by Andrea Grasselli
Italia, 2024, 80'
Malfè Film
The body is a performance in ongoing transformation. Today, a seventy years old religious believer spends his mornings praying, his Sundays at the cathedral giving thanks to the Saints, and his summer at Padre Pio’s sacred places confessing his sins. Into VHS images of the 1990s, a forty years old voyager shoots their meetings with younger indians. Into Super8 images of the 1970s, a twenty years old curly is joyful, provocative and exuberant. Today, a seventy years old crossdresser and sexworker spends her long weekend with clients and lovers. A photographer shows their images of the Dollhouse while they grow aware of their art. All these characters depicted are Armanda’s identities performances. All these transformations we see come from only one body. The body is perception and desire, that feels something beyond space and time. Armandə's body is a street chant. A unique story about body memory. Armandə’s identities and performances evoke their imaginary place: the Dollhouse.
Armandəʼs life shows that there is no single and fixed identity, that sex is not stable, and that gender is an ever-changing phenomenon. The themes of identity and self-representation are the structural background to the protagonist’s story, through passions, instincts and needs of Armandə's multiple lives. The need to make this documentary came from my interest in performance, as a tool for research of human behaviour and people's identities caught in their daily life The challenge is to explore the limit between the stage and the backstage in the daily life of my characters. I would like to depict reality as a performative show and presentations of self in everyday life. In our contemporary world it’s difficult to keep together the multiple identities that compose one’s self. Armandə seems to have found their solution: act, play and believe in their different personalities. Armandə, in this flurry of emotions, shows us a universal challenge: coexisting with our own identities.
Director
Story
Screenplay
Director of photography
Marco Ferri
Film Editor
Sound
Altri credits
Lorenzo Fantetti (Progetto grafico)
Producer
Production
con il sostegno di Film Commission Torino Piemonte - Piemonte Doc Film Fund - sviluppo dicembre 2022