Model and actress Catrinel Marlon the host of yesterday opening ceremony of the 41 Torino International Film Festival-TFF explores new horizons in Torino. She is celebrating her directorial debut here in Torino. A very emotional Catrinel, took the stage today at 5:30 pm in front of her cast and the audience presenting „Girasoli/Sunflowers“ at the Cinema Romano. This is a world premiere, not only the audience also her cast is seeing the film for the very first time. Her talented leading actress Gaia Girace joined her on stage at Romano Cinema aswell as earlier this morning at the press conference. I got the chance to ask Gaia just a couple of questions, not more as time was very limited. Rai station was waiting for interviews and Catrinel would have prefered to be interviewed in Italian. The idea for a film came during the pandemics, which was in Italy especially frustating, Catrinel told me. She and her partner who is a producer thought about a short in the beginning, and later oppened up for a feature film realizing that given the difficult subject time would have been too limited to develop the plot. It also seemed to her less difficult to enter the festival circuit and eventually find distributers with a feature film. The film is based on a true story.

The film is also inspired by two experiences Catrinel lived as a child. At the age of three her mother and her father while very young at the age of 16 to a have a child used to give her in Romania to a children's home during the week and picked her up only at weekends. This kind of institution while not existing anymore were normal in the 80^th in the Romanian city Iasi, where Catrinel is born in 1986. And then there is her aunt who stand by her father (Catrinel's grandfather) who hold his hand till the very end...and never recovered after this traumatic experience. And Catrinel was the only one who kept in touch with her, the only one her aunt accepted from the family and so she regullary went to visit her in the asylum she was kept.

Her film has several layers. There is first of all a love story between two young women, one Lucia (Italian actress Gaia Girace) kept inside the asylum for mental disorder, the other Anna (Italian actress Mariarosaria Mingione) a poor girl who grew up in a catholic convent and now entering the asylum for work, she is not free either, she is restrained by the circumstances. Then there is the friendship between the children kept in the asylum, lacking parental love and their remarkable transformation once they explore compassion and kindness, like a sunflower when she finds the sun. And then the remarkable psychiatric Maria D'Amico (amazing Italian actress Monica Guerritore), who has a holistic approach and a modern therapy, she trusts Lucia as a patient and believes in her and her self-recovery potencial. And most important there is hope at the end, hope for a change, for more sun in our lives. Rosanna Purchia, in charge for culture in Torino, her Italian title is „Assesora alla Cultura“ joined today Catrinel on stage before the screening started in order to show her support for women.

Today is an important day for women around the world. The 25 of November is the International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women and thousends of women demonstrated against violance here in Torino aswell as everywhere else in the world, for a better world.

Alice Kanterian