ENG - “When I look at Rome, I see my mother. It's been the case ever since she died.”
It's a summer evening from many years ago: the city is empty, and the final of the soccer world championship is underway. A woman, Teresa, reaches the Tiber and lets herself go into the river. The abyss swallows her while Virginia, her daughter, travels through Rome in the dark of the night: she wants to find her and save her. Virginia must cross the depths of the waters, of history, the myths, the vital brightness and the disasters of a timeless Rome. Only then can she see her mother again, surfacing from the blackness of the Tiber, flying towards AMOR, "the planet of care”. Surrounded by water, its streets, squares, and fountains are reminiscent of those of Rome with animals roaming freely.

IT - “Quando vedo Roma vedo mia madre. È così da quando lei è morta”.
Una sera d’estate di venticinque anni fa: la città è deserta, è in corso la finale del campionato del mondo di calcio. Una donna, Teresa, raggiunge il Tevere e si lascia andare alla sua corrente. Gli abissi la inghiottono e la figlia Virginia, nel buio della notte, attraversa Roma: vuole trovarla e salvarla. Virginia deve attraversare le profondità delle acque, della storia, dei miti, delle sciagure e dei bagliori vitali di una Roma senza tempo. Così può vedere di nuovo sua madre che emerge dall’oscurità del Tevere per volare verso AMOR, “il pianeta della cura” circondato dall’acqua e dove le vie, le piazze, le fontane ricordano quelle di Roma e gli animali sono liberi di circolare.











ENG - « I'll take care of you. » How many times have we said these words to a mother, a brother, a lover? The question that I ask myself and that underlies the film like a pulled thread rests in its title, Amor. Does saving love exist, the one that keeps us close to others no matter what? That's what I asked myself the day my mother Teresa died. She was gone and I couldn't stop her. And the depression, which had wet every corner of our existence like water, had receded leaving rubble. Perhaps this is what the citizens of Rome felt in the immediate post World War II when faced with their destroyed city. The past was full of black holes, but life was calling and they had to move forward. From them I understood that the only way to come back to life was to reconstruct the fragments of Teresa's life, put them next to each other, emulating who had done it before me with the ruins of Rome and, in this way, make it appear again.

IT - « Io avrò cura di te. » Quante volte abbiamo pronunciato queste parole a una madre, a un fratello, a un amante. La domanda che mi pongo e che sottende come un filo teso il film, risiede nel suo titolo, Amor. Esiste l’amore salvifico, quello che ci fa stare accanto agli altri qualunque cosa accada? È quello che mi sono chiesta il giorno della morte di mia madre Teresa. Lei se ne era andata e io non ero riuscita a fermarla. E la depressione, che aveva bagnato come acqua ogni angolo della nostra esistenza, si era ritirata lasciando macerie. Forse è questo quello che hanno provato nell’immediato dopoguerra i cittadini di Roma di fronte alla loro città distrutta. Il passato era pieno di buchi neri ma la vita chiamava e si doveva andare avanti. Da loro ho capito che l’unico modo per tornare a vivere era ricostruire i frammenti della vita di Teresa, metterli uno vicino all’altro, emulando chi l’aveva fatto prima di me con le rovine di Roma e, in questo modo, farla apparire di nuovo.








with
ODETTA TUNYLA as Teresa
LAURA RICCIOLI voice of Teresa

Girls Planet Amor
CHIARA NASTY GOVORUSIC
ELEONORA KADIRA GOVORUSIC
PASA GOVORUSIC

Inhabitants Planet Amor
FIORA BLASI
VALERIA DI FELICE
FRANCESCO LEONE
LAURA RICCIOLI
TERESA RUGGERI
DANIELE SPADARO
ELISA SPANÒ








a film written and directed by
VIRGINIA ELEUTERI SERPIERI

director of photography
SIMONE RIVOIRE

shooting in studio (Lithuania)
ELVINA NEVARDAUSKAITĖ

editor
BEPPE LEONETTI
VIRGINIA ELEUTERI SERPIERI

original music score
MARTYNAS BIALOBŽESKIS

costume designer
LISA ELEUTERI SERPIERI

set designer
MARTINA IACUBINO

sound
BEATRICE MELE

sound design and mix
VITO MARTINELLI

production manager
SILVIA CAROBBIO
RAMUNĖ RAKAUSKAITĖ

post-production coordinator
PAOLO FAVARO






producers for STEFILM
EDOARDO FRACCHIA

with
ELENA FILIPPINI
STEFANO TEALDI

producer for ERA FILM
RASA MIŠKINYTĖ

a production
STEFILM and ERA FILM

with
RAI CINEMA

with the support of
ROMA LAZIO INTERNATIONAL
PIEMONTE DOC FILM FUND
LITHUANIAN FILM CENTRE
ATELIER DI POST PRODUZIONE MILANO FILM NETWORK 2022

in collaboration with
ARCHIVIO AUDIOVISIVO DEL MOVIMENTO OPERAIO E DEMOCRATICO - AAMOD













Rome International Documentary Festival - Special Mention 2023
Rome International Documentary Festival - Best Sound 2023
Milano Film Network Award - 2° prize 2022
Premio Solinas - Best Subject for Documentary Film 2019






36th IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2023
Luminous




80. Mostra Internazionale D'Arte Cinematografica, La Biennale di Venezia 2023
Out of Competition - Non Fiction




Running time: 101 min
Genre: hybrid
Year: 2023













« The maternal absence sublimated by the imagination of an aquatic Rome and a planet of care. A surprising debut. »

Raffaella Giancristofaro, MyMovies


« The debut film of the Roman artist: "cinema as therapy to repair a private fracture - explains Barbera - as well as a visual poem that starts from her mother's suicide and dives into the aquatic history of Rome”. »

Lorenzo Ciofani, ilCinematografo.it


« Serpieri creates an exciting and poignant experimental film, working with still images or minimal movement. »

Andrea Guglielmino, Cinecittà News


« A work that leaves behind many superstructures, that breaks the wall of the rhetoric with which depression is often described, a flow of consciousness that takes its due time but is difficult to forget because it is able to sculpt something in the soul. »

Erika Sciamanna, Movieplayer.it


child, sometimes even - riskily - gives the floor to the mother herself who addresses her children, but everything remains wrapped in an astonished and magical aura, muffled, capable of dealing with maximum pain without bending over. »

Alessandro Cinquegrani, Sale della Comunità


« Serpieri's Cinema is defined as Research, which experiments with expressive methods, which ventures visual techniques and which suddenly immerses you in the grainy Super 8 dream of a camera from times gone by. A complex path with many dynamics and which opens up a new point of view on Rome, on this enormous organism. »

Sandra Orlando, TaxiDriver