ITALY

The Big Heart of Girls

2011 – 35mm – color – 85’

Direction: Pupi Avati

Screenplay: Pupi Avati

Cinematography: Pasquale Rachini

Editing: Amedeo Salfa

Set design: Giuliano Pannuti

Music: Lucio Dalla

Costumes: Catia Dottori

Cast: Cesare Cremonini (Carlino Viggetti), Micaela Ramazzotti (Francesca Osti), Gianni Cavina (Sisto Osti), Andrea Roncato (Adolfo Vigetti), Erika Blanc (Eugenia Vigetti), Manuela Morabito (Rosalia Osti), Gisella Sofio (Olimpia Osti), Marcello Caroli (Edo Vigetti), Sara Pastore (Sultana Vigetti), Massimo Bonetti (Umberto Vigetti), Sydne Rome (Enrichetta), Rita Carlini (Maria Osti), Stefania Scarpa (Amabile Osti)

Producer: Antonio Avati

Production: DueA Film, Medusa Film, Sky

Distribution: Medusa Film

synopsis

First half of the 1930s, a peasant family, the Vigetti’s, has three children: little Edo, Sultana and Carlino, a young man much sought after by the girls. The Osti family, on the other hand, are landowners who have made their fortune and live in a manor house with their three daughters, all to be married off: the two eldest, Maria and Amabile and the young and beautiful Francesca. Making the best of a bad situation, Sisto and Rosalia agree to let the young farmer Vigetti court the two older sisters with the intention of marrying off at least one of them. A period of dating begins with the two girls in the living room of the house, interrupted one day, however, by the sudden arrival of Francesca from the city where she had been sent to study. It’s love at first sight between the two …

critical note

“In Pupi Avati’s cinema, memory, as the repository not only of individual, but also family experiences, plays a fundamental role. As it is in The Big Heart of Girls, which re-enacts the story of the marriage between the filmmaker’s grandparents in a transfigured way. (…) For a childish character poised between eternal seducer and eternally seduced, Cesare Cremonini is a fitting choice; and Micaela Ramazzotti, with her mixture of strength and fragility, makes Francesca one of the most vivid female portraits in Avati’s gallery.” (Alessandra Levantesi Kezich, La Stampa, 11 Nov. 2011)

festivals and awards

2011 Festival Internazionale del Film di Roma – Competition

2012 Silver Ribbons: Micaela Ramazzotti Miglior Best Actress (also awarded for Posti in piedi in Paradiso by Carlo Verdone).