Taglines: An Italian girl’s war against mob rule.
A Chiara movie storyline. The Italy in which 15-year-old Chiara (Swamy Rotolo) lives – Calabria, in the southern tip of the mainland – lacks the beauty and romance of much of the rest of the country. Kids hurl insults from a sullen concrete seafront; behind them, the bones of industrial structures jut into a sky the colour of galvanised steel. But Chiara is comfortable in her world.
This all changes when the family car is torched and her father abruptly disappears. Chiara demands answers – is her dad a mafia drug dealer, as the local media claims? But she comes up against a solid bank of silence. Defiant, Chiara persists in asking the kind of questions that might not get responses but certainly get attention.
Jonas Carpignano’s impressive, slow-burning drama captures a milieu that is bound by rules that have little to do with the laws of the land. There’s a sparky authenticity to the performances , bolstered by the fact that Carpignano cast a real-life family in the central roles.
This third and finest part in a trilogy of unconnected crime films set in Calabria, southwest Italy, follows the misfortunes and miseducation of a teenage girl called Chiara (a commanding Swamy Rotolo, from a cast of mainly nonprofessional actors, including most of the Rotolo family).
A Chiara is a 2021 Italian-language drama film directed and written by Jonas Carpignano, the third film in his film trilogy set in a Calabrian town, following Mediterranea (2015) and A Ciambra (2017). The film stars Swamy Rotolo, Pio Amato, Leonardo Bevilacqua, Koudous Seihon, Claudio Rotolo, Susanna Amato, Grecia Rotolo, Carmela Fumo, Giorgia Rotolo, Lorenzo Del Bianco and Iolanda Amato.
A Chiara had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on July 9, 2021, in the Directors’ Fortnight section, to very positive reviews. Following its festival screening, the film was distributed by MK2 Films and Lucky Red in Italy and Neon in the United States.
A Chiara (2022)
Directed by: Jonas Carpignano
Starring: Swamy Rotolo, Pio Amato, Leonardo Bevilacqua, Koudous Seihon, Claudio Rotolo, Susanna Amato, Grecia Rotolo, Carmela Fumo, Giorgia Rotolo, Lorenzo Del Bianco, Iolanda Amato
Screenplay by: Jonas Carpignano
Production Design by: Marco Ascanio Viarigi
Cinematography by: Tim Curtin
Film Editing by: Affonso Gonçalves
Art Direction by: Lorenzo Nicolosi, Fabiana Tosca
Music by: Dan Romer, Benh Zeitlin
MPAA Rating: R for some language and drug content.
Distributed by: Neon (United States)
Release Date: May 27, 2022
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