An Urban Allegory

For the 90th anniversary of the Istituto Luce, Alice Rohrwacher delves into its historical archive. Combining recorded interviews with a kaleidoscopic montage of archival images, Una canzone reflects on memory, music and our relationship with songs. Una canzone is part of the anthology film 9x10 Novanta (2014). It is produced by Istituto Luce Cinecittà to mark the institution’s 90th anniversary.

When the most important friend in her life seems to have disappeared without a trace, Elena Greco, a now-elderly woman immersed in a house full of books, turns on her computer and starts writing the story of their friendship.

This documentary portrait of a traveling circus family—populated with performing kids, dogs, and chickens—seems to situate us squarely in Fellini country. But Giarolo and Alice Rohrwacher are up to something far less obvious, tempering the film’s antic whimsy by capturing the dogged determination of the Solunas as they venture by overstuffed caravan from town square to town square, all the way to the Balkans.

A portrait of Italy observed through the eyes of teenagers who talk about the places they live in and imagine themselves, torn between the opportunities that surround them, the dream of what they want to become, the fear of failing, the trials they hope to overcome.

As if in a dream, a young girl recounts the story of Orpheus and Eurydice and the questions raised by the myth. Heartsick from suffering, Orpheus descends into the Underworld to bring his beloved Eurydice who has just died from a snake bite back. The magnificent music played by Orpheus convinces Hades, the god of the Underworld, to free Eurydice, but on one condition : on his way back to Earth, Orpheus must not look back at Eurydice. On finally arriving at the gates of the Underworld, already catching glimpses of trees and bushes, Orpheus looks back. Eurydice disappears forever into darkness.

Purehearted teen Lazzaro is content living as a sharecropper in rural Italy, but an unlikely friendship with the marquise’s son will change his world.

Everyone has their own Chimera, something they try to achieve but never manage to find. For Arthur, the Chimera looks like the woman he lost, Beniamina. In an adventurous journey between the living and the dead, between forests and cities, between celebrations and solitudes, the intertwined destinies of these characters unfold, all in search of the Chimera.

A transfixing, rarely-seen 16mm miniature made as part of Rohrwacher's opera production of La traviata in 2016.

During WWII, in the days leading up to Christmas, a woman arrives at an Italian Catholic boarding school for orphaned girls with a large cake and a plea for them to pray for her boyfriend, who is having an affair.

After growing up in Switzerland, 13-year-old Marta returns to a city in southern Italy with her mother and older sister. Independent and inquisitive, she joins a catechism class at a local church. However, the games and religious pop songs she encounters there do not nearly satisfy her interest in faith. Struggling to find her place, Marta pushes the boundaries of the class, the priest, and the church.

In the Tuscan countryside, a family of traditional honey farmers struggles to make ends meet. The household consists of only daughters—four of them—led by the eldest, Gelsomina, who takes on the responsibilities of the family. When a small boy is sent to stay with them for rehabilitation, their routine is disrupted. As financial troubles threaten their home, Gelsomina sees an opportunity in a reality TV contest searching for 'Italy’s Most Traditional Family.' Willing to expose their secluded life for the prize money, she clashes with her father’s rigid ways in a bid to secure their future.

The ninth short film of the Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales series reflects Alice Rohrwacher’s attention to the surreal world of ordinariness and exceptions.

A farming community gathers on a plateau on the border of three regions for the funeral of traditional agriculture. It’s a film to ward off the disappearance of a millenary culture.

In the absence of any physical connection, this short explores alternative forms of contact among neighbors by making use of an old 16mm camera, a zoom lens, and a few meters of expired film.

The Istituto Luce turned ninety in 2014, its decades-long history intertwined with that of Italy itself, through cinema and that unique treasure trove of images known to all as the Luce Archives. To celebrate its anniversary, some of the most acclaimed rising filmmakers in Italy were invited to make a small film, with each director selecting ten minutes of footage from the archives, out of the thousands of hours of footage to be found there. The result is an album full of different narratives.