(By Francesca Pierleoni).
British director Sally Potter was
awarded the 2018 European Nastro d'Argento (Silver Ribbon) prize
in Rome, presented during the outdoor Cinema on the Green film
screening at Villa Wolkonsky, the residence of British
Ambassador to Italy Jill Morris.
This is the first time since the award's inception in 1989
that it was given to a director, for Potter's caustic
black-and-white post-Brexit comedy "The Party", which premiered
in Italy at the Rome Film Festival.
The award was presented to Potter by Laura Delli Colli,
president of the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists.
In a conversation with journalist Hakim Zejjari prior to a
screening of "The Party", Potter said she is "proud to consider
herself a feminist".
"Nowadays it's easier to say you're a feminist, compared to
20 years ago," she said.
"Back then you couldn't say the word without first wincing,
because you knew that you would be seen as someone full of
anger, and that was something I couldn't stand," she said.
"The reality is that feminist means wanting equality,
dignity, humanity, asking that this half of the human race is
treated with justice. Who can't want that? No one," she said.
Potter said, however, that she doesn't believe the "biology
of the director" is a determining factor, despite the fact that
in her 1983 debut feature-length film, "The Gold Diggers", she
insisted on an all-female crew as "a political act, to open the
doors to the cinema industry's unions to women, who were at that
time mainly excluded from them".
In "The Party", whose extraordinary cast includes Timothy
Spall, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Patricia Clarkson and Bruno Ganz,
Brexit is seen through the lens of the implosion of
relationships between couples and friends in the British elite.
"It's a sort of tragedy inside of a comedy, that touches on
atavistic themes rooted in the current politics of today," she
said of the film.
"Laughter is a strong medicine; it gives you the strength to
fight. It's a freeing act, a sort of awakening. Through
laughter, the illusions of hypocrisy, pompousness, the
frustrations people have about themselves are broken, and you
see the fragility of human beings," she said.
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