Berlinale 2022: major awards to Italy. Golden bear to young Catalan director

Alcarràs by young Catalan director Carla Simón (Barcelona, 1986) won theGolden Bear at the 72nd Berlinale. The film tells the autobiographical story, set in Alcarràs, Catalonia, of a farming family facing eviction after refusing to install solar panels on their orchard land. The arrival of photovoltaics then displaces the Solé family and causes major economic concerns and deep rifts in the family. The film is co-produced by Italy’s Kino Produzioni.

Another important prize forItaly also arrives: Leonora Addio by Paolo Taviani, the only Italian film in the competition, wins the Fipresci-Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique international press award. Starring Fabrizio Ferracane, Matteo Pittiruti, Dania Marino, Dora Becker, and Claudio Bigagli, the direction, subject, and screenplay are by Paolo Taviani, editing by Roberto Perpignani, music by Nicola Piovani, costumes by Lina Nerli Taviani, set design by Emita Frigato, and photography by Paolo Carnera and Simone Zampagni.The title echoes a 1910 novella by Luigi Pirandello, but the plot of the film does not refer to the novella’s plot. Leonora Addio is also Taviani’s tribute to his brother Vittorio, who passed away in 2018: it is in fact the first film he directed alone, without his brother.

“Guided by the free spirit of Pirandello’s genius, the director mixes poetry, melancholy, but also irony, fantasy and joy to tell us the mysteries of life, death and memory”: this is the motivation. The film recounts the daring adventure of Pirandello’s ashes and the urn’s eventful journey from Rome to Agrigento to burial 15 years after his death. The film closes with Pirandello’s last short story, entitled The Nail, in which a child unknowingly kills a girl of his age.

"The Fipresci award for Leonora Addio to Paolo Taviani is an important recognition that the international press at the Berlinale wished to bestow on one of the greatest directors of our time and represents at the same time a further success of Italian cinema, once again able to speak to the world in an original, creative and imaginative way," commented Culture Minister Dario Franceschini.

Berlinale 2022: major awards to Italy. Golden bear to young Catalan director

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