Sky Arte launches the new documentary series “Me and Her”

Me and her on Sky Arte

She seems to have so identified with her character that she has assimilated it. Bilello is the protagonist of the new season of documentaries Io e Lei signed by Sky Arte, which tells the life of five legendary female artists, born more or less a hundred years ago, and interpreted today by as many Italian actresses. Women of courage and talent, who have become very famous (but some have already been almost forgotten), who have not hesitated to challenge the social and political system of the time. And for this timeless, inspiring muses forever.

Thus Camilla Filippi rediscovered Giulietta Masina, actress and wife of Federico Fellini.

Sonia Bergamasco put herself in the role of Isadora Duncan, founder of modern dance. Carolina Crescentini impersonated the Roman singer Gabriella Ferri. Cristiana Dell’Anna has (re)discovered the photographer Tina Modottthose, in fact, the performer of the series Sense8 gave the face to Elsa Schiaparelli, the first designer to appear on Time (the five episodes come out in streaming on Now and are available on demand every week, starting February 14th, ed.).

Elsa Schiaparelli and shocking pink

«Elsa Schiaparelli lived a century ago, yet what he did still stands. Shocking pink was invented by her. Valentino celebrated its color with the Fall Winter 22/23 fashion show. And, returning to its famous lobster dress, Prada has reproposed it, in gold embroidered with sequins, on the occasion of the Met Gala in New York on the theme of “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations”» continues Bilello.

«What struck me about her was the certainty of being special. Like when as a child she swallowed seeds so that “flowers were born from the nose, mouth and ears” and she could appear beautiful to her mother. She was brilliant. She lived in a contemporary future. Who wouldn’t want to have this attitude?».

And if the rival Coco Chanel called her “the artist who makes clothes” (and to think that his clothes are now considered works of art by American collectors), Schiap has also left behind a modern “fashion” lesson. She said: “Buy little, but the best things”. “Isn’t that a current teaching?” asks Bilello.

Forever Juliet of the Spirits

Camilla Filippi instead entered the intimacy of Giulietta Masina, perhaps the least remembered of post-war Italian actresses. Debuted in 1946 on Paisa by Roberto Rossellini and then up to 1991 is one of the best-known faces of Italian cinema. In 1957 she reached the peak of her career in the role of Cabiria in the film Nights of Cabiria. Fellini, in 1965, then directed her in his first color film, Giulietta degli spiriti.

«The aspect that angers me the most is that she will be remembered forever only as Federico Fellini’s wife.

Last year was its centenary, but it was completely ignored» claims Filippi who “interviewed” friends and family. To get to know her better, she visited the Fellini museum in Rimini She went to San Giorgio di Piano, where she was born and met the niece of the actress, Simonetta, daughter of her sister.

She went on a journey through time that brought out a woman full of humanity despite the tragedy of motherhood (she and Fellini had a son who died fifteen days after giving birth), but already modern. “She bore her original surname and not that of her husband throughout her life,” says her niece Francesca Fabbri Fellini.

“It made all the difference at the time. You told the women that you weren’t just Fellini’s friend, partner, actress or wife. But you are a person first and foremost.’

Sky Arte: Isadora Duncan barefoot

It takes courage to “be”, in fact. To overthrow the established order. Isabella Duncan, American from San Francisco, challenges academic dance in 1900: he rejected pointe shoes, which he considered unnatural, and the costumes worn by dancers, focusing on simple and light clothes. It is inspired by the plasticity of Greek art and transforms the history of dance

(«I was born by the sea. The first idea of ​​movement certainly came to me from the rhythm of the waves» she writes in her La mia vita). Emancipated and free, she also has romances with men much younger than her and will have three children from as many fathers.

He falls in love with Paris Eugene Singer, son of the founder of the Singer sewing machines, and with the poet Sergej Yesenin, for example. She as a woman she faces the humiliation of what we now call body shaming: she is criticized for her weight and dyed hairthe. And this even if her success led her to open a school in Moscow, at Lenin’s invitation.

He disappears at 50, in 1927, killed – apparently – by a scarf around her neck that got caught in the wheels of a Bugatti car while she was on board with her new lover.

No footage remains of her. Just a few seconds video clip. “In researching her character, I was struck by her candor and tenacity at the same time. At that time she was a revolutionary woman who worked in the artistic field and who, above all, supported herself» underlines Sonia Bergamasco.

