Director: Giovanna Gagliardo
Author: Giovanna Gagliardo
Country: Italy
Year: 2006
Duration: 181 min
Subject: Bellissime is a documentary film that uses images and music to recount the journey of Italian women throughout the past century. Film clips, archival footage from the Istituto Luce Historical Archive and Rai Teche, popular songs, opera arias, and interviews with the century’s leading figures form the fabric of this great female adventure which, during the “short century,” completely redesigned its own image and rewrote the rules of its role in family and society. From Queen Margherita to the first female factory workers, through portraits of personalities who sparked the new female consciousness of the century (Anna Kuliscioff, Sibilla Aleramo, Grazia Deledda), spanning two world wars, women’s first time voting, the revolution in customs of the 1960s and 1970s, new laws, equality in the workplace, etc., our national history is “relived” here through “her” eyes, creating an “involuntary” parallel history that focuses on the main stages of female transformation. Fashion, entertainment, politics, news, protests, backwardness, revolution, and tradition are held together by a fast-paced and rhapsodic montage that captures the “spirit of the times” in which it is impossible not to recognize and identify oneself.
Type: Documentary
Format: DVD
Language: Italian
Notes: DVD; extensive information is available online
Disc 1: Bellissime. The twentieth century seen through “her” eyes.
An Istituto Luce production. Music composed by Stelvio Cipriani. Edited by Patrizia Penzo. Assistant Director Nathalie Giacobino.
Disc 2: Bellissime part two: from 1960 to the present from “her” perspective.
A Rai Cinema – Rai Teche production in collaboration with Istituto Luce. Produced by Bianca Fila. Edited by Annalisa Forgione. Original music by Stelvio Cipriani. Consultancy by Barbara Palombelli. Video filming by Massimiliano Maggi. Sound editing by Marcos Molina. Mixing engineer Gabriele Gubbini. Distributed by 01 Distribution. International distribution by Rai Trade.
Availability: the video is available at the Badaracco Foundation (shelf mark V GAG); available for purchase online