TOMMASINA

TOMMASINA
Tommasina is ninety-two years old but she’s convinced that she’s
eighteen and that she still has her whole life ahead of her. She wants
to enroll at the university and become a teacher. The old woman tries
to remember her life but she can’t place her memories in their proper
timeframe. As she mixes up the present and the past, the living and
the dead exist together in a single, imaginary time. Her day illustrates
the sad reality of Alzheimer’s disease. The idea of memory as identity
comes through in Tommasina’s words, “You can’t live without
memories.”

“Where does the identity of a human being reside? In a person’s face,
in his past, in his memory? Or maybe somewhere deeper, more
intimate and secret? It’s not important knowing who Tommasina
was in the first part of her life and maybe it doesn’t matter knowing
who she has become today, now that she has lost her memory.
But for those who want to know, Tommasina was a strong,
independent and resourceful woman. Still today, she throws herself
into everything she does. Because, even if she has forgotten her past,
she is still herself.”

regia, sceneggiatura/
director, screenplay
Margherita Spampinato
fotografia/cinematography
Claudio Cofrancesco
montaggio/film editing
Francesca Bracci
interprete/cast
Tommasina Corica