Thursday, October 10 | 8 PM | Sequoia 1
Friday, October 11 | 1:45 PM | Raphael 2
The Italian film Gloria! by director Margherita Vicario will be screened at the Mill Valley Film Festival in the World Cinema section.
Special guest actress Galatéa Bellugi will present the film.
With the support of the Italian Cultural Insitute San Francisco.
Gloria!
Dir: Margherita Vicario
Cast: Galatéa Bellugi, Carlotta Gamba, Veronica Lucchesi
Italy/Switzerland, 2024, 106 min
In Italian with English subtitles
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Rome native Margherita Vicario is a singer, songwriter, composer, actor, and filmmaker. She made her directing debut with Se riesco parto (2011). Gloria! is her first feature, which she co-wrote and co-scored as well as directed.
SYNOPSIS
The mysterious arrival of a piano at a Catholic shelter near Venice in the early 1800s sets progressive and orthodox musical outlooks ablaze in this rousing musical drama. When the imperious chapel master Perlina announces that the institute’s choir will have the honor of playing for Pope Pius VII, his conservative opinions about composition and singing butt up against those of women who have bolder ideas. Preeminent among these is Teresa (Galatéa Bellugi)—nicknamed The Mute because of her seeming inability to speak—who evinces a prodigious and forward-thinking talent at the piano. When Perlina discovers Teresa’s gift, tensions rise and sides are chosen. Director Vicario is a well-known singer-songwriter and brings a playful harmony to a story that looks frankly at patriarchal and religious stifling of female talent. And once the climactic performance hits its first notes, it’s nearly impossible not to hum along. —Rod Armstrong