Cinema Italia: "Anna"

Cinema Italia! - the film selection in this week of Italian film presents Italy's artistically committed, contemporary filmmaking.

Anna
ITA 2024. D: Marco Amenta. D: Rose Aste, Daniele Monachella, Marco Zucca, Stefano Cancellu, Andrea Melis. 119 min. ItalOmdtU. FSK: n. A.
When construction machinery appears one day in front of her house and stables not far from the sea on the coast of Sardinia, Anna no longer understands the world. A luxurious hotel complex is to be built on her remote piece of land, which once belonged to her late father. After a failed marriage in Milan, the young shepherdess and farmer, who has returned to her homeland to produce cheese for the local market with a small herd of goats, begins an almost hopeless battle for her livelihood and the protection of nature.
Inspired by true events that took place 15 years ago on the coast of Sardinia, Marco Amenta tells the story of a courageous woman who fights back against the power of money. Rose Aste is outstanding in the title role, embodying all facets of Anna's character with incredible intensity.

The director about his movie:
ANNA is a story of resistance to power whose plot is based on a true event that took place in Sardinia a few years ago. Without any ideology, the protagonist's fight to save herself becomes a fight to protect the environment and a fierce resistance against violence and chauvinism. Anna is a woman who does not want to submit and fights not to be oppressed. She does not want to be a victim, but she is not a heroine either. It took us over a year to find the right actress. I quickly realized that she had to be Sardinian because of the life experience and the language, which is as raw as the character herself and conveys an old, deep-rooted history. The timbre conveys meaning, and the film would not have had the same meaning in Italian. After countless castings, I found Rose Este, who combines the wild, tough side of a shepherdess with an unconscious eroticism. The cinematography and the directorial style adapt to her and express her mood, her joys and sorrows. The camera really sticks to her body, to her stillness, we also worked a lot with the handheld camera to achieve shaky, unsteady shots, just like Anna, with the light falling on the lens and hurting her, just as Anna feels hurt.
Marco Amenta