The Girl Who Lived Twice is a supernatural thriller that weaves together memory, childhood, and family ties. Asia is an 11-year-old girl who, hosted on a famous talk show, claims to be the reincarnation of Michele Garavani, a celebrated writer who died in mysterious circumstances on the day of her birth. Invited with her father Luca to the villa of Katerina, a psychiatrist and Michele's ex-wife, the girl recognizes every detail of the house and moves as if she has "returned home," completely unsettling the woman and her teenage son Ilario. Amidst Christmas dinners, impromptu therapy sessions, family grudges, and the woods that conceal the location of Michele's death, Asia oscillates between the need to be believed and heard as an adult man, and the need to be seen as a daughter and a child. Her presence forces everyone to confront what they have lost and what they remember, or have chosen to remember. In the unresolved dialogue between the visible and the invisible, between truth and memory, after an inexplicable accident, Asia is left alone in the woods, facing the water that has called to her the whole time: here the girl says goodbye to Michele's presence and perhaps also to her own search for a life that was never truly hers. In the TV studio, facing the question, "Do you have any regrets?", Asia breaks character and looks into the camera, finally reclaiming her own story.
The cinematic project The Girl Who Lived Twice presents itself as a work of significant thematic and formal depth, distinguishing itself by its ability to interweave family drama with the codes of the supernatural thriller. The true strength and originality of the subject lie in the female perspective of the authors, who investigate the human psyche and emotional bonds. The narrative core is Asia, an eleven-year-old girl who disrupts the dynamic of a family with the claim of being the reincarnation of the deceased father/husband. This concept is not a mere supernatural device but a metaphorical tool that allows the story to explore the theme of childhood from an unprecedented perspective: the adult perceives the child as an enigmatic and lucid entity, capable of unmasking family frailties with a ruthless gaze. Asia, bearing the memory of the deceased father/husband (Michele), simultaneously becomes the holder of a double identity and the element that overturns social conventions. The authors choose not to focus on verifying the truth of Asia’s claims, but to "remain in this space of the possible," an ambiguous limbo that bends the form of memory and the codes of family behavior. The story reveals itself to be twofold: it is the tale of Asia's growth, a girl who finally gains the standing to be heard because she "reincarnates an adult man," and, at the same time, the story of Michele’s lost memory, which finds a means of communication with his past family through Asia. The image of a child who is also a father is a powerful reversal that forces the viewer to confront their own system of values and their social framework. The subject is underpinned by a profound reflection on the family, portrayed not as an institution, but as a "living entity, breathing, changing, concealing," a true labyrinth. At the center of this complex organism is the universal dynamic of childhood fantasy: Asia’s desire to belong to a "more just, warmer, more perfect" family, a "need to escape, to rewrite oneself, to be reborn." The setting itself amplifies the internal conflict: the film takes place in a single location, a "large, labyrinthine, cold" house that symbolizes the dispersion of affections and fragmented, concealed memory. The temporal framing within a Christmas setting further accentuates the obligation to joy and the forced return to the hearth, making the winter rigidity a catalyst for tension. The intention is to use the aesthetic of the thriller not just as a genre, but as a "narrative device to enter the characters' psyche" and represent their "anguishes and inner distortions." The surrounding nature, planned for Piedmont, is not a refuge, but a "silent, white, threatening" presence. From a writing perspective, the approach aims for a narrative that follows a "structure more similar to a stream of consciousness," with careful use of cinematography, sound, and editing, borrowed from Simonetti's experience in experimental cinema and music videos. The inclusion of fake archival footage, which acts as a portal for "memories of another life," emphasizes the theme of memory as an active and fantastical process. Ultimately, The Girl Who Lived Twice is configured as an investigation into "what remains after the tear." The confrontation between the multiple memories of the characters is a narrative entanglement where memory is a "ghost that lives inside us more than around us." The literary reference to Henry James's The Turn of the Screw confirms the intent to make ambiguity the film's stylistic hallmark, in order to speak of the "heart of darkness of reality" and the "dark whirlpools of the human mind." It is a dark fairy tale where what has been removed returns and demands to be heard.
