director
No spring chicken
"No Spring Chicken" (La Bruttina Stagionata) is a sort of “Alice in Horror-land”... but also an ugly duckling that becomes a swan!
The story of Marilina marks the passage from near total disharmony to a new equilibrium won at dear price.
A mere specter of herself, even the work she does keeps her locked in a personal limbo: what could be more anonymous than writing graduation theses for others?
Marilina is an “ugly ducking” painfully aware that she loves the “hip, cool and beautiful,” and all the trappings of that plush and distant world to which she can never belong.
Along a tragicomic passage through paradox, a bumpy ride full of humiliation and other extremes, she discovers that the only viable option is to rebel against a cruel destiny, that in her case seems irremediably written and sealed.
Marilina's story is also a metaphor of the present-day trauma of just being “normal,” in a world splashed and glossed by publicity and unrestrained aestheticism.
She sells a kidney in exchange for a nose job at our story's Aesthetic Surgery Center.
A lot of awareness and lucidity goes into her rebirth: mustering her will, Marilina morphs from caterpillar to butterfly, ready to catch the eye and respect of those around her, men included.
With an openly paradoxical tone combined with a frenetic pace, my film takes an unabashedly non-realistic approach. The characters are all extreme, accentuated to underscore the void in which they operate and to highlight the grotesqueries, angst and melancholy of our age.
Title
Italian title
Year
Production
Italian distribution
Foreign distribution
Story
Screenplay
Direction of photography
Set design
Costumes
Sound engineering
Editing
Music
Direction
Cast
Events
No spring chicken
La bruttina stagionata
1996
Goodtime Enterprise in collaboration with Rai Tre
Italian International Film
Rai Trade
Anna Di Francisca and Patrizia Pistagnesi
Freely based on the novel by Carmen Covito - Published by Edizioni Bompiani
Anna di Francisca, Patrizia Pistagnesi, Giovanni Robbiano
Luigi Verga
Beatrice Scarpato
Liliana Sotira
Ugo Celani
Simona Paggi
Pasquale Filastò
Anna Di Francisca
Carla Signoris, Edi Angelillo, Fabrizio Gifuni, Angelo Sorino, Tony Nardi, Milena Vukotic and with the partecipation of Isabella Biagini
Mention at the Prix Europa Berlino; Leone Magno Prize for direction and leading actress; Selected for Input 97, Nantes; Nastro d’Argento nomination for best direction debut and best set design; David di Donatello nomination for best direction debut and supporting actress.
Partecipates in numerous festivals.