about me

I am a feminist directress and a writer, born in Rome on August 22nd, 1964. I live in Sweden.

Please enjoy my showreel.

I have filmed some twenty-five short films (documentaries, narrative films, videos, promos, booktrailers). A selection of them participated to over 200 international film festivals, receiving numerous awards and nominations.

My latest work is an animated short, The Wedding Cake, that was prepared as a pilot to a larger project about prostitution and pornography, that I hope to complete by 2024. It has reached out to 80 festivals, winning many prizes and nominations.
My biggest success before The Wedding Cake is a documentary that I filmed in Mozambique, called Dignity. It has been selected by over 60 international festivals obtaining awards and nominations.
Another short is a jazz-inspired noir film called The Coltrane Code, also doing very well at many international film festivals.
Before these two, I shot another narrative short in Stockholm, called Midsommar, based on a short story I wrote in Italian and Swedish.
Among my musical videos my favorite ones are those I shot for Swedish jazz pianist Daniel Karlsson and for the Italian indie rock icon Andrea Chimenti.
My director carrier started almost by chance in 2006, as I shot a zero budget short film about the evil aspects of copyright The Disney Trap – How copyright steals our stories, that surpassed 1.84 million viewers on YouTube − I'm glad that my message went thru despite the extremely poor quality of the film.
I have also worked as a theater director in some plays I put on stage from my anthology Tutti giù all'inferno.

As far as fiction writing goes, I published three novels in Italian, the first one Gotcha umbrella-haired girl (Tana per la bambina con i capelli a ombrellone) for Rizzoli Publishing with the pseudonym Monica Viola in 2008. The second one was published in 2019 with the title To Die Free (Di morire libera), with Lorusso Editore. I have thorougly revised it starting 2022 so it has been published again with a new title Michelina Di Cesare, briganta in April 2023 . It is dedicated to the historical figure of Michelina Di Cesare, a female outlaw who lived in the second half of the eighteen century.

In 2007 I also curated an anthology of short stories (both mine and others’) that I am very proud of, entitled Tutti giù all’inferno (Giulio Perrone Editore 2007).
All my other short stories have been published in various other anthologies, and online.

As a feminist writer I have freelanced for various papers and magazines and I am co-editor-in-chief for La poesia e lo spirito, an Italian lit-blog. I have written some two hundred pieces for various mags such as: Accattone, Bcomeblog, BlackmailMag, Carmilla, Carta, Diario, FaM, Giuseppe Genna, Grandevetro, Inciquid, Kai Zen, Le Donne Visibili, Loop Magazine, Micromega, Music on Tnt, Nazione Indiana, Off, Origine, Rassegna Sindacale, Slowcult, TabulaRasa, Terranullius, Toilet and Unonove.

I have also produced music, written lyrics, acted, done some photography, written scripts for movies and the theatre, organized festivals, conducted a radio show, and translated from English and Swedish. In 2002 I kicked off the readers’ group iQuindici, volunteers readers connected to the Wu Ming Foundation, which I directed until 2009.

I am a Bachelor in Modern Literature (British, North-American, and Swedish/Scandinavian literature) and I graduated with a thesis on Joseph Conrad.

Unless specified, all the photos used are mine, including those appearing on the header.

Last update of this page: October 2023