Is there a #metoo movement in Italia? #ancheio, perhaps? If there isn’t, there should be.
At least ten women have accused Italian filmmaker Fausto Brizzi of sexual harassment.
Brizzi is accused of making unwanted sexual advances that ranged from giving unsolicited massages to stripping off naked and in some cases, using physical force. (Lovely.)
He denies it all and the whole thing hasn’t appeared to have had any negative impact on the box office performance of his Christmas comedy Poveri ma Ricchissimi but Warner Bros. suspended all future work with the director and pulled Brizzi’s name from his about-to-be-released movie.
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Did Giuseppe Tornatore grope the show girl?
Miriana Trevisan, Italian TV entertainer, told Vanity Fair that twenty years ago, in Giuseppe Tornatore’s office he asked her to dinner and when she refused, he groped her until she was able to escape.
Tornatore’s reaction: “I’m flattered that a young woman remembers me after twenty years. I recall only a friendly encounter and I deny the accusations.”
And the newest one: Johnathon Schaech, says legendary director Franco Zeffirelli spent weeks persistently attempting to “seduce” him during the shoot for the film The Sparrow in southern Italy, one night letting himself into the 22-year-old actor’s hotel room. In an account for People magazine, Schaech claims that there Zeffirelli groped him and attempted to perform oral sex without his consent.
What’s going on in Italy? I imagine it’s not much different than our situation in the USA, but what are Italians saying about it? Is there a #metoo, #ancheio, like we have here?
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I’ve been asking Italian actresses for their accounts and I was happy to hear from a few actresses that, though they acknowledge the problem, they themselves have never experienced harassment.
Others, unfortunately, have stories, but none wanted me to use their names; some told me that they didn’t even want to talk about the experience, but I can’t blame them for not choosing I Love Italian Movies for their “coming forward” platform.
But what’s going on?
Is it a coincidence then when I Googled “Cosa dicono le donne italiane” (what do Italian women say) – and INTENDED to finish my question with the words “about sexual harassment”, the Google search suggestion finished it for me with “in bed”.
What do Italian women say in bed. Seriously.
Let’s take a look at recent Italian films and see what they are telling us about what women are dealing with in Italy. Here are some portraits of Italian women, seen through the movies:
At first glance Riccardo Milani’s Scusate Se Esisto looks like nothing more than a silly comedy but there’s a lot going on there. In it, Paola Cortellesi plays Serena Bruno, an architect who has to move to London to find work when gets her degree. She’s homesick and decides to move back, but to land her job she has to pretend she’s a man (it’s more complicated than that but watch the movie and see for yourself; it’s adorable). The movie gets extra points for having her best friend be a gay man (Raoul Bova) who is struggling with coming out to his son.
The film is very direct in addressing what it sees as a male dominated business environment.
On the other side of the coin, veteran filmmaker Sergio Castellito seems to readily identify women’s societal problems (particularly poor women) but have a hard time defining what a man’s reaction to them should be.
In his latest Fortunata, Jasmine Trinca plays a down-and-out single mother with an abusive ex-husband, but this American girl cringed at the way that the “good guy” treated her (played by Stefano Accorsi). While probably realistic, a good thing in the movie, his attitude toward her was judgmental, domineering and condescending. The sexual attraction seemed the only attraction and I’m just not sure what Castellitto was trying to say about life in Italy for poor women except that “it sucks”.
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In ‘Assolo’ Laura Morante acted in and directed Assolo, a portrait of Flavia, a woman a little past her prime (we’re the same age so I will say “a little”). She’s 60 and struggling with her identity.
Assolo is about what it is like to be a women, or more specifically, a woman who is not in her twenties anymore and about Flavia’s perception of what that means, fair or not; her memories, her nightmares, and her insecurities.
While Morante seems to want to say that Flavia is her own worst enemy and this may be true, in part, we all know that men aren’t as subject to the potential irrelevancy of a women as they age.
Filmmakers Antonio Piazza and Fabio Grassadonia’s recent Sicilian Ghost Story was ALL ABOUT girl power, taking the true life tale of a kidnapped boy and making her the story’s hero.
In it, Luna stands up to everyone; her parents, her teachers, her town, and the bad guys to fight for love and what she knows is right. Speaking with Antonio Piazza I learned that this was intentional, placing this strong fictional female character into the otherwise mostly factual story.
But my favorite Girl Hero is badass Violet in Stefano Sollima’s Suburra. It’s a crime story and she’s not your traditional “role model” for sensible young ladies but in the film, after all the men have done their best to make a mess of things, it’s Viola who gets things done.
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