see also
original title:
Festina Lente
directed by:
cast:
Francesca Ceci, Francesco Rossini, Filippo Gili, Silvia Delfino, Diego Bottiglieri, Rimi Beqiri, Michele Nani, Rodolfo Mantovani, Cristina Caldani, Indri Qyteza Shiroka, Eleonora Misiti, Dona Amati
screenplay:
cinematography:
editing:
Luca Balducci
set design:
costume design:
Roberta Fratini
music:
Ornella Saracino
producer:
production:
country:
Italy
year:
2016
film run:
103'
format:
HD - colour
release date:
06/03/2017
festivals & awards:
"Festina lente - Make hasten slowly" is dedