ITALY

LE SPOSE DI BB  (A journey with men against gender violence)

2023 – colore – 30’

Direction: Stelvio Attanasi, Paola Leone

Screenplay: Paola Leone, Stelvio Attanasi

Cinematography: Stelvio Attanasi

Editing: Stelvio Attanasi

Sound: Stelvio Attanasi

Music: Reiswerk, Filippo Bubbico, Stelvio Attanasi 

Production: Centro Teatrale Aperto IO CI PROVO

Distribution: Centro Teatrale Aperto IO CI PROVO

synopsis

Gender-based violence, with its searing relevance, is an issue that raises questions with everyone, beyond one’s gender. In recent years, public discourse and the raising of awareness on this topic has been largely focused on women. In 2017, director and theater educator Paola Leone, after about 10 years of work in the men’s wards of Apulian prisons, came up with the project Le Spose di BB (The Brides of BB), a journey/workshop on violence against women entirely oriented towards men. The project seeks to raise awareness about gender-based violence and initiate reflection by way of a theater workshop open to men where it is precisely the male gender that is being examined.

director’s statement

“In this documentary film we follow several stages of the project, taking advantage of the uniqueness of the dynamics created within the workshop itself. Thanks to the methodology used, an investigation of the memory of violence in a written and narrated form is processed by the participants. By doing so, we have thus collected the stories and reflections of some of the men involved in the journey. Our interest lies in the changing perspective of our protagonists. We aimed to document the result of their remarks on gender-based violence, before and after. A point of interest in the approach of the documentary was above all empathy, a key criterion of the working methodology used by Paola in the workshop.” (Stelvio Attanasi)

world premiere