01/09/2024 - VENICE 2024: A mother puts her family in turmoil because she wants to adopt a little girl in the second film by Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman shot in a sober documentary style

Jasmine is a hairdresser in Torre Annunziata, in the Gulf of Naples, and she has a husband, two sons and a dream: to have a daughter. This desire is also manifested through a recurring dream in which her father delicately pushes a little girl towards her from the other side of the street. Jasmine consults a fortune teller and her doctor before deciding that adoption is the solution.

Vittoria [+see also:
interview: Alessandro Cassigoli and Ca…
film profile], the film by Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman projected in Orizzonti Extra at the Venice Film Festival, is a kind of spin-off of their previous work, Californie [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alessandro Cassigoli, Casey…
film profile], winner of the Europa Cinemas Label at the 2021 Giornate degli Autori. A hairdresser was needed and Marilena Amato, known as Jasmine, became a rather multifaceted supporting character, interpreted beautifully. Marilena had told her personal story to the two directors and Cassigoli and Kauffman returned to Torre Annunziata to propose to Jasmine and her family that they play themselves in this new project.

One could imagine that the major difficulty was in convincing and then directing the husband of the protagonist, Gennaro Scarica, known as Rino, who was initially very much against the idea of adoption. It is truly extraordinary to see them discuss, fight, reconcile, and finally overcome every prejudice and cultural barrier and advance in the bureaucratically tortuous, psychologically exhausting, and economically burdensome path of international adoption. While Jasmine and her sister Anna/Anita wait for compensation for the death of their father, killed by a tumour after years of work at the steelworks in Bagnoli, Rino dreams of opening a carpentry workshop in Capri. The eldest son Vincenzo, with whom the mother has a wonderful relationship, appears cautious but positive about the possible arrival of a little sister. In short, we witness the evolution of a united family, who no longer considers this maternal need to be a bizarre obsession, even though the atmosphere in which they live isn’t entirely favourable to this kind of choice. The chill that falls on friends and family around the dinner table when Jasmine reveals she wants to adopt a little girl is significant. Jasmine meets a woman who works at the port and who tells her that adoption is no walk in the park: tests, discussions, interviews… She then goes to Rome to make the official request. She should have brought her husband too, but that's just the beginning. Her mother-in-law refuses to sign (the consent of the grand-parents is also required): a temporal ellipsis takes us to the epilogue in Belarus, after months and months of waiting.

The dialogues in dialect, rigorously subtitled, are dry, while the direction, with its documentary approach, and the editing by Cassigoli and Kauffman - the former was a documentarist for ARTE in Berlin, while the latter was a field journalist for Al Jazeera Television in the Middle East - give density and compactness to the film. The directors have told Cineuropa how their collaboration with Nanni Moretti, one of the producers on the film, was extremely fruitful in the post-production phase and has added the necessary rigour to the final product.

Vittoria is an Italian production by Zoe Films, Sacher Film, Scarabeo Entertainment and Ladoc with Rai Cinema. Teodora is distributing the film in Italy, while Intramovies is handling international sales.

(Translated from Italian)