Actress Paola Cortellesi on Tuesday
got Rome's top civic honour, the Lupa Capitolina (Capitoline
She-Wolf), for her record-breaking debut film C'è Ancora Domani
(There's Still Tomorrow) on domestic violence and hopes of
female emancipation in postwar Rome.
Presenting the award to the Roman-born actress for a film that
recently passed Life Is Beautiful in all-time box office
takings, Mayor Roberto Gualtieri said "Paola Cortellesi loves
Rome, and she succeeded in recounting our city in her film.
"Here is a democratic and political film. Paola Cortellesi
carried out an extraordinary and very necessary operation.
"The reaction (to it) has been an emotional, intellectual, civic
and democratic participation, and what it aroused is the mark of
how necessary this film was".
Cortelesi, 50, previously mainly a comic TV and film actress,
replied: "I'm very honoured by the words that Mayor Gualtieri
said about my work and that of my team, for what we have done in
these years.
"I'm honoured because I'm a Roman and this is my city. And I
thanks the inhabitants of Testaccio, the only quarter where I
hadn't filmed until now. If I have managed to do something good
it's thanks to the care with which my family brought me up."
She concluded, to loud applause: "My mum is here, my father is
no longer with us but as a Roman he'll be laughing it off with a
"bella de papà" (daddy's darling in Roman dialect)".
C'e' Ancora Domani on December 29 surpassed the year's cult
phenomenon Barbie as the highest-grossing film at the Italian
box office in 2023.
The black-and-white film, telling the domestic drama of an
abused housewife in post-war Rome and confronting issues of
patriarchy and women's empowerment in the year Italian women got
to vote for the first time, has now taken almost 33,00,000
euros, while Greta Gerwig's film starring Margot Robbie as the
most famous fashion doll took 32,122,000 euros.
The Capri, Hollywood film fest also recently named Cortellesi
'European Filmmaker 2023' following the success of her film,
while it has emerged that C'e' ancora domani had overtaken
Roberto Benigni's Oscar winning classic Life Is Beautiful in
fifth place in the all-time Italian box office standings for
home-grown films, with the first four slots occupied by Puglia
comic Ceccho Zalone's hits.
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