Sophia Loren crowned again in Italy. And other Italian movie awards news.
Friday, May 14, 2021 at 10:15PM by Nathaniel R
Sophia Loren just won her 7th Best Actress statue at home in Italy
Strangely we never saw any of the trades print a full list of Italy's David Di Donatello nominations this year, always just linking to the Italian site which does not have the list displayed in a way where you can copy and paste it easily. Alas. Hidden Away, a biopic of an obscure artist, led the nominations and came out the big winner too. Bad Tales was not far behind in the nomination count but won only one prize. Netflix's Italian original Rose Island had the third most nominations.
The awards were held a few days ago (oops) so it's past time to share the winners. Sophia Loren's Oscar hopes may not have panned out stateside but she won yet again in Italy for The Life Ahead. A few notes after the jump...
PICTURE “Hidden Away”
DIRECTOR Giorgio Diritti, “Hidden Away”
Normally when we look at international prizes we wonder if the country in question will submit that particular film to the Oscars in the next International race. But because Oscar extended the eligibility period for so long last season, countries had 15 months of releases to choose from for the 93rd Oscars and they will only have 9 months to choose from at the next Oscars (if the Academy reverts to their October-September system for international submission eligibility that is).
Female directors made some headway at Italy's biggest film awards this season but none of them won. Italy has yet to give Best Director to a woman. Their most famous female director, Lina Wertmüller (of Seven Beauties fame), the first woman ever nominated for Best Director at the Oscars, only ever received a Career Award. The Donatellos didn't have nominees until 1981 but previously just named winners which could account for Wertmuller's lack of home country honors in her heyday.
DEBUT DIRECTOR Pietro Castellitto, “The Predators”
SCREENPLAY Mattia Torre, “Figli”
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Marco Pettenello, Gianni Di Gregorio “Lontano Lontano”
PRODUCER Marta Donzelli, Gregorio Paonessa “Miss Marx”
Miss Marx is an English language biopic about Karl Marx's youngest daughter Eleanor (played by Romola Garai)
ACTRESS Sophia Loren, “The Life Ahead”
Netflix did well in Italy this year. Sophia Loren has never lost a David Di Donatello award. This is her 12th honor from the organization which is essentially the Italian Oscars. Strangely she won both a Career David and a Special David in 1999 and then this year they gave her both the competitive David AND yet another honorary award. So her total at the Italian Oscars comes to: seven competitive Best Actress wins , three special random prizes and TWO Career Davids. And you thought the Oscars had overdone it with Streep!
Loren's previous David Di Donatello Best Actress wins were for Two Women (for which she also won the Oscar), Yesterday Today and Tomorrow (which is wonderful), Marriage Italian Style (for which she was also Oscar nominated), I Girasoli, The Voyage, and A Special Day. But they also honored her with special awards for her performances in Black Orchid (1958) and the short film Voce Umana (2014), which like The Life Ahead, was directed by her son Edoardo Ponti.
The other best actress nominees were Micaela Ramazzotti (The Best Years), Alba Rohrwacher (The Ties), Paolo Cortellesi (Figli), and Vittoria Puccini (18 Presents)
ACTOR Elio Germano, “Hidden Away”
This is Germano's fourth leading actor David. Wow. He previously won for Mio fratello è figlio unico (2007), La nostra vita (2010... which also netted him Best Actor at Cannes), and Il giovane favoloso (2014)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS Matilda De Angelis, “Rose Island”
SUPPORTING ACTOR Fabrizio Bentivoglio, “Rose Island”
This film is currently streaming on Netflix if you're curious. You'll recognize Matilda de Angelis since she was the much discussed murder victim in HBO's The Undoing, who came between Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant's marriage.
CINEMATOGRAPHY “Hidden Away”
EDITING “Bad Tales”
Despite lots of nominations Bad Tales by the D'Innocenzo Brothers only won Best Editing.
DOCUMENTARY “My Name is Francesco Totti”
Yep, the latter beat Notturno, which was Italy's Oscar submission for Best International Feature last season.
