24/09/2003

The hit comedy by Nigel Cole, Calendar Girls is based on a true story. The women of the Rylstone Women’s Institute in North Yorkshire had been putting together a charity-raising calendar for many years showing sweeping views of the region, but when, one of the members of the group’s husbands became ill with leukaemia in 1999, the women came up with a more commercial concept: discreet photos of those bare WI lasses. What followed was a genuine phenomenon that the world embraced, as the calendar went on to outsell those of the latest teen sensations.
But the idea by the director of Saving Grace to turn the true story into a film smacks somewhat of 'déjà vu', inescapably bringing to mind the unsurpassable Full Monty. But the bet appears to have paid off, with Cole and his actresses achieving excellent results at the UK box office. In the first week of programming, the film has taken €1.57m.

It features an extraordinary all-star cast of over 50s, including the inspirational Helen Mirren and Julie Walters. The plot follows the 8 women through the difficulties they had to overcome to complete the project, from their attempts to persuade their husbands to agree, to their fight to change the staid attitudes at the WI’s headquarters in London.

The idea for a film actually came from Hollywood. The first edition of the calendar in 2000 was so popular in Britain and America that it took €1m, and there has been such an increase in demand following the success of the film that a new edition of the publication will be issued in 2004.

"We’ve continued our charity work buoyed up by the enthusiasm we encountered during the fist two years of the project" said Lynda Logan and Tricia Stewart, two of the “original“ Calendar Girls, who were in Rome for the Italian release of the film, due out on September 26. "But when we heard about the proposal to make a film, some of us pulled out, deciding to return to normality".
The two mature models say they’re very happy with the way the British director has reconstructed the whole story "The film went well from every point of view. Even though some bits have been romanticised, the story is certainly true to life ". The film has already been released in Sweden (September 19) and will also be out in Finland (September 26). It will also have the honour of opening the upcoming edition of the Dinard Film Festival, starting on October 2.

(Translated from Italian)