Skip to main content

Tribeca Film Festival 2017: Viola, Franca by Marta Savina



Tribeca Film Festival goers will be treated to an important history lesson this weekend in the form of a beautiful, moving short film made by director Marta Savina.

Viola, Franca is the true story of a young Sicilian woman named Franca Viola who was raped and nearly forced to marry her attacker, which before the 1980s, was common place in Italy. Viola defied society and rebelled against this absurd practice by refusing to marry the young man. That defiance led to the law being abolished. In researching the details behind the making of this film, I thought it would be poignant to hand this story over to a young, ambitious Sicilian journalist Maria Ilenia Crifò Ceraolo who grew up near Viola's hometown. I interviewed Maria Ilenia back in 2015 when I reviewed Marco Turco's film about Oriana Fallaci. She gave a moving account of Fallaci and her legacy on women journalists, so I thought it would be fitting for her to review this story of female resistance so beautifully told by a female director. Maria Ilenia's original Italian version follows my translation.

A different Sicily, far from what I am used to today, is described in the 15-minute short film Viola, Franca, directed by Marta Savina. Also nominated for a 2017 David di Donatello, Savina will  present her film at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival.

The film speaks of a true story, which happened not so long ago: 1965 in Alcamo, a village in Trapani. A young woman named Franca Viola was raped by a boy, Filippo Melodia, who wanted to marry her. At the time, it was lawful for a man to rape a woman he had wanted to marry. In those days, the woman would agree to the marriage. Franca Viola, however, would not hear of it. She refused to marry her rapist and in doing so, completely rebelled against everything and everyone. Thanks to Viola's defiance, the laws have been changed and this unjustness was abolished.

In Savina's film, the fundamental moments symbolizing women's emancipation are told through a narrative made up of many intense and significant glances with profound and loquacious silences that far outweigh what the characters would have been able to express in words. The story begins with a flashback that starts from the moment of violence that Franca Viola (Claudia Gusmano) is forced to endure, and concludes with her smile as she decides to face the people of her town. In that moment, she holds her head high, letting go of those who felt that she was guilty of the crime committed against her. A courageous choice made possible by the unconditional support of her father (Ninni Bruschetta), there's is a profound relationship of complicity and small gestures. A special empathy leads him to realize what happened when he does not find his daughter working in the fields. The father and daughter share a long and moving embrace shortly after Viola returns from the violence that consumed her behind the fixed image of a closed door in deafening silence.

With her example, Franca Viola undoubtedly gave many other women after her the power to oppose the custom that for too long had been accepted in silence. Perhaps she became this sort of spokeswoman for all those who had not succeeded to find their own courage. And yet, unfortunately, we still talk about cases in which women are denied the freedom to choose. With ViolaFranca,  Martina Savina reminds us of the hope we find in the heart of a woman who does not give up.



Una Sicilia diversa, a tratti lontana da quella che io sono abituata a vivere oggi, è descritta nei 15 minuti del cortometraggio “Viola, Franca”, diretto da Marta Savina, già candidato ai David di Donatello 2017 e nei prossimi giorni in gara al prestigioso “Tribeca Film Festival”.
Eppure il film parla di una storia vera, accaduta in fondo nemmeno troppi decenni fa: intorno al 1965 ad Alcamo, un paesino nel Trapanese, una giovane di quasi 18 anni di nome Franca Viola, venne violentata da un ragazzo, Filippo Melodia, che avrebbe voluto sposarla; una legge del tempo prevedeva infatti le nozze riparatrici e lo stupro aveva l’obiettivo di costringerla a prendere come marito quello stesso uomo che le aveva usato violenza. Franca però si rifiutò di scendere a compromessi e, ribellandosi a tutto e a tutti, continuò ad opporsi fermamente alle pretese di quel ragazzo che lei non amava, senza mai sposarlo. Probabilmente, anche grazie al suo esempio la Sicilia oggi mi appare un po’ differente da allora: infatti, negli anni 80 del secolo scorso, quella stessa legge così poco legale sul matrimonio riparatore è stata abolita, proprio a seguito del coraggioso gesto di Franca Viola.

Nella pellicola della Savina sono ripercorsi in pochi ma densi passaggi, i momenti fondamentali di questa vicenda simbolo dell’emancipazione femminile, attraverso una narrazione fatta di molti sguardi intensi e significativi e di silenzi profondi e loquaci, che superano di gran lunga ciò che al loro posto avrebbero potuto esprimere le parole. Interpreti principali del film, interamente girato a Galati Mamertino, in provincia di Messina, sono Claudia Gusmano, peraltro assai somigliante a Franca Viola da giovane, Ninni Bruschetta, nel ruolo padre di Franca, Bernardo, Carlo Calderone, nel ruolo di Filippo Melodia, e Maurizio Puglisi, nel ruolo del parroco del paese don Valerio.
Questo racconto così vero, inizia con un flashback che parte dal momento successivo alla violenza subita da Franca, e si conclude con il suo sorriso, appena accennato, quando decide di affrontare, nel corso di una festa religiosa, la gente del suo paese a testa alta, rinunciando a fuggire da chi la voleva quasi colpevole di ciò che era accaduto. Una scelta coraggiosa e resa possibile anche dal sostegno incondizionato del padre della giovane: dal cortometraggio emerge difatti un rapporto profondo, fatto di complicità e di piccoli gesti, un’empatia speciale che conduce Bernardo ad intuire, quando non ritrova sua figlia a lavorare nei campi, quello che purtroppo stava succedendo; e poi il lungo e commovente abbraccio, nel momento in cui i due si ritrovano per strada, mentre Franca fa ritorno dal luogo in cui si era consumata la violenza. Poco prima, l’immagine quasi fissa di una porta chiusa e, ancora una volta, un silenzio assordante, avevano narrato quel sopruso terribile con la delicatezza di chi non vuole rinnovare una ferita.


