Portraits of Italian Women

Ritratti di Donne (Portraits of women)

Present-day Italy told through the stories of ten women, protagonists of the Italian cultural and creative scene, a project by Italiana Language Creativity Culture in the World.

Video portraits in Italian with English subtitles

Present-day Italy through the voices and stories of protagonists of the contemporary Italian cultural scene, including literature, art, music, cinema, theatre, archaeology, fashion and business. This is the aim of Ritratti di Donne (Portraits of women), a gallery of ten short videos that illustrate the success and personality of Italian women.

The series was created in collaboration with the Solinas Prize and Kino productions and was launched in January 2021.

The women of “Ritratti di Donne” (Portraits of women)

Portrait 1. Johanne Affricot

Johanne Affricot is a cultural curator. She is the founder of GRIOT (griotmag.com), a media and community platform that uses arts and culture to celebrate and amplify the different stories and voices of Afroitalians, of Africa and its diaspora, and of other identities and influences. In 2015, she worked for the American Academy in Rome Afroitalians in the Arts Today. She is the author of the series The Expats, The Untold Stories of Black Italians Abroad (2016 New York; 2017 London) and Motherland (2017 – present). She curated for Jazz:Re:Found Festival Sangue Misto: Sound, Identità, Rappresentazione (Turin, 2017). She is the artistic director of “Mirrors”, a contemporary dance and video art performance created for the initiative “Italia, Culture, Africa” of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2018, MAXXI Museum, Rome – 2019, Addis Ababa, Johannesburg, Dakar). She is also the curator of “(Memorie) In Ascolto”, for the initiative “Futura Memoria/Contemporaneamente Roma” (2019). In 2020, she curated the online exhibition “Guest Room”: Johanne Affricot for the International Organisation of Contemporary Photography “DER GREIF”.
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Portrait 2. Laura Bosetti Tonatto

Laura Bosetti Tonatto, a world-renowned perfumer, has been creating perfumes for the major cosmetic companies and tailored mélange since 1986. She is the creator of the cultural workshop “Nose and Parnassus”, dedicated to studying the use of essences and aromas from antiquity to the present day. She has curated several exhibitions, including: “Caravaggio a painting, a perfume” for the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. She was responsible for the olfactory section “Aromatic: essences, perfumes and spices of East and West” for the National Oriental Art Museum of Rome. She is the only expert in this field that has been able to express the relation between art, science and culture in general. Important artworks have inspired the creation of some of her perfumes. She has created a tailored collection for Queen Elizabeth II of England. On 26 November 2012, by decree of the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano, she was awarded the honour of Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
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Portrait 3. Silvia Camporesi

Silvia Camporesi was born in Forlì in 1973. Through the language of photography and video she constructs stories inspired by myths, literature, religion and real life. In recent years, her research has been dedicated to the Italian landscape. Since 2003, she has held personal and group exhibitions in Italy. Abroad, she has held exhibitions at the Italian Cultural Institute of Beijing; in Quebec (CAN) with “The Third Venice” project, created with the intention of exploring the real and the unreal of the lagoon city; in Saint James Cavalier in Valletta (Malta); at the Neumünster Abbey in Luxembourg; in India; in Slovenia. In 2007, she won the Celeste Prize for photography. She was one of the finalists of the Talent Prize in 2008 and of the Terna Prize in 2010. She won the Francesco Fabbri award for photography in 2013, the ArteFiera Rotary award in 2015, and the 2016 BNL Award. In 2015, she published the photographic book Atlas Italiae for the Peliti Associati publishing house.
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Portrait 4. Linda Di Pietro

Linda Di Pietro is the cultural manager and the chief cultural officer of BASE Milano. In 2007, she founded Indisciplinarte, a cultural planning, art curation and territorial development agency, of which she is the CEO. From 2009 to 2019, she coordinated the schedule and the services of CAOS, a cultural centre born from the conversion of the Opificio Siri. She also directed the International Festival of Contemporary Creation in Terni. In the 2018-2019 period, she was the cultural manager of the Manifattura Tabacchi Project of Cagliari. Previously a visiting fellow at the School of The Arts Institute of Chicago, she teaches Event Creation at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. She is co-founder of Lo Stato Luoghi, the Italian network of cultural urban regeneration. She was involved in organising the cultural project for Perugia 2019, European Capital of Culture candidate. She has also collaborated with: NESTA Italy, the Presidency of the Cultural Commission of the Chamber of Deputies; Teatro Stabile of Umbria; and the Festival dei due Mondi in Spoleto.
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Portrait 5. Gaia Furrer

