Lei

A poetic mixture of documentary and drama about ‘lei’ – the Itralian for ‘her’ which can also refer to many women – made up of several stories and lives that can only meet in cinematographic reality. Most concrete, is the story that Carla Bottino herself tells about her life as the first female taxi driver in Turin. A powerful and unusual woman who has had an exceptionally hard life in a very unsympathetic environment. Carla’s story is juxtaposed with acted fragments from the lives of mythical women. Women with names like Ophelia, Cleopatra and Andromache lead grand and dramatic lives, situated by the film maker in today’s reality. A reality that can be the home city of Carla (and the film maker), but also Sao Paolo or the countryside of Piemonte or of Southern Italy.
In fact, these women’s lives, in all their diversity, are only linked by the film maker’s portrayal. A film maker who sees a female taxi driver as a classical heroine and regards his own grandchild as a sequel to all possible myths. A film maker who also understands that his story is not easy to follow and that he won’t earn any money with this film. But he sees this as his fate: he has to make the film. If he allows himself to be paid in cinematographic love, he will be rich anyway.