Alone With Her Dreams

Directed by Paolo Licata
Corinth Films
2019
95 Minutes
Italy
Italian
Drama
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DVD
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$29.95 Non-Members
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Lucia must stay behind under the care of her stern and overbearing grandmother in 1960's Sicily, while her parents and younger brother emigrate to France to find work. The girl is distraught and bitter about being left behind, and mopes the days away as the relationship with her grandmother grows more and more contentious. Lucia grows increasingly curious about her grandmother's hatred towards other members of the family on the island, and begins to befriend them behind her grandmother’s back until one day she discovers the reason why and uncovers a terrible secret. Acclaimed director Oliver Stone call the film “A New Italian Classic From the Heart.”

Cast

  • Lucia Sardo
  • Marta Castiglia
  • Ileana Rigano
DVD Features

Discs: 1

  • Highest Rating
    "[A]n accessible import built around its child star’s very strong acting debut… A golden-hued, lightly sentimental period picture following an adolescent girl around a seaside Sicilian village, Paolo Licata’s Alone with Her Dreams would have fit nicely into that batch of European imports that, around the start of the 90s, Miramax effectively sold to American viewers who might otherwise have steered clear of subtitled fare."
    The Hollywood Reporter
  • Highest Rating
    "[B]eautiful [and] melancholic...But it is the brilliant Lucia Sardo as Nonna Maria who drives this film. The anger and focus of her character give “Alone with her Dreams” the force and depth that distinguishes it from other so-called coming-of-age movies because it is actually about how Nonna Maria frames the future for her granddaughter. Sardo is able to portray fury, small-minded hatefulness, and bone-crushing humiliation with a single glance. Essentially unknown outside of Italy, Sardo is a star, a truly great actress who has been relegated to supporting roles over a very long career. Licato has rectified that with this film."
    Easy Reader News
  • Highest Rating
    "A superb Italian drama from debut director Paolo Licata, this movie may be slow-paced, but this only adds to its intensity. Beautifully filmed, with a languid, dreamlike quality that often serves to release Lucia from the gritty realities of day-to-day life, the rugged Sicilian coastline is at once a symbol of wildness and adventure, and danger and isolation. Female repression is a strong theme, a mixture of untold sexual violence and stigmatization lurking beneath the surface as the women of the story go about their lives, each battling with their own secrets and lies."
    Common Sense Media

Awards & Recognition

Winner
Best Screenplay
Taormina Film Festival
Winner
Audience Award
Ortigia Film Festival