Couples in crisis in L'amore fa male, Mirca Viola’s directing debut

by Vittoria Scarpa

05/10/2011 - An anxious directing debut, made possible by a respectable cast which gave her confidence and by the determination to win over any prejudice. Mirca Viola brings her first work to the screens, L'amore fa male, stating a dream of a lifetime has finally come true. And to those who might wrinkle their nose at the thought of the fanciful ambitions of this Miss Italia 1987, who at the time was much talked about for having been disqualified because she was married with a child, she replies: "I didn’t wake up three days ago wanting to become a director, I rose through the ranks on set working as a director’s assistant from the age of 23". Now she is 43, and she has chosen to tell the story about three couples going through a crisis, swept away by passionate love and forced to put themselves into question.

Not exactly an original plot, especially in these times where Italian film is abounding in interweaving love stories and couples’ games, but this time treated not with the usual comical overtones, but with dramatic ambitions. Stefania Rocca (pictured) is a flighty actress with no love and no work who is kept by her married lover (Claudio Bigagli); Nicole Grimaudo (currently on screen in Baciato dalla fortuna [trailer] and soon in Ludovico Vignolo’s surreal comedy, Workers) is a wife abandoned by her secretly gay husband (Stefano Dionisi); Paolo Briguglia (Basilicata coast to coast [trailer]) is a superficial estate agent who cheats on his sweet wife (Diane Fleri) with the above mentioned flighty actress. Five of them (only the married lover is missing, at grips with a depressing married life) will find themselves sharing a stay in Sicily, where they will face harsh realities and from which they will all come back as changed people.

"I needed to talk about love, at a special time in my life", says Viola, who wrote the screenplay together with Cinzia Panzettini, "about how much it conditions our life and how suddenly the illusion of pure love can be shattered". According to Grimaudo "friendship between women is the main thread running through the film". "For men as for society, whatever you do, you are always a slut", is the conclusion reached by Rocca and her character.

L'amore fa male was shot in four weeks, in Rome, and is an Angelika Film Production;it will be distributed on October 7 in 100 Italian cinemas by M2 Pictures.

Photo: Pietro Coccia ©

(Translated from Italian)