hold of two girls within the walls of a psychiatric hospital in Aversa, which is closer to a prison than a medical institution.
"I decided to tell this story because it’s a subject close to my heart”, Catrinel Marlon explains. “With this film I wanted to remind people how mental hospitals were tremendous places of suffering and imprisonment, but also how, amongst hundreds of shattered and forgotten lives, beautiful love stories can also take root".
Stepping into the shoes of the protagonists are Gaia Girace (the star of the series My Brilliant Friend [+see also:
series review
series profile]) and Maria Rosaria Mingione (seen in The Catholic School [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stefano Mordini
film profile]), flanked by Monica Guerritore, Pietro Ragusa and Rodica Lazar. The crew includes Fabio Zamarion in charge of photography, Massimo Quaglia entrusted with editing, Tonino Zera with set design, Nicoletta Ercole heading up costumes and Cesare Cremonini music.
Girasoli is a co-production between Italy, Belgium and Romania by Massimiliano Di Lodovico on behalf of Masi Film, in league with Joseph Rouschop for Gapbusters, director and producer Cristian Mungiu for Mobra Films, and Lumina MGR. The movie will be distributed in Italian cinemas by Europictures.
(Translated from Italian)
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