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RELEASES Italy

Margherita Buy single and happy in Viaggio sola

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- Maria Sole Tognazzi’s new film is an ode to the freedom of choice of a forty year-old woman who gives up on the idea of family. Out on April 24

Who hasn’t ever dreamed of being paid to travel around the world and stay in exclusive hotels? Irene, the main character in Maria Sole Tognazzi’s new film Viaggio sola [+see also:
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, has an enviable career: she reviews luxury hotels. From Paris to Berlin, from the Alps’ snowy roofs, to Marrakesh’s beaches, she lets herself be taken care of all the time ticking boxes: does the concierge look at you in the eyes when he welcomes you? How long does it take them to bring you coffee at breakfast? Have the curtains been ironed and do the bathrobes smell nice?   

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She goes everywhere with her kit to test out dust on furniture and check the temperature of the wine and soup delivered to her room. Irene, played Margherita Buy (photo), travels the world, but at forty, neither has a husband or children. And this is the film’s theme: can a mature independent woman be equally happy without a family? Society would have you believe such a thing is not possible.  Her sister (Fabrizia Sacchi), married with children constantly on the go, looks at Irene with a mixture of pity and resignation, as if she were the embodiment of solitude. Irene likes her life though. She chose it and she likes it like it is. 

“Perfection doesn’t exist, there are no better lives than others, but there are roads marked by who we are,” the director said. “Today a woman can still feel incomplete if she has no children, but there is a large part of the population, 17%, who are women, single and happy.” The film actually seems to mix traditional roles up: Irene’s best friend, Andrea (Stefano Accorsi), her ex-boyfriend, is expecting a child from a woman he met only three times, but his paternal instinct is surprisingly visceral, almost womanly.

Viaggio sola is not a predictable film, which plays with the spectator’s expectations (Irene is asked to change, will she?), and takes an ironical view on a country obsessed with family, all the while giving insight into an important and little known field. “This journey is yours, it’s up to you how you go about it,” the main character says. An ode to freedom of choice, and freedom full stop, which never spoils.

Produced by Bianca Film with RaiCinemaViaggio sola will come out in Italian cinemas on April 24 with Teodora Film.

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(Translated from Italian)

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