August 1975. A thirteen-year-old girl climbs the stairs of a shabby house. She has a suitcase and a bag full of shoes with her. At the end of that staircase, the family in which she was born is waiting her. When she was just a baby her family gave her to wealthy cousins who lived in the city. She doesn't know why the couple decided to give her back. Did she do something wrong? Or was the illness that hit Adalgisa that forced her to abandon her? Beyond the door, the little girl finds a woman with a tired and distracted look, her real mother, a bunch of brothers who are just strangers to her, and a hard and silent father. She would like to leave, disappear, even die. But she can't. With the strength of her thirteen she must learn to survive.
Films
GIRL RETURNED
| Original Title | L'Arminuta |
| Category | Out of competition |
| Section | Parental Experience |
| Tipology | Feature Film |
| Duration | 110' |
| Production Year | 2021 |
| Nationality | Italy, Switzerland |
| Directed by | Giuseppe Bonito |
| Screenplay | Monica Zapelli, Donatella Di Pietrantonio |
| Based on | "L'Arminuta" by Donatella Di Pietrantonio |
| Director of photography | Alfredo Betrò |
| Editor | Roberto Missiroli |
| Production Design | Marcello Di Carlo |
| Costume Design | Fiorenza Cipollone |
| Sound | Luca Cafarelli, Andrea Doni, Frank Rousselle |
| Make up | Silvia Bezzecchi |
| Music | Giuliano Taviani, Carmelo Travia |
| Main cast | Sofia Fiore, Carlotta De Leonardis, Vanessa Scalera, Fabrizio Ferracane, Elena Lietti, Andrea Fuorto |
| Talent Manager | Stefania Rodà |
| Produced by | Roberto Sbarigia, Maurizio Tedesco, Manuel Tedesco, Javier Krause |
| Production | Maro Film, Baires Produzioni, Kafilms, Rai Cinema, con il sostegno di Regione Lazio |
Giuseppe Bonito
Born in Polla (SA) on 05.08.1974 After working for a long time as assistant director, in 2012 he made his debut with the film PULCE NON C’È PIÙ, Special Jury Prize at the Rome Film Festival - Alice nella Città section. Giuseppe Bonito was nominated for best debut director at the Nastri d’Argento. In 2020 he directed the film FIGLI - written by Mattia Torre - with Valerio Mastandrea and Paola Cortellesi. Silver Ribbon for best comedy and Silver Ribbons for best performance in a comedy film to Valerio Mastandrea and Paola Cortellesi. L'ARMINUTA is his third film.
Director’s statement
"I believe that directing is the extraordinary ability to access suspended lives in the moment in which they are told, the possibility of being able to observe, explore, investigate them, without ever judging. As far as I'm concerned, nothing is predetermined but everything is an encounter, a discovery, everything happens while the film is made. Thanks to Donatella Di Pietrantonio's novel, I met this thirteen-year-old girl whose name we will never know, but only her nickname, the Arminuta, which in the Abruzzo dialect means "returned". Her story happens in the mid-seventies and begins the day she is returned to the family she didn't know she belonged to. Suddenly she loses everything that had characterized her life: a comfortable home, the closest friends, the exclusive affection reserved for an only child. She finds herself catapulted into a new, strange and rude world that seems barely touched by progress and having to share the space of a small and dark house with five other brothers in a sometimes hostile and promiscuous dimension. In this story, everything is strongly polarized: the seaside city and the hinterland town, modernity and archaicity, bourgeois well-being and rural poverty, correct Italian, as it is spoken on TV, and the strict dialect that is spoken in the new house. And there she is, in the middle, the Arminuta, who is always one and the other thing together, daughter of two mothers and of none. "
Production
Maro Film
Baires Produzioni
Kafilms
Rai Cinema
international distribution
True Colours Glorious Films
(Italy/Italia)
www.truecolours.it
Italian distribution
festival contact
Lucky Red
(Italy/Italia)
www.luckyred.it