Angela

Film Info

Italy 2002 | 95 min. Director: Roberta Torre

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Angela

Synopsis

"I already knew the story: I liked the world of delinquents. For me they were like heroes ... Maybe because I came from a world of respectable people ... who had steady jobs ... I wanted to see violence ... I wanted to see what was behind it all ... and then there was also the fact that thieves and delinquents had orange Kawasakis, and we girls liked those big motors, the leather jackets ... we imagined the kinds of presents they could give us ... they made us dream..."

Thus Angela's story begins, a young woman born in Ballarò, the market neighborhood of Palermo.

Angela gets married when she's twenty to Saro, and for years shares his life of drug dealing and easy money. She is wife, mistress, and trusted accomplice to her husband. The life she leads fascinates her, she likes the luxury and the money, and above all the risk. She gave up her family for him, turned her back an an honest future and good work.

When she sees Masino for the first time she takes him for a cop, but he becomes her husband's right-hand-man and she and Masino begin a passionate and tormented love affair.

ANGELA is the story of a woman and her life in the solitude of a world made of laws written by men. lt also paints the fresco of a world of men, both cruel and disarmed at the same time, who are constantly forced to deny their own true feelings.

Cast & Crew

Director

Roberta Torre
Producer

Lierka Rusic, Rita Rusic
Screenwriter

Roberta Torre
Director of photography

Daniele Cipri’
Main Cast

Andrea Di Stefano (Masino), Donatella Finocchiaro (Angela), Mario Pupella (Saro)
Editor (Cut)

Roberto Missiroli
Production Design

Enrico Serafini
Costume Design

Enrico Serafini
Makeup

Anna Maria di Florio

Director's comment

ANGELA is first of all the story of a woman and her solitude in the world of organized crime with its rules and codes set by men. It is also a story of impossible love and its tragic consequences. The context in which it unfolds is in itself the reason for the impossibility of that love: Masino and Angela are not only two secret lovers, but above all a man and a woman who, before their love, must first obey to a code of unwritten laws which are nevertheless just as ironclad.
This would also have been a story of betrayal no different from so many others, if Angela doesn't decide, when the judge asks her to give the names of her husband's accomplices in exchange for her freedom, to remain silent instead, until the very end. She is sealed in a code of honor she totally accepts, though it costs her her life while she continues to deeply love the man she knows she is about to lose...
A story like so many others, whose course when faced with the inevitability of a choice, turns to tragedy: the heroes become archetypes, their lives like a journey in which destiny plays such a very strong role. I wanted to teil this story in Palermo once again, and set it particularly in Sicily because of my love for true fact: Angela is a woman who really existed and who spent her life in this city. And then, also, for my love of those atmospheres which the streets and faces of this city continue to offer me.

Biography

Roberta Torre, born in Milan, was a student of Philosophy before studying at the city's academy of dramatic arts and film school. In 1990 she moved to Palermo. Fascinated by the city, she decided to remain and work there.
Her first works were thus born, films and videos that tell the story of Torre's love for Palermo, portraits of men and women, usually from the fringes of society (a unique mixture of anthropology and fiction), stories of a surreal eastern everyday-ness, an exploration of the language of the people.
From 1991 to 1997 the director made about ten videos and films (ANGELESSE (1991); ANGEL CON LA FACCIA STORTA (1992); LE ANIME CORTE (1992); IL TEATRO È UNA BESTIA NERA (1993); LA VIA A VOLO D'ANGELO (1995), a video portrait of the popular singer Nino D'Angelo; and VERGINELLA (1996). A short musical staged in the side streets of the city, VERGINELLA focused on the world of Neapolitan songs and singers. The film led to Torre's participation in many important festivals in Italy and abroad and brought her numerous awards.
In 1997 the director made her first feature, a musical based on the story of Tano Guardasi, a small-time boss of the vucciria neighborhood, told by the actual voices of those who had known him, and all in the form of a musical comedy (original score by Nino D'Angelo).
As in Torre's previous films, TO DIE FOR TANO (Tano da morire) continued along a course in which the director skillfully combined music and film. TO DIE FOR TANO was presented at the Venice Film Festival and was highly successful with both critics and the public. It was awarded, among others, the David di Donatello, the Premio De Laurentiis and four Nastri d'Argento.
In 1998 Roberta Torre began work on her second feature, again a musical, SOUTH SIDE STORY (Sud Side Story), a reviewed and corrected version of the love story of Romeo and Juliet. Indeed in Torre's film, "Romea" is a Nigerian woman who has immigrated to Italy, and Toni "Giuletto" a busker who falls hopelessly in love with the young woman. But the families will not hear of it. The film is a true fable on immigration in today's Italy, on the difficulties of integration and the fear of difference. The film's music, by young Neapolitan composer Gino De Crescenzo, also drew upon collaboration with Dennis Bowell, arranger Linton Qweesi Jhonson, and other great names of African music.
The film features more than one hundred voices, of just as many immigrants, from the most disparate regions of Africa.
ANGELA is her third feature film.