Vera
Engaging portrait of a middle-aged Roman upper-class actress who seems condemned to a life in the shadow of her famous father.
VERA combines fiction and non-fiction. Several actors, including protagonist Vera Gemma, play a version of themselves. As a result, the film has a convincing, almost documentary character.
With her long blonde hair and tanned skin, Vera, a middle-aged actress, has the look of Donatella Versace. She struggles to find acting work, because to everyone she remains ‘the daughter of Giuliano Gemma’, a film star who acquired international fame with roles in spaghetti westerns. As a tribute to her father, she always wears a cowboy hat, but in fact she lives in his shadow. Tired of her superficial life and relationships, she goes in search of herself. When she injures a child in a traffic accident in the suburbs, she encounters an environment where simplicity and lack of money define life. She builds an intense relationship with an eight-year-old boy and his father, and, in a sense, takes on the mother role. But as so often in her life, this happiness is also short-lived.
VERA touches upon several sensitive social themes – without becoming sentimental – including the confrontation between aging and a society that is mainly focused on youth.
Winner of the Horizons Awards for best actress and best director at the Venice Film Festival. (bw)