Giorgio Diritti: One of Italy’s Best Kept Secrets.
Director, screenwriter, film editor and story-teller supreme Giorgio Diritti was born in Bologna in 1959 and started his feature film making career with a bang: Il Vento Fa Il Suo Giro (the wind blows around) was shown in 60 international film festivals, winning dozens of prizes, receiving David di Donatello nominations, and showing at a movie theater in Milan for a year and a half.
I called his second film, L’Uomo Che Verrà (the man who will come) one of the best films of 2009, and it received a David for Best Film. It is told from the perspective of Martina, an 8-year-old girl who stopped talking when her little brother dies and it’s a war story but much more than just a war story. It’s beautifully filmed, and especially those with relatives from Europe will appreciate the level of detail in the depiction of the townspeople’s lives. Their simple homes, the food they’re eating, their dress, and their Catholic faith are all shown with great thoroughness and care. Martina, through her silence,sees everything, and when she tries to write about it in school, the teacher calls her mother in, the essay is burned, and she gets a slap for it. It stars Alba Rohrwacher.
In 2013 his film Un Giorno Devi Andare (There Will Come A Day), Jasmine Trinca plays Augusta, a grieving 30-year-old who takes drastic measures when she loses a baby and is abandoned by her husband; she hitches her wagon to a nun who ministers to indigenous people along the Amazon. Trinca won Best Actress in the Nastro D’Argento award competition for her performance.
How is it that the name, Giorgio Diritti is not more well-known in the US? Blame the distributors. His films would be very much appreciated here.
I Love Italian Everything 