The actor accepted the Stella Della Mole Award for Artistic Innovation and presented her latest drama ‘The Girl in the Fountain.’
“I am a product of my dream. Even as a child, I wanted to be an actress and enter this world, even though it was very far from my reality,” said Monica Bellucci at the Torino Film Festival, where she accepted the Stella Della Mole Award for Artistic Innovation. Bellucci also held a masterclass at the National Cinema Museum of Turin, discussing her career alongside Antongiulio Panizzi, who directed her recently in “The Girl in the Fountain.” In the film, which screened for the first time at the festival, Bellucci plays Anita Ekberg, the Swedish star famous for her role in “La Dolce Vita.” “Back then, Italian women would exist mostly within the domestic world. When Ekberg, already so different physically, arrived and allowed herself to be so free, also economically, it was as if a bomb exploded in that society,” said Bellucci, discussing Ekberg’s rapid ascent and then her descent, which was “abrupt and painful.” “Many times, art comes from pain. This woman has given so much to cinema, perhaps unconsciously, she was so full of light, beautiful, has experienced so many things and then ended up alone, in a wheelchair and died in a hospice. It was nice to give her back her dignity.” In order to bring them together, they turned to the role played by dream sequences in the film.
