20 Aug TENGA DURO SIGNORINA! ISABELLA DUCROT UNLIMITED by Monica Stambrini

Venetian Nights 2024 

TENGA DURO SIGNORINA! ISABELLA DUCROT UNLIMITED

HOLD ON MISS! ISABELLA DUCROT UNLIMITED

by Monica Stambrini

Italy, 2024, 87′, color

Screenplay: Monica Stambrini

30 August 13:15 – Sala Laguna

Press, Industry

30 August 21:00 – Sala Laguna

V.O. IT sub EN

Followed by Q&A

Reservation required on giornatedegliautori.com

When, at the age of fifty-five, Isabella Ducrot, whose real name was Antonia Mosca, decided to become a visual artist, no one, not even Ducrot herself, ever dreamed that today, at ninety, she would be the darling of art galleries the world over. The film Tenga duro signorina! Isabella Ducrot Unlimited follows her activity for two years, both her achievements internationally and her private sphere. It’s more than a portrait of an artist who rose to the top despite being self-taught and an outsider; it’s an in-depth look at a woman who traversed the 20th century and ultimately revealed that “a happy life begins at sixty!” Wonderstruck by what she says and does, we believe her.

When I started to film Isabella Ducrot over two years ago, I knew there was a certain urgency. Isabella is a great artist who only won international recognition for her work late in her life, but for me she was a role model as a woman as well. So I had no qualms about tackling the project without “having my back covered”– it was just me and my camera. The idea was to spend as much time at her side as possible, with the privilege, at times, of providing an invisible gaze, while at others I could serve as a companion and fellow traveler over our two amazing years together. If I think about Isabella’s first steps in art at age fifty-five, me being fifty-four now, I understand how laughable all my agonizing over success and failure was. We live at a time when being a woman trying to achieve in her field is more and more accepted; the last taboo is still old age. And here Isabella surprises us once again, as she shows us what it means to be an artist and a woman, but also that there is nothing to fear about our golden years. Bottom line: hang in there, ladies!” (Monica Stambrini)

Monica L. Stambrini is a graduate of the Scuola Civica in Milan. In 1998, she directed Sshhh…, winning the award for best short film at the Torino Film Festival. Four years later, she was back at Turin with her first feature, Gasoline, based on the novel by the same name by Elena Stancanelli. That film was also selected for the Toronto and Annecy film festivals; at the latter, the two leads, Maya Sansa and Regina Orioli, shared the award for best actress. Stambrini’s 2012 documentary Sedia Elettrica (2012), on the making of Io&Te by Bernardo Bertolucci, premiered at Venice and Rotterdam. In 2014, she founded Le Ragazze del Porno, a collective project that allowed her to make the short film Queen Kong (2016), which made the rounds of numerous international festivals and earned accolades. In 2018, she directed and produced ISVN – io sono Valentina Nappi. Last year, Sambrini’s autobiographical documentary Chutzpah, qualcosa sul pudore bowed at the Biografilm Festival and DocLisboa.