“Isadora Duncan was a listening soulor, he did not follow rules derived from an idea of ​​power or social rigor, but his own rules. That’s why he knew how to invent himself ». A modern woman, therefore, from deep subversive force, able to leave a mark even today.

Sonia Bergamasco, in the documentary, follows dance lessons from Meg Brooker, artistic director of Duncan Dance South, the world’s leading expert heir to this tradition, and lets himself be enchanted by the flow. «My interest, when I play a character with a charismatic personality like hers, is to understand how much energy is still able to move: today who would be Isadora Duncan? Would you have the same impact?”

Sky Arte, Tina Modotti, the revolutionary

A strong identity is what unites all the women described in the five documentaries. When they understand who they are, and their vocation, they break down stereotypes, prejudices and social obligations along the way, completely regardless of the “stop”. This is also demonstrated by the life of the photographer of the “campesinos” Tina Modotti.

Cristiana Dell’Anna did a research on her by also interviewing the photographer Maurizio Galimberti. «You leave Udine at the age of 16, in 1913 you follow your father to America. She dreams of working in cinema, participates in some films, but refuses to exhibit her body as Hollywood wants. And so it gives a new input to its own existence. Discover photography.

In eight years, between 1923 and 1931, she became a legend with her shots dedicated to Mexican women» says the actress who plays her with a Venetian accent, giving her a certain stamp of authenticity.

“It’s always twisting its existence represents the emblem of female emancipation. It always goes forward. And in this I feel close to her. I suffer when I don’t feel represented as an actress. I always try to give a point of view, a particular cut to the stories I stage to give value to what I do».

Tina Modotti meets and falls in love with men who lead her to new adventures every time: she never backs down.

Thanks to the photographer Edward Weston, of whom she becomes a model and lover, she approaches photography. With the officials of the Mexican Communist Party, she becomes involved in the revolutionary cause. She becomes friends with Frida Kalho, she enters the Mexican muralist movement. And then she gets involved again when with another, presumable lover, the Italian anti-fascist Vittorio Vidali, she enlists in the international brigades during the Spanish civil war.

Finally, he spies – it is suspected – for the Soviet Union in the name of the revolutionary ideal. He died at the age of 45 in 1942 in Mexico City, in a taxi. Of a heart attack officially. She maybe killed.

Sky Art. Gabriella Ferri and Italian folk

In keeping with his destiny too the Roman folk singer Gabriella Ferri, one of the most biting and angry voices of the Seventies. Few know it, but she was one of the first women in Italy to sign her own songs. Her career spanned the late 60s and early 80s.

Two songs out of all: The society of pimps. And where is Zazà. Singer-songwriter, interpreter of Roman folk songs and presenter, at one point she takes a step back. And to those who ask her why she replies: “Because you’re all on the c…”.

He had it in for the system. But she was also plagued by depression that consumed her. Carolina Crescentini makes it her own in the colorful dresses typical of the seventieseyeliner under the eyes, eye-catching necklaces, blonde bangs, head scarves.

She says that her mother, who grew up in Campo de’ Fiori, often met her in the center of Rome with her gaudy caftans and overwhelming sympathy. “I wish I’d known her too. It was a storm of very powerful, vital energy».

This is also confirmed by Renzo Arbore, a great friend of Ferri, that the actress meets. She reveals that he met her one evening in Piazza del Popolo, at the Rosati café, where the people of the cinema met. She approaches him and says “Who are you? Annamo a balà ”and then she takes him to the Margutta tavern.

Arbore says that he starts playing at his house between an amatriciana and long evenings until dawn. And that he immediately underlines his own identity. «You know that for me dialect is my language» Ferri confessed to Mia Martini in 1975.

“He didn’t imitate anyone. Few women have had the courage to “be”. She was also a woman who played with her image, she was ahead of her time» comments Crescentini.

They called her “the little head” (she was born in Testaccio, near Trastevere) and, when her second husband, the Russian Seva Borzak, president of the RCA record company in Caracas, saw her for the first time and fell in love with her, she challenges him, asks him to jump into a fountain «and he does it» underlines the amused actress.

“I’m sure he would behave today as he did then: he wouldn’t compromise.”

Federico Fellini defines Gabriella Ferri as “a thoroughbred clown” when he sees her play And where is Zazà? dressed in tails, with a bow tie and a charlotte bowler hat. «You have never been afraid to show your fragility. She was a real, empathic woman, which is why she remains an extraordinary figure to this day» concludes Crescentini.

The pain of living takes her away at the age of 61 in 2004. She mysteriously falls from a balcony.

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