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Authors: Francesca Marciano
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catastrophic financial page and went straight to Entertainment.
There it was. Her name. She had been nominated.
She had played with the word for a few days. It felt like such a prodigious thing—to be no-mi-na-ta !—something akin to King Arthur touching her forehead with his sword and turning her instantly into a knight. Actually she had been nominated along with another four directors for a minor category—best short film—for the David Awards, the Italian version of the Oscars—like the Césars in France, the BAFTAs in England and whatever it’s called in Spain, all Cinderella versions of the real thing. But, because she’d never been nominated for anything before in her life, this felt like her greatest achievement so far.
Her short was a documentary about a team of synchronized swimmers training for the Olympics. Young girls who composed amazingly intricate patterns in the pool—six-pointed stars, budding flowers, comets and rainbows—but who, once in the locker room, became savagely antagonistic toward one another. The concept was harmony versus disruption, discipline versus unleashed emotions—a sensual, stark portrait of female competition. Theshort had hardly any dialogue: Caterina had concentrated mostly on the composition of the shots, lighting, angles and a carefully engineered editing. The film was only thirteen minutes long, its budget just fifteen thousand euros, a surprisingly low amount that had been painstakingly put together by herself and her producer, Marco Guattari, a thirty-something energetic film buff and Ritalin addict with amazing focus and determination. Caterina had sold her vintage Beetle for four thousand euros and Marco had managed to borrow the rest from his cousin—an obsessive comics collector—who’d just won quite a crazily vast sum on a TV quiz show, answering a tricky question involving a lesser known Tintin adventure. The idea was to pay the cousin back once they sold the film to a network, but at the moment they didn’t feel pressed to oblige, as the cousin had vanished somewhere in Brazil, where he was apparently spending money left and right without a care in the world.
According to a few seminal bloggers, Caterina’s short had an uncanny quality. Her filming had been described as “stark and illuminating.” Another brief account was nestled in Corriere della Sera , within an article about upcoming filmakers. “The manner by which Caterina De Maria exhibits the female body in water—in a flowing ballet that alternates between gracefulness and herculean exertion, elegance and cruelty—has an almost Wagnerian quality. Are we meant to think of her swimmers merely as athletes, or as marine monsters? De Maria’s subtle and unusual work here marks a promising debut. Next time we hope to see her name linked to a full-length feature.”
To celebrate the sudden turn their lives had taken, Caterina and Pascal had decided to spend a long weekend in Venice, for a full cultural immersion, combining the Art Biennale and the Venice Film Festival on the Lido, two events that coincided that Septemberand attracted voracious international crowds. They shared a large double bed in a tiny pensione near Le Zattere that, despite its funereal lighting, the musty walls and the yellowing curtains, was outrageously expensive. Just as expensive as the stale prepackaged sandwiches they were forced to live on, sold at every corner to desperate tourists, and as the tickets for the Biennale and for the vaporettos that shuttled them back and forth between Venice and the Lido. But they’d decided to ignore the money issue, since this was a time of celebration. Although they hadn’t succeeded in eliciting a single invitation to any of the star-studded parties held nightly in glamorous and often secret venues, not even for a mere Bellini offered by a film distributor or for one free lunch, they still felt entitled to be there. Caterina’s nomination had upgraded both of them from outsiders
There it was. Her name. She had been nominated.
She had played with the word for a few days. It felt like such a prodigious thing—to be no-mi-na-ta !—something akin to King Arthur touching her forehead with his sword and turning her instantly into a knight. Actually she had been nominated along with another four directors for a minor category—best short film—for the David Awards, the Italian version of the Oscars—like the Césars in France, the BAFTAs in England and whatever it’s called in Spain, all Cinderella versions of the real thing. But, because she’d never been nominated for anything before in her life, this felt like her greatest achievement so far.
Her short was a documentary about a team of synchronized swimmers training for the Olympics. Young girls who composed amazingly intricate patterns in the pool—six-pointed stars, budding flowers, comets and rainbows—but who, once in the locker room, became savagely antagonistic toward one another. The concept was harmony versus disruption, discipline versus unleashed emotions—a sensual, stark portrait of female competition. Theshort had hardly any dialogue: Caterina had concentrated mostly on the composition of the shots, lighting, angles and a carefully engineered editing. The film was only thirteen minutes long, its budget just fifteen thousand euros, a surprisingly low amount that had been painstakingly put together by herself and her producer, Marco Guattari, a thirty-something energetic film buff and Ritalin addict with amazing focus and determination. Caterina had sold her vintage Beetle for four thousand euros and Marco had managed to borrow the rest from his cousin—an obsessive comics collector—who’d just won quite a crazily vast sum on a TV quiz show, answering a tricky question involving a lesser known Tintin adventure. The idea was to pay the cousin back once they sold the film to a network, but at the moment they didn’t feel pressed to oblige, as the cousin had vanished somewhere in Brazil, where he was apparently spending money left and right without a care in the world.
According to a few seminal bloggers, Caterina’s short had an uncanny quality. Her filming had been described as “stark and illuminating.” Another brief account was nestled in Corriere della Sera , within an article about upcoming filmakers. “The manner by which Caterina De Maria exhibits the female body in water—in a flowing ballet that alternates between gracefulness and herculean exertion, elegance and cruelty—has an almost Wagnerian quality. Are we meant to think of her swimmers merely as athletes, or as marine monsters? De Maria’s subtle and unusual work here marks a promising debut. Next time we hope to see her name linked to a full-length feature.”
To celebrate the sudden turn their lives had taken, Caterina and Pascal had decided to spend a long weekend in Venice, for a full cultural immersion, combining the Art Biennale and the Venice Film Festival on the Lido, two events that coincided that Septemberand attracted voracious international crowds. They shared a large double bed in a tiny pensione near Le Zattere that, despite its funereal lighting, the musty walls and the yellowing curtains, was outrageously expensive. Just as expensive as the stale prepackaged sandwiches they were forced to live on, sold at every corner to desperate tourists, and as the tickets for the Biennale and for the vaporettos that shuttled them back and forth between Venice and the Lido. But they’d decided to ignore the money issue, since this was a time of celebration. Although they hadn’t succeeded in eliciting a single invitation to any of the star-studded parties held nightly in glamorous and often secret venues, not even for a mere Bellini offered by a film distributor or for one free lunch, they still felt entitled to be there. Caterina’s nomination had upgraded both of them from outsiders
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