Giovanna Mezzogiorno was named Best Actress at the Chicago International Film Festival for her stirring performance in VINCERE
VINCERE (WIN) (Marco Bellocchio, 2009)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Sunday, May 4, 2:30, and Wednesday, May 7, 4:00
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
Series continues through May 7
212-708-9400
www.ifcfilms.com
www.moma.org
In the historical romantic drama Vincere, Italian master filmmaker Marco Bellocchio delivers the little-known real-life story of Ida Alser (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), Benito Mussolini’s (Filippo Timi) first wife and the mother of Il Duce’s first-born son, Benito Albino (Fabrizio Costella). Alser and Mussolini first meet in Milan in 1907, when she is a fashion and beauty entrepreneur and he is a newspaper journalist championing a religion-free Socialist. They feel an immediate connection and have passionate meetings. Soon they have a child and are married. But as Mussolini’s power in the Fascist movement grows, he takes a more traditional wife (Michela Cescon) and has another child, disavowing any relationship with Ida and young Benito and going to any lengths to cover up their very existence. Set amid the swirling turmoil that pervaded Italy during the two World Wars, Vincere, featuring an epic score by Carlo Crivelli, is a beautifully shot melodrama (courtesy of cinematographer Daniele Ciprì), able to focus on two strong, unrelenting characters who know what they want – and what they don’t. Bellocchio interweaves archival newsreel footage, lending the film not only more reality but firmly placing it in historical context. Mezzogiorno is brilliant as Alser, a modern-day woman ahead of her time who fought for what she believed in and what she deserved, even if it meant going up against one of the most powerful men in the world. Vincere is screening on May 4 & 7 as part of MoMA’s Bellocchio retrospective, held in conjunction with the upcoming U.S. release of his latest film, Dormant Beauty, which opens June 6 at Lincoln Plaza. The series continues through May 7 with such other Bellocchio works as The Conviction, Vacation in Val Trebbia, A Leap in the Dark, and Dormant Beauty.