SCORE “Miss Marx”
ORIGINAL SONG “Immigrato”
PRODUCTION DESIGN “Hidden Away”
COSTUME DESIGN “Miss Marx”
MAKEUP ARTIST “Hammamet”
HAIR ARTIST “Hidden Away”
DIGITAL EFFECTS “Rose Island”
SOUND “Hidden Away”
AUDIENCE AWARD “Tolo Tolo,” Luca Medici
BEST FOREIGN FILM “1917,” Sam Mendes
The other nominees for this prize were Jojo Rabbit (US), Les Miserables (France), Richard Jewell (US), and Sorry We Missed You (UK)
And in the non competitive honorary and career tribute type of awards we have...
CAREER DAVID
Sophia Loren
SPECIAL DAVID
Sandra Milo
Diego Abatantuono
Monica Bellucci
Reader Comments (21)
You can’t start an article title with “Sophia Loren...” at Sophia Loren’s age. I gasped because I feared this would be a sad post!
And which, like Almodóvar's recent short The Human Voice, is based on the Jean Cocteau play La voix humaine.
The Italians must really love Eastwood to acknowledge the very American and insular Richard Jewell.
Great to hear all this about the David di Donatello awards. Thanks, Nathaniel!
One of the joys for me last season was the short film What Would Sophia Loren Do? A clever snapshot of celebrity and fan with an interwoven, nonlinear approach to demonstrate how alike and how different the lives of two people can be. As cineastes, we all daydream of the gift of an uninterrupted shared moment in time with our favorite star. This film satisfied by providing that moment for a lifelong fan. It reminded me what a vibrant actress Sophia Loren has been to audiences for the better part of seven decades.
If I may add one of the most surprising verdicts was Laura Pausini's defeat for the best beaten song by the popular national film Tolo Tolo. Interesting article: I discovered that in America the film La Ciociara was released under the title Two Women, I didn't know.
You never covered les César.
Frenchie -- i didn't? ARGH. oh i see. i must've missed doing a post but i had updated the nomination post with the winners at some point because i jut looked it up
http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2021/2/10/cesar-nominations-gay-drama-summer-of-85-leads.html
Loren has always been incomparable and glamour in her awards appearances, this time she was also touching. Yep, David loves her and she clearly grew accustomed to receive prizes and homages but I think this one was special
In her remarks, Loren noted that she received her first award more than 60 years earlier. I'm sure that, and the fact that her son directed her winning performance, made it more meaningful. I also imagine the award was "special" because she knows -- and she said as much-- that The Life Ahead could be her last film. Therefore it was nice to hear her add, in closing, that she certainly hoped there would be more films in her future. Brava Sophia!
You also didn't cover the Goyas or Platino awards, did you? Hahaha it must be hard to keep on foreing awards. I know there are, besides Goyas (Spain) and Platino (Latinoamérica), David (Italy), Golden rooster (China), Cesar (France)... are there any others?
J -- there are MANY others, yes. Most countries with a developed film industry have them. I dont cover even a 10th of them (i dont think) but we try to at least post the nominees for the long-running big ones (like Golden Horse, Cesar, Goyas)... but some of the smaller ones it's sometimes easy to miss that they happened at all if they dont typically give out international press releases and the like.
I have a crush on Elio Germano. He's so good in La nostra vita.
"Female directors made some headway at Italy's biggest film awards this season but none of them won. Italy has yet to give Best Director to a woman. Their most famous female director, Lina Wertmüller (of Seven Beauties fame), the first woman ever nominated for Best Director at the Oscars, only ever received a Career Award."
Anyone else rather surprised by that? National film awards have tended to be ahead of commercial film arounds (a la Oscars, BAFTAs) when it comes to recognizing women, but I'm surprised to know that. But I presume the fact that Lina Wertmuller was the first women nominated by the Oscars probably pushes my thinking that way.
Hi Nathaniel... Sophia Loren didn't won a Carerr award this year. The David alla Carriera was awarded to Sandra Milo. The only Career Award she has from the Italian Film Academy is from 1999.
I love Sophia Loren. What a legend and going only by reviews she could have got in this year easily with a beffed up role. But....this article's been at the top of the page far too long. To make amends please deploy a Claudio piece STAT. Do the right thing.
Thanks again for sharing this
tedwedcotton
RICHARD JEWELL?!? LOL
Sophia is great, but as top story still, sashay away. Is it a yankee holiday or something? Does Claudio live in the states as well?
That foreign film line-up is a choice.
Does this site update anymore?
RIP thefilmexperience, you had a good run baby!