What prompted me to make the documentary Nilde Iotti, il tempo delle donne was a desire to tell the story of a great woman and a major figure in 20th-century Italy, drawing on an abundance of archival material that attests to her political and civic commitment. From there, the idea evolved into that of portraying not so much the political figure but "the woman and her times": Nilde Iotti and her remarkable ability to inspire all women and move them to the forefront of post-war Italy and the country today, with the aim of giving this generation of women the motivation to create a future that fully embraces their rights and values. I started with the recollections of Iotti's childhood friends from Reggio Emilia: Ione Bartoli, Loretta Giaroni and Eletta Bertani. Observational cinema, above all, and direct interviews that reveal the young Iotti and the Resistance and merge with the experience of a current Italian actress, Paola Cortellesi, who plays herself learning to ‘communicate' with Iotti's words and ideas as she travels through Emilia Romagna. Along with fundamental memories and observations by key players in Italian politics in Iotti's time (Giorgio Napolitano and the current President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella), as well as film and theater personalities, such as Piera Degli Esposti, Cecilia Mangini, Edda Billi and others directly or indirectly involved with Iotti's career. The documentary genre meets present-day Italy in an all-female narrative that shows how Italy has changed.
Peter Marcias (Oristano, 1977) started out by directing a number of short films, including Olivia, Il canto delle cicale and Sono Alice, which premiered at an array of international festivals, including Taipei, Giffoni, Istanbul and São Paulo. He went on to make his first feature film, Un attimo sospesi (2008), starring Paolo Bonacelli, Nino Frassica and Ana Caterina Morariu, followed by I bambini della sua vita (2011), which earned Piera Degli Espositi the Globo d'Oro. In 2012, Marcias' film Dimmi che destino avrò was presented at the Torino Film Festival. In 2015 his film La nostra quarantena, starring Francesca Neri, was a special event at the Pesaro Festival of New Cinema and was shortlisted for the Silver Ribbons. Marcias has also directed a number of documentaries, such as Liliana Cavani, una donna nel cinema (2010), screened at Giornate degli Autori and the Moscow Film Festival; Tutte le storie di Piera (2013), which premiered at the Torino Film Festival and won a Special Silver Ribbon; along with Ma la Spagna non era cattolica? (2007) and Silenzi e parole (2017) both about LGBT rights. In 2018 his documentary A Look at the Earth premiered at the Trieste Film Festival and the London and Guangzhou documentary film festivals. Marcias was back at Giornate the same year to present his short L'unica lezione. Artistic, social and political issues are the underlying threads of all of his films.
