‘My Place Is Here’ Directors on Women’s Rights, Poverty in Post-War Italy, Trailer Debuts (EXCLUSIVE)
30.04.2024 - 07:35
/ variety.com
Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Italian period drama “My Place Is Here” is being released in Italy by Adler Ent. on May 9, and is being sold at Cannes by Beta Cinema. Variety speaks to the film’s directors, Daniela Porto and Cristiano Bortone, and debuts its trailer (below).
“My Place Is Here” is set in the years following the end of World War II. Women have just been given the vote in Italy, but in Calabria, a conservative rural region in Southern Italy, men still rule the roost. An unmarried single mother, Marta, who is deemed to have brought shame on her family, has been promised to an older farmer as his wife.
While making preparations for the wedding, Marta meets Lorenzo, the village’s openly gay wedding planner. He encourages her to broaden her horizons and take typing lessons at the local Communist Party office as a means of finding work. Here she meets Communist activist Bianca, who offers a different role-model to the down-trodden women of her village.
Ludovica Martino, best known for the Italian version of “Skam,” plays Marta, and Marco Leonardi, whose credits include “Cinema Paradiso” and “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” plays Lorenzo. The film is based on the novel by Porto, who adapted it for cinema with Bortone. The film’s release in Italy comes in the wake of the massive success of “There Is Still Tomorrow,” which has grossed $39 million.
That film also deals with the topic of patriarchy in post-war Italy. Porto tells Variety that both her parents came from Calabria, and she used to go there every summer as a child. The idea for the story sprung from when her mother spoke about an openly gay man in her village who helped women organize their weddings.