Feature film
Das höchste Gut einer Frau ist ihr Schweigen
Gertrud Pinkus · 1980
Synopsis
Maria M. has left her village in Basilicata to follow her husband Giacomo to Frankfurt, whom she married against her parents' wishes, in the hope of a better life. She tells what happened to her, the cold, foggy city, the small room and then the flat, the births, the housework and the factory, but she does not want to appear: only her voice is recorded. In front of the camera, other immigrants from the South re-enact the scenes of that life, and the flat gradually becomes a prison.
Context
Pinkus first wanted to make a documentary about the wives of immigrants from the south of Italy, but none agreed to appear, and she built the film on this refusal: the voice of one, the bodies of the others. She wrote the screenplay with Anna Monferdin and produced it with Rolf Schmid, between Switzerland and West Germany; Elio Bisignani was responsible for the image. Maria Tucci-Lagamba, Giuseppe Tucci and Angelo Caruso play what another woman had lived.
Who it is for
About an hour and a half, in Italian. It helps to know that the voice we hear and the face we see are not those of the same woman, and that the title comes from a proverb of the South.
Prizes and reception
Several prizes at the Mannheim International Film Week in 1980, and a digital copy held by the Deutsche Kinemathek.
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