Gaia Furrer was born in Barga, in the province of Lucca, in 1975. She graduated in History and Critique of Cinema at the “La Sapienza” University of Rome. She collaborated with Italia Cinema (now FilmItalia) for several years, handling both national and international projects. Since 2004, she has been working as head of programming for “Noir in Festival”. In 2020, she was appointed as the new artistic director of the Giornate degli Autori (Venice Days), the independent section of the Venice Film Festival,  which she has worked on since the first edition in 2004.
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Portrait 6. Antonella Lattanzi

Antonella Lattanzi was born in Bari in 1979. She lives and works in Rome. She is a writer and a screenwriter. She has published the novels Devozione (Devotion) (Einaudi Stile Libero 2010), Prima che tu mi tradisca (Before you betray me) (Einaudi Stile Libero 2013) and Una storia nera (A dark story) (Mondadori 2017). She wrote the screenplays of Fiore (Flower) by Claudio Giovannesi, 2Night by Ivan Silvestrini and Il campione (The champion) by Leonardo D’Agostini. She writes for several newspapers and magazines. She teaches at the Holden school in Turin. For TV, she worked on the 2014/2015 edition of “The Barbarian Invasions”. Her new novel Questo giorno che incombe (This Coming Day) (HarperCollins) will be released in winter 2021. It has been translated in over ten languages.
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Portrait 7. Petra Magoni

Petra Magoni studied singing at the Livorno Conservatory and at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Milan, specialising in ancient music with Alan Curtis. After some experience in this repertoire and in opera, she entered the world of rock music with the group Senza freni. She recorded two records using her own name (Petra Magoni, 1996 and Mulini a vento, 1997) and one under the pseudonym Sweet Anima, with songs written in English by Lucio Battisti. In 2004, she created the Musica Nuda (Naked Music) project alongside the double bass player Ferruccio Spinetti. The first album sold more than 50,000 copies in Italy and was released throughout Europe. In 2006, Musica Nuda 2 won the Tenco plaque in the Performers category. She has performed in New York, Europe, Tunisia, the United States, China and Israel. She has worked with a number of musicians, including Bollani, Tavolazzi, Bojan Z, Truffaz, Salis, Stilo, Tetes de Bois, Morgan, Avion Travel. In 2011, she played the role of Puck in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, directed by G. Dix. Since 2017, she plays Don Giovanni in the homonymous opera, accompanied by the Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio. In 2018, she performed with Ferruccio Spinetti for the Chamber of Deputies as part of the celebrations for the centenary of the Aula di Montecitorio hall.
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 Portrait 8. Fabrizia Sacchi

Theatre, film and television actress. She graduated from the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome. She joined the Leo De Bernardinis company, where she worked for five years on a Shakespearean repertoire. Her work on the big screen includes: Nel continente nero (In the black continent) (1993), by Marco Risi;I prefer the sound of the sea, by Mimmo Calopreste; From zero to ten by Ligabue; Happiness costs nothing, by Mimmo Calopreste; Mundo civilizado, The Protagonists and Melissa P., by Luca Guadagnino; Apnea, by Roberto Dordit and Luca Guadagnino. As for her work on the small screen, she starred in the TV series on Rai Uno: Medicina Generale  (General Practice), I Fuoriclasse (Star Players), Sirene (Sirens(, My brilliant friend, Rocco Schiavone and Il commissario Ricciardi (Commissioner Ricciardi) (2019-2020). In 2013, she was nominated for the David di Donatello award and the Nastro d’Argento award for best supporting actress for the film A Five Star Life. In 2018, she appeared in Guadagnino’s film Suspiria, which won the Robert Altman Award at the Independent Spirit Awards 2019.
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Portrait 9. Carla Tomasi

