This film was inspired by the book by Elvira Dones (Italian publisher: Feltrinelli, 2007). I fought to make this movie, pushed by a great love for the character of Hana/Mark, and by a sense of responsibility to the story, what I feel is a metaphor of the relationship between female freedom and the world. From the start, I was intrigued by the story’s very unique dimension in terms of character, social topic and specific isolated geographical location. Yet I was confident that all this could touch on much wider and universal issues. SWORN VIRGIN shares aspects of the Albanian culture, in particular that of village life in the remote northern mountains: the Kanun traditional laws of blood, honor, revenge, women’s roles, family clans. All topics that have been rarely seen in cinema and that I have chosen to use as a symbol of a more general condition.
This is a film about the body, a frozen body. A body that cannot be either male or female; or that is both male and female. The Italian path of my character has always been for me a slow and progressive defrosting of a body. Mark is scared but also curious. He searches, experiments, opens up and then closes up again. Then finally, he slowly frees herself. But what is important to me is that at the end of the film Mark not only is Hana again, but finally comprises both sides in herself. In the final scene in the bar, I could have put Hana wearing high heels or a skirt, but it would have looked fake. I would have had the feeling of betraying Mark. I wanted to still recognize Mark, but also see some discreet physical traces of the profound journey she makes.
|