Alice Rohrwacher’s narrative and dramaturgical present hints at the earth, souls and animals, at colours interwoven with the people who together form part of certain places in the industrious Umbrian-Tuscan countryside that is familiar to her. A writer-director, she narrates with equally imaginative and realistic focus the natural environments inhabited by bodies and souls in lands-spaces with strong family roots, poised between the past and an unexpected future, places where nature and the countryside absorb the city’s echoes and outer edges.
The wonder unleashed by her stories, at times like fairy tales, has surprising physical depth and variegated hues on the characters’ faces, especially the younger ones. It is a subtle yet strong amazement that cinematically shows the intimate tracery of a present with an undying ancient heart. Her directing concentrates and flows to sometimes “rise” in sequences of volatile balance to frame the unyielding tenderness of life. Her work with “discovered” or “re-drawn” actors in the feature films Corpo celeste, Le meraviglie and Lazzaro felice is remarkable and multifaceted. The narrative continuity of the episodes she wrote for the remarkable series L’amica geniale. Storia del nuovo cognome, in which the young lead characters put across complicity, pride, discovery, pain, and growth, with both a traditional and revolutionary power, shows sensitivity. Focuses that are also a feature of her shorts De Djess, Omelia contadina, Quattro strade and the episodes La fiumara and Una canzone of the collective documentaries Checosamanca and 9×10 novanta.
Alice Rohrwacher was born at the end of 1980 in Fiesole, her mother from Terni and her father a beekeeper from Hamburg. She studied in Turin and Lisbon and started out in theatre and documentary cinema as a co-director, screenwriter, director of photography and editor. In 2011 her first feature film Corpo celeste debuted at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes, went to the Sundance, New York, London and Tokyo festivals and in Italy won her the Nastro d’Argento as a first-time director. In 2014 Le meraviglie was awarded the Grand Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2018 another première at Cannes for Lazzaro felice, which won an award for its screenplay. Now, in 2021, she returns to the Cannes Quinzaine in synergy with Pietro Marcello and Francesco Munzi for the three episodes they directed that make up the docufilm Futura.
Maurizio di Rienzo
Biography Alice Rohrwacher
Born in 1981 in Fiesole, Tuscany, Alice Rohrwacher studied in Turin and Lisbon. She has been involved in music projects and documentaries, working mainly as an editor and musician for the theatre. In 2011, she made her first feature film Corpo celeste, for which she won the Nastro d’Argento as best new director. The film premiered at the Quinzaine des réalisateurs at the Cannes Film Festival and went on to be selected at Sundance and New York, London, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo. In 2014 she wrote and directed Le meraviglie, which won the Grand Prix Speciale at the Cannes Film Festival, and she returned to the competition in 2018 with Lazzaro felice, which won the Screenplay Prize. Both films participated in several other major festivals around the world. In 2020 she directed the two episodes set in Ischia of L’amica geniale. Storia del nuovo cognome, the second season of the worldwide successful HBO-Rai Fiction television series based on the best-selling tetralogy by Elena Ferrante.
2021 Quattro strade
2020 L’amica geniale. Storia del nuovo cognome
2020 Omelia contadina
2018 Lazzaro felice
2015 De Djess
2014 Le meraviglie
2011 Corpo celeste
