GIRASOLI

1963. The young nurse Anna takes service in the juvenile ward of a mental hospital. Here she meets and becomes attached to sweet Lucia, a fifteen-year-old schizophrenic. Against the backdrop of a struggle between Dr. Marie and the rigid Dr. Oreste for the new experimental treatments, the relationship between Anna and Lucia thickens, forcing them to make decisive choices for their respective lives.

“Sunflowers is not a story about madness, nor does it tell about mental asylums as we have been accustomed to see them. It is the story of an impossible love, which was born by chance within the walls of a hospital psychiatric and survives to this day, imprinted on paper and in memory. We tell it so that the mental hospital does not remain just a place of suffering and imprisonment, but can survive in a story. That of Anna and Lucia. Forever. As a first film I have always wanted to try my hand at a film with children. I’ve always loved them and I have always been fascinated by their purity, their way of interacting and above all by how they see the world. I started my life journey in a sort of orphanage Romania, where I was born”.

DIRECTOR: Catrinel Marlon. SCREENPLAY: Catrinel Marlon, Francesca Nozzolillo, Heidrun Schleef. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Fabio Zamarion. EDITING: Massimo Quaglia. PRODUCTION DESIGN: Tonino Zera. COSTUME DESIGN: Nicoletta Ercole. MUSIC: Alessandro Magnanini, Logico Srl. SOUND: Davide Magara. CAST: Gaia Girace, Mariarosaria Mingione, Monica Guerritore, Pietro Ragusa. PRODUCER: Massimiliano di Lodovico. PRODUCTION: Rai Cinema, Masi Film.