Director: Liliana Cavani
Author:
Country: Italy
Year: 1965
Running time: 47’

Subject: This beautiful and deeply moving documentary was commissioned from the director on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Liberation. It consists of a series of interviews with women who participated in the Resistance. It should be remembered that in those years, the female presence in the liberation movement was still considered marginal by historians, despite being very significant. It was with “La Resistenza taciuta” by Rachele Farina and Anna Maria Bruzzone that this presence became fully evident. The documentary therefore predates this historiographical discovery. Naples, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Modena, Vicenza, Belluno, Bergamo, Brescia, Milan, Novara, Cuneo, Turin: the investigation aims to clarify, through a series of interviews, the meaning and scope of Italian women’s involvement in the struggle against the Nazis and Fascists from the summer of 1943 to April 1945. These women served as couriers, some even in high-level leadership roles, as well as being sisters, wives, and friends of the fallen and prisoners. The documentary reveals that Pertini’s liberation from Regina Coeli was organized by Marcella Monaco, the wife of the prison doctor. Equally interesting is the way acts of extreme courage are recounted with a simplicity born of the awareness that they are not essential to self-definition, because heroism is the responsible capacity to act day by day for the good of those in whom we recognize our own humanity. It is not the act recognized as heroic that makes a hero, but daily heroism. Testimonies by Germana Boldrini (Bologna), Norma Barbolini (Modena), Adriana Locatelli (Bergamo), Gilda Larocca (Florence), Tosca Bucarelli (Florence), Marcella Monaco (Rome), Maria Giraudo, Anna Maria Enriques Agnoletti and her mother, Sister Gaetana from the Santa Verdiana prison (Florence), Maria Montuoro (Milan)

Type: Documentary
Format: VHS
Language: Italian
Notes: Source
In collaboration with: Rina Macelli; cinematography: Mario Dolci; sound: Enzo D’Alfonso; editing: Jenner Manghi; music: Antonio Tealdo; narrator: Riccardo Cucciola. Production: RAI

Availability: http://www.lucreziamarinelli.org/