03/06/2015 - The film covers the last ten years of the life of poet Antonia Pozzi, spent in Milan during the twenty-year reign of fascism

The debut film of Ferdinando Cito Filomarino, Antonia [+see also:
trailer
interview: Ferdinando Cito Filomarino
film profile], will be screened in competition in its world premiere at the 50th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on 4 July.

Antonia is the portrait of an artist, Antonia Pozzi, who was recognised by Nobel prize winner Eugenio Montale as one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. Yet at no point in her short life did she realise it.

The film covers the last ten years of the life of the poet, spent in Milan during the twenty-year reign of fascism. At the age of sixteen, she frantically wrote in her diary in secret about her forbidden love for her high school professor, about their encounters, the torment, the passion; the director follows her in her transformation from the real to the poetic, reflected in her face and body, in the photographs she takes and in the pages she fills. Until, at the tender age of twenty-six, on 3 December 1938, Antonia Pozzi takes her own life. Up until then none of her poems had been published. 

Luca Guadagnino, who is producing the film with his Frenesy Film Company, "is a big fan of the poetry of Antonia Pozzi and has always wanted to produce a film on her”, according to the director. "He talked to me about it thinking that me and her would ‘meet’. When I read Antonia’s poems I immediately felt a strong affinity with what I read. Then, studying them in detail I understood what a great opportunity I had to use film to paint the portrait of an artist and her art”. 

Ferdinando Cito Filomarino became known and esteemed all over the world for his short film Diarchia, starring Riccardo Scamarcio, Louis Garrel and Alba Rohrwacher, which received awards at Locarno, Sundance, and the Nastri d’Argento Awards, and was nominated at the European Film Awards. 

Antonia is produced by Guadagnino – who will soon be hitting the big screen once again as the director of A Bigger Splash [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Luca Guadagnino
film profile] - and Marco Morabito. Written by the director and Carlo Salsa, the film has been edited by Walter Fasano, with photography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, set design by Bruno Duarte and costumes by Ursula Patzak.

The film stars Linda Caridi as Antonia Pozzi, along with Filippo Dini, Alessio Praticò, Perla Ambrosini, Maurizio Fanìn, Federica Fracassi, and the great mountaineer Hervé Barmasse.

(Translated from Italian)