Con il suo esempio, Franca Viola ha indubbiamente dato a tante altre donne dopo di lei, la forza di opporsi a quella consuetudine che per troppo tempo era stata accettata in silenzio, facendosi pure portavoce, forse suo malgrado, di tutte coloro che non erano riuscite a trovare il suo stesso coraggio. Ed anche se, ancora adesso, purtroppo si continua a parlare di casi in cui alle donne viene negata la libertà di scegliere, in “Viola, Franca” e soprattutto in quel primo piano finale di Franca di cui parlavo prima, ritroviamo tutta la franchezza e la speranza di un cuore di donna che non si arrende.

Viola, Franca will be shown in the Postcards section of the Tribeca Film Festival, which highlights the work of women in film. The screenings are sold out and rush only at this time. Click here for more information about the film and its director.

With this article, journalist Maria Ilenia Crifò Ceraolo has officially joined Italian Cinema Today as our Italy correspondent. Check back here for more of her interesting perspective on Italian cinema and the stories which inspire its prolific filmmakers.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

7 Days - 7 Women: Interview with Actress Sabrina Impacciatore

  Photo by Rossella Vetrano On Day 6 of our series, 7 Days - 7 Women, in which we are profiling seven strong, talented women working as filmmakers, writers or visual artists, we talk with actress Sabrina Impacciatore about the diversity of her roles. Whether she's playing a devoted mother trying to protect her child, Jesus Christ's "Veronica" in Mel Gibson's controversial film, "Passion of the Christ" or a young woman coming of age, Impacciatore escapes into the life and mind of each character she takes on, sometimes so deeply that she believes she is actually them.   It's a fine line between reality and fiction, but she treads it carefully and anyone watching her performance benefits from her emotional connection to the character that she becomes. I spoke with Impacciatore at the 2010 Open Roads: New Italian Film series in New York City. We talked about her lifelong dream of becoming an actress. She also gave me some insight into the diff...

Golden Age Masterpiece: Luchino Visconti’s 1957 “White Nights”

Photo Credit: Archivio Luce Cinecittà Luchino Visconti’s 1957 film, “White Nights” (“Le notti bianche”), offers a thoughtful and poignant exploration of themes such as loneliness, desire and emotional vulnerability. Based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novella of the same name, it transports the tale from 19th-century St. Petersburg to a dreamy mid-20th-century Italian setting. While Visconti remains largely faithful to Dostoevsky’s narrative, his characteristic style infuses the film with emotional depth, striking visuals, and a focus on class and societal constraints.   The story follows a young man named Matteo, played by Marcello Mastroianni, who lives a solitary life in a small Italian town. One evening, he encounters a beautiful young woman named Natalia, portrayed by Austrian-Swiss actress Maria Schell, who is also feeling isolated. Although she is initially reluctant, Natalia eventually confides in Matteo about her love for a man who has promised to return and marry her, but he ha...

The Timeless Talent of Stefania Sandrelli

On screen since the tender age of 14, she has captivated audiences for more than 50 years with a compelling combination of strength and vulnerability. She achieved stardom at just 14 years old playing the angelic cousin of a love-struck Marcello Mastroianni in Pietro Germi’s “Divorce Italian Style.” More than half a century later, she is still going strong and remains one of Italy’s most esteemed actors. Stefania Sandrelli was born on June 5, 1946, in Viareggio in the province of Lucca in northern Italy. As a child, she studied music and dance. Then in 1960, she won a beauty pageant and was featured on the cover of Le Ore magazine. Her purity captivated the country and shortly thereafter, movie offers began pouring in. Just one year later, she made her cinema debut in three feature films: Mario Sequi’s Gioventù di notte , Luciano Salce’s The Fascist, and Pietro Germi’s Divorce Italian Style . She instantly became a star and before long was a key figure in Italy’s legend...

Review: “Hitler Versus Picasso and the Others” by Claudio Poli

A compelling 2018 documentary by Claudio Poli aims to shed light on a chapter of Nazi history that is still relevant today. “Hitler Versus Picasso and the Others” is the story of how the Führer didn’t just take countless human lives but also robbed a whole culture of its artistic heritage. Narrated by actor Toni Servillo, “Hitler Versus Picasso and the Others” takes viewers on an incredible journey in search of masterpieces stolen during World War II. The stories of individual works are told by people who witnessed the looting, much of which took place during raids on homes and galleries belonging to Jewish collectors. The documentary reveals that 600,000 works of art were stolen from private owners, museums, churches and galleries.   The confiscated artwork was either kept by the Nazi elite, warehoused, sold or destroyed in bonfires. Few benefited more from this large-scale heist than Hildebrand Gurlitt, Hitler’s so-called art dealer, who kept many of the most priceless treasures ...

A Conversation with Actor Mirko Frezza of David di Donatello Winner "Il più grande sogno"

The 2017 David di Donatello award show, which took place on Monday, was an exciting event that celebrated many great contemporary talents of Italian cinema.  I was fortunate to have seen most of the nominees.  Among my personal favorites  is Michele Vannucci's  Il più grande sogno  simply because it is based on one of the most inspiring, beautiful stories I've ever  heard, and the person behind that story is as authentic and down-to-earth as they come. The film won the 3 Future Award, which is determined by the public. With Director Michele Vannucci and Actor Mirko Frezza I first saw  Il più grande sogno last September when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival. I didn't make it to Venice, but thanks to a great online platform called Festival Scope , which offers a handful of premieres to be screened on the web, I felt like I was there. The film itself blew me away, and then when I realized it was based on a true story, I knew t...