– Starring Angelo Orlando and Antonella Ponziani, Fabio Schifino’s debut feature film is a drama about violence against women, exploring the fine line between memory and identity
Antonella Ponziani and Angelo Orlando in Anima di vetro
“Anima di vetro is the story of a fracture.” This is how Fabio Schifino sums up his debut feature, which has just wrapped filming. After an award-winning short about domestic abuse, entitled My Dolly, the screenwriter, director and producer is returning to the issue of violence against women with this Noctua Film production.
“The film’s protagonist, Ivo Molelli, leaves Rome for Switzerland where he finds work in a glass factory,” the director continues. “He’s a reserved man, unable to communicate his feelings, almost suspended in some kind of frozen, emotional dimension. He’s look for another opportunity, a place where silence can become a form of belonging. The factory doesn’t just represent a job for him, it’s a metaphor for life: glass is born from fire, shaped under pressure; it can take on wonderful forms, but it remains fragile, easily shattered.”
Marghit, the girl Ivo is in love with, also works in the glass factory, and dies in an arson attack which destroys the plant. One evening, while watching TV, Ivo sees a report on migrant women: a number of them have been found dead on the riverbank while others are being forced to work for criminals. One of them in particular catches his eye: a young girl named Amina. “He goes from being a gentle man to a dark presence, an individual who moves through life like a foreign body, dragging the weight of memories behind him. The film explores the fine line between memory and identity. Like the glass worked in the furnace, memories too are melted, distorted and recomposed. The images of the young women that appear on the television aren’t merely real or imagined presences: they’re fragments of Ivo’s conscience, reflections of his inability to hold on to what he loves, shards of a past that keeps on resurfacing,” the director explains.
In the cast are screenwriter, director and actor Angelo Orlando (awarded the David di Donatello for Best Supporting Actor for Pensavo fosse amore… invece era un calesse and appearing this year in Love Divine), Antonella Ponziani (the winner of the David di Donatello for Best Actress via Verso sud in 1993, part of the cast of Ferie d’agosto and recently seen in Sei fratelli), Marcello Fonte (triumphant in Cannes and nominated in the European Film Awards for his performance in Dogman), Alessandro Haber (crowned with a David di Donatello for his performance in Per amore, solo per amore in 1994 and seen this year in Prendiamoci una pausa), Sofia D’Elia (Three Goodbyes), Sabrina Caroline Ruggero, Romano Talevi (Bassifondi), Alessia Santini, Laura Matassa and Joseph Ienco.
The film boasts cinematography by Simone Sadocco, production design and costumes by Marianna Sciveres, and music by Maurizio Ponziani.
(Translated from Italian)
