For his first feature since 1997 – after a large number of documentaries – one of Gaudino’s inspirations was Dante’s Divine Comedy. Especially Canto III, in which Dante describes the Gates of Hell, where the weaklings and cowards are, who didn’t take sides during their life and did not choose either good or evil.
Anna is one such weakling, who for a long time closed her eyes to, for instance, the bad side of her husband and the suffering he caused. She doesn’t want to see the evil, nor does she know happiness – her world is grey, which is why the film is largely shot in low contrast black-and-white.
Anna, acted phenomenally by Valeria Golino, who won the prize for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival, is beset by demons and fears. It takes an unexpected romance to put her life on a different track. The narrative music by the rock group Epsilon Indi plays an important role in this imaginative film.
Film details
- Country of production
- Italy
- Year
- 2015
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2016
- Length
- 116'
- Medium/Format
- DCP
