Marazzi’s Roses in select theatres
As the electoral campaign heats up over ethical issues, on the chance to modify abortion legislation, We Want Roses Too [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Alina Marazzi is being released on March 7 (and in May on DVD).
The documentary, which takes its title from a famous feminist slogan, gives voice to the diaries of three young women of the 1960s and 70s, preserved in the National Diary Archives of Pieve Santo Stefano.
Read by actresses Anita Caprioli, Teresa Saponangelo and Valentina Carnelutti, the words accompany – in an interrupted flow of assonance and counterpoint – the material was chosen by the director in cinematheques, audiovisual archives and photo archives throughout Italy.
It is a mosaic of documents, images and sounds that reconstruct the golden era of feminism, the civil rights battles and reforms on family rights from an intimate prospective that recalls another slogan of that era: “the private is political”.
Thus, there few historical facts are offered, and few symbols. Instead, this cross-section offers a look at daily life that, stresses the director, shows “the clarity of women of that time, their awareness: qualities that are lacking in today’s society, in which political passion and the habit of dialogue and confrontation have been lost”.
A filmmaker from start attentive to the world of women (as shown in her previous Per sempre and above all For One More Hour With You), Marazzi worked on the project for two years. “The first year on research,” she says, “then five months in the editing room”.
She was accompanied in the latter phase by editor Ilaria Fraioli, who says: “We respected the nature of the archive material, it’s chronology, but reinterpreted them to impart our point of view”.
Distributed by Mikado (“in a few, highly selected theatres”, assures company CEO Alessandro Usai), We Want Roses Too – screened to acclaim at the Locarno and Turin festivals – has been selected for the upcoming Bergamo Film Meeting. It is co-produced by Mir Cinematografica with RAI Cinema and in association with Fox Channels Italy, Switzerland’s Ventura Film and RTSI.
(Translated from Italian)
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.
