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Film Archive

La Pivellina

Open Eyes 2009 / La Pivellina / Austria, Italy 2009

While out looking for her errant dog, 50-year-old circus artist Patty finds an abandoned two-year-old girl in the trailer park. In the pocket of the little girl’s pink suit is a note from her mother promising that she’ll be back soon... The feature film debut by the documentary filmmaking duo, which won the Label Europa Cinemas Award as Best European Film in this year’s Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes.

La Pivellina La Pivellina

Synopsis

Patty, a 50-year-old circus performer, lives with her husband in a trailer on the outskirts of Rome. While out looking for her errant dog, she finds a two-year-old girl named Asia with a note from her mother saying that she’ll soon return. Aided by teenager Tairo, who moved into his grandmother’s neighboring trailer after his parents abandoned him when he was three, Patty takes the girl in and begins to look for her mother. She herself is surviving the best she can with her husband and her animals. Nevertheless, this world, with its wasted lives, its "gated community” behind a corrugated iron fence, and constant police patrols, represents a warm human family that Asia doesn’t want to give up.... The movie, about the intriguing world of the disinherited in contemporary Italy, picked up the Europa Cinemas Label Award for Best European Film in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the 62nd Cannes IFF. The jury appreciated the film’s "big heart and its broadminded, unostentatious, and optimistic look at those living on the fringes of society,” as well as the veracity which the creators’ experience with documentaries allowed them. The performances, by actors using their real names, also contributed to the movie’s power.

About the film

100 min / Color, 35 mm

Director Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel / Screenplay Tizza Covi / Dir. of Photography Rainer Frimmel / Editor Tizza Covi / Producer Rainer Frimmel / Production Vento Film / Cast Patrizia Gerardi, Walter Saabel, Asia Crippa, Tairo Coroli / Contact Playtime

About the director

Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel

Tizza Covi (b. 1971, Bolzano) lived in Paris and Berlin before studying photography at the Graphische Lehranstalt in Vienna. After finishing her studies, she moved to Rome where she worked as a photographer. Rainer Frimmel (b. 1971, Vienna) graduated in photography from the same school, and received scholarships in Rome, Paris, and New York. In 2002 he and Covi founded the independent production company Vento Film. Shared filmography: the feature-length doc That’s All (2001), and Babooska (2005), describing circus performers in Italy and their daily struggle for survival. The movie took 8 awards, including the Wolfgang-Staudte-Award at the Berlinale, Best Austrian Documentary at Diagonale, Graz, and Best Italian Documentary at the Festival dei Popoli, Florence. La Pivellina (2009) is their first feature, for which Covi took up writing and editing duties and Frimmel participated as cameraman and producer.

Contacts

Playtime
5 rue Nicolas Flamel, 75004, Paris
France
Phone: +33 153 103 399
E-mail: [email protected]

Guests

Tizza Covi
Film Director

Rainer Frimmel
Film Director

Martin Schweighofer
Film Institution Rep.

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