Zita Sempri (Always be a girlfriend)
2022 · 11m · Italy
Directed by Stefania Spampinato
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Through handwritten letters exchanged between a mother and daughter in early 2000s Sicily, the film poetically explores womanhood, generational guilt, and the grief that follows losing a parent.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Sicilian mother-daughter letters voiced by the director and her real sister. Autobiographical poetics, almost-certainly competent — but the Vimeo link is dead and I can't pretend to be excited about another grief-letter from a film I can't access.
An epistolary mother-daughter elegy voiced by Spampinato and her real sister is autobiographically honest, but the broken Vimeo link and the Sicily-and-letters frame suggest a familiar register. I would need to see it to revise the impression.
Page is dead so I can't verify, but director and her real sister doing the mother-daughter voiceovers for autobiographical Sicilian letters is the kind of personal-stake authentication you can hear in the mix. Pitched right; evidence missing.
Reviews
This short movie is an incredible tribute to the bond between mother and daughter, and the journey of grief that follows the loss of a parent. The film is beautifully shot, with a stunning visual style that perfectly captures the atmosphere of the little Sicilian town.
Zita Sempri is a film that surprises you with how honest it is, not just a letter between two specific people, but a letter to all mothers and daughters.
Festivals
- Taormina Film Festival 2022, Wella Award
- HollyShorts Film Festival 2023