Friday, March 17 / 8:45 pm / Ottawa Art Gallery
Program: Shallots and Garlic, Una Femmina - The Code of Silence
Guest: Andrea Nirmala Widjajanto, director of Shallots and Garlic
Feature presentation \
Una Femmina - The Code of Silence
Una femmina
2022 / 120 minutes / Italy
Director: Francesco Costabile
Writers: Lirio Abbate, Serena Brugnolo, Adriano Chiarelli, Francesco Costabile
Language: Italian
Subtitles: English
family \ crime \ rebellion
Having lost her mother as a young child, Rosa (in a sensational performance by Lina Siciliano) has grown up in a hardscrabble southern Italian village with her grandmother and her uncle’s family. Now a young woman, she is constantly haunted by dreams and images of her childhood: perhaps imaginary, perhaps accurate. Rosa increasingly wonders: is it true that her mother committed suicide? The more she manages to reconstruct all her memories of the mysterious circumstances of her mother’s death, the more she begins to re-examine the present-day family dynamics, especially the stoic reserve and dignity of the women and the barely suppressed seething aggression of the men. When Rosa becomes aware of her family’s deep involvement in the local mafia, she has to decide what she is willing to risk in order to break out of the ’Ndrangheta mafia organization. Hardship and beauty co-exist in the landscapes of the film’s dramatic Calabrian setting. Costabile’s compelling feature debut about this fearless young woman is a tale “based on true life stories.” The film was featured in the Panorama section of the 2022 Berlin International Film Festival.
- Tom McSorley
Ayant perdu sa mère à un jeune âge, Rosa (dans une interprétation sensationnelle de Lina Siciliano) a grandi dans un village misérable de l’Italie du Sud avec sa grand-mère et la famille de son oncle. Maintenant une jeune femme, elle est hantée par des rêves et des images de son enfance : peut-être imaginaires, peut-être véridiques. Rosa se demande de plus en plus s’il est vrai que sa mère s’est suicidée. Plus elle réussit à reconstruire ses souvenirs des circonstances mystérieuses entourant la mort de sa mère, plus elle commence à examiner d’un autre œil les dynamiques familiales des temps modernes, entre autres, l’attitude réservée stoïque et la dignité des femmes, et l’agression bouillonnante à peine refoulée des hommes. Lorsque Rosa apprend l’implication profonde de sa famille avec la mafia locale, elle décide ce qu’elle est prête à risquer pour démanteler l’organisation de la mafia ’Ndrangheta.
- Tom McSorley (traduit par Jacinthe Grenier-Albert)
PRESS
Berlinale-Bound Mafia Drama ‘Una Femmina’ Debuts Trailer
Una Femmina – The Code of Silence Review
AWARDS
Annecy Italian Cinema Festival 2022, Audience Award, Best Actress
BIFEST - Bari International Film Festival 2022, Best Supporting Actor, Best Breakthrough Actress
Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists 2022, Guglielmo Biraghi Award
Sudestival 2022, National Jury Prize
Short film \
Shallots and Garlic
Bawang Merah dan Bawang Putih
2022 / 17 minutes / British Columbia
Director: Andrea Nirmala Widjajanto
When polar opposite sisters Nur and Karina reunite for their grandparents' wedding anniversary dinner, Karina starts itching and blames Nur for putting garlic in her food.