27/02/2025 - The gripping series directed by Valeria Golino arrives on Sky, an adaptation of the scabrous posthumous book by Goliarda Sapienza about a young orphan willing to do anything to be happy

A barefoot girl runs away from a burning house, at night, alone, on the slopes of the Etna. She is found the next day, senseless, lying on the grass. She doesn’t have anyone left, she is poor, her destiny is the convent. The young protagonist of The Art of Joy, the miniseries directed by actor-director Valeria Golino arriving on Sky on 28 February (after its world premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and a brief time in cinemas last summer), is overwhelming from the get go: she eats voraciously with her hands, runs naked in the cloister chased by the nuns, and vehemently attacks the skirt of the mother superior. She is called Modesta, she’s 9, only speaks in Sicilian dialect and has an unstoppable craving to discover the world.

Based on the posthumous book by Goliarda Sapienza, the series adapts in six episodes the first part (of four) of that long novel written by the actor-writer from Catania in the 1970s and which had remained unpublished until the early 2000s because it was considered scabrous. The action takes place at the beginning of the 20th century and soon we see the small “hungry devil” (Viviana Mocciaro) transform into a witty and vibrant young woman (an enchanting Tecla Insolia). Precisely thanks to her vivid intelligence, Modesta enjoys the graces of the mother superior, Leonora (Jasmine Trinca), with whom she has a special and exclusive rapport – a tender friendship that, at a certain point, seems to flow into something more sensual and forbidden, and which will not lead to anything good.

Modesta is therefore thrown out of the convent (“you don’t belong in the house of God, your future is in the world”) and sent to an aristocratic residence in the middle of the countryside that she soon discovers is the house where Leonora was born and grew up before taking her vows, and where she is welcomed by the latter’s mother, the haughty princess Gaia (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, irresistible), and her fragile little sister Beatrice (Alma Noce), called “cavallina” (little horse) because of her limp. Catapulted in the middle of this family that guards unspeakable secrets (Carmine, the man who manages the princess’s land, played by Guido Caprino, also has a role in this), Modesta will know how to make her way to get what she wants, that is to say, her own share of pleasure and happiness, exceeding the limits of what is legal every time.

“I’ve always stolen my share of joy, from everything and everyone”, clarifies the protagonist narrating her story. Rebellious, sensual, manipulative, Modesta has the ferocity of survivors (numerous flashbacks show her childhood traumas) and she is sexually free, almost unbridled. She has no morality, and she also does atrocious things, and yet, one can’t help but be on her side in this story of female courage and self-determination. The cast, the set design, the costumes, the score are all in tune with a dense script, without dead moments, and with a confident direction that knows how to look at each character, even the most controversial, with humanity. And in a singular intersection of destinies, it is Valeria Golino herself who will play Goliarda Sapienza in Fuori [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Mario Martone’s next film.

The Art of Joy is a series by Sky Original produced by Sky Studios and by Viola Prestieri for HT Film. Production on the second season is still under evaluation. Foreign sales are handled by NBCUniversal Global Distribution (United States).

(Translated from Italian)