“Dignity” on Repubblica.it

A truly touching and deep piece about Dignity and O Viveiro written by Maria Cristina Fraddosio and published on Italy’s main daily newspaper Repubblica.it

Mozambique, beyond violence: “O Viveiro”: the revolution of teenagers in a documentary

In Tete province, Mozambique, young adolescents are fleeing from violence to which they are forced to aspire to a better future. “Dignity” is the title of a documentary that tells the story of some orphan girls in Chitima, housed in the center of O Viveiro.
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“Midsommar” screened in Lecce!

I always say “This is the last chance to see Midsommar on a big screen” and then… it’s not! I am delighted this small film continues to live beyond its expected term, and Lecce is such a spectacular place… thanks to the organizers of the CoolClub to have selected it for the show “Il cinema e la luna” at the Ammirato Culture House!

And I am also very proud that this screeshot from Midsommar was selected to illustrate the whole event!

Huge success for Dignity at the RomAfrica Film Festival!

Incredible premiere for Dignity at the RAFF! Amazing how the planned Deluxe theater with its 124 seats proved quite insufficient for the audience, and that even after the opening of the second one, with its 70 seats many people could not get in anyway (sorry!)… I never expected this success for the first screening, thanks everyone!
Up to now two editorials have mentioned Dignity, one on NeapolisRoma.it, and the other on Africa e Affari.
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“Dignity”‘s teaser!

I would like to thank everyone who took part of this project, in one way or the other!
To do so let me just paste here the credit roll, and add a special thank to Ellen McRae, who edited the subs of this trailer!

from an idea of
Monica Mazzitelli e Emanuela Bonavolta

with
Adelia, Anarita, Claudia, Imaculada, Joana, Liliana, Lucia, Marcia, Marta, Nela, Paciencia, Regina, Rosa, Rosalina, Serita e Teresa

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Dignity, my new documentary film, to be screened at the RAFF, RomAfrica film festival

I am finally ready my new film work, this time a documentary. I shot it in Mozambique, a few months ago, on the stimulus received by a precious woman, Emanuela Bonavolta, coordinator of a non-profit organization called “O Viveiro” (“the nursery”, in Portuguese), which manages a center for young girls in the poor and unhealthy town of Chitima, in Mozambique.
The girls that stay there build their lives one millimeter a day. Orphan or poor, or both, they get an opportunity to invest in themselves, get education, learn a profession, and re-educate themselves to the affection they have never received, and get a chance to set fractures of their past shattering experiences. Not all of them succeed.
“Dignity” tries to tell, without rhetoric, these girls’ stories; their epic, their poetry, their falls, their success. But above all their splendor.

In this film I tried to shoot images with a cinematic, artistic value, to try and give a feeling of the girls’ inner beauty, their power and strenght. Their ability to stubbornly grow from nothing, like flowers in the desert. I tried to narrate this mostly through their words, respecting their need to pass on their own stories, create their own myth-making.

This documentary is about the possibility of dignity for women, for all women, in Africa and elsewhere.

The premiere of this documentary is for this Friday, July 10 at 6.00 pm at the magnificent Casa del Cinema in Villa Borghese, as it was selected for the RAFF, RomAfrica Film Festival. It will be a very special moment for me. I hope that my story will be worth the girls. Because they deserve that, and everything else in their lives.
Come, if you like, the event is on Facebook here.