After completing her studies at the Istituto Centrale del Restauro (Central Institute of Restoration) in 1982, Carla Tomasi founded her own company. Within a few years, she began to work on monuments and artworks of great importance. In 1985, the company is the foreman in the restoration of the Arch of Constantine (UNESCO heritage), followed by the restoration of over 180 public works throughout Italy. From 2004 to 2008, she was involved in the restoration of the Palatine Chapel in the Palazzo dei Normanni in Palermo, also a UNESCO heritage site. In 2016, restoration of the Chapel of the Holy Shroud of Turin started. It won the Europa Nostra European Heritage Awards in 2019. Specialising in emergency restoration, the company worked on safety plans for the property damaged by the Aquila earthquake, with the pilot site of the Church of San Silvestro.
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Portrait 10. Marianna Vitale

She was born in Naples and raised in Porta Capuana. Marianna graduated summa cum laude in 2004 in Spanish language and literature with a dissertation on the myth of the “The Stone Guest”. In May 2009, she opened the restaurant Sud Ristorante with Pino Esposito in Quarto Flegreo, in the province of Naples. Marianna Vitale and Sud Ristorante boast numerous awards and recognitions. In 2011, Marianna received the “emerging chef” award from Sole 24 Ore newspaper. Since 2012, Sud Ristorante has been awarded a Michelin star. Marianna was awarded best Italian cook in L’Espresso and Identità Golose’s restaurant guides in 2015. In the same year Marianna’s Impepata wass “dish of the year” for Il Mattino di Napoli newspaper. In March 2017, Marianna received the Identità Donna award from Identità Golose and the Lydia Cottone “ Napoli è donna” award in 2018. Sud Ristorante was the best Italian restaurant for Pasta Offering for the Gambero Rosso 2020 guides.
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The creative team

The author – Annamaria Granatello
President and Director of the Solinas Award, which she has been collaborating with since 1992. She is a Creative Producer and founded Arià Film – Creative development production, Apollo 11 and the Piazza Vittorio Orchestra. She was Project Development Manager for E.T. Fiction, consultant for the Carisal Banking Foundation and Italian correspondent for Cinemed. She has worked in theatre and contemporary art, collaborating with RomaEuropa, Teatro Palladium and Tevereterno. Communication teacher at Herzog, Karta Bianca and Roma 3 University for the Advanced Training Course in “Economics and management of cultural heritage”. She was a Member of the Advisory Commission for Theatre for the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism in 2012 and 2013. In 1999 she published “Il mercato cinematografico italiano attuale e l’economia dell’esordio” (“The current Italian film market and the economy of debut filmmaking”), for Lindau.

The Solinas Award (Premio Solinas)
The Solinas Award was born in 1985 in La Maddalena in Sardinia to remember Franco Solinas, Sardinian writer and screenwriter, with the aim of highlighting the figure of the screenwriter and emphasising the strength of ideas and stories. 35 years after its birth, it remains an essential reference for authors, producers and industry both on the Italian and international scene, as well as a permanent creative workshop: 110 films, 10 short films, 3 webseries and 3 pilots for TV series have been made and distributed based on the winning and finalist projects in the competitions. Over the years the Award has been a partner of certain MEDIA Programs (SOURCES, ACE, EQUINOXE, ARISTA) and has worked closely with Mediaset, Rai International, Rai Cinema, Rai Fiction, Rai Play, Apollo11, trade associations, universities and the Italian Cultural Institute of Madrid, with which it worked to create the Solinas Italy-Spain Award.

Kino Produzioni
A young and dynamic company that aims to develop and produce cinematographic works that reflect on the changes taking place in contemporary society. The first works produced include: “Sole” by Carlo Sironi (2019), presented in Venice, Toronto and the Berlinale and winner of the best European revelation award at the EFA 2020, and “The greatest dream” (2016) by Michele Vannucci, presented at the Venice Film Festival in the Horizons section. The company is currently working on “Delta”, Vannucci’s second film with Alessandro Borghi and Luigi Lo Cascio, and is working on several projects including “Alcarrás”, the second feature by Spanish director Carla Simón, and “La bella estate”, the new film by Laura Luchetti based on the story by Cesare Pavese.

Italiana Language Creativity Culture in the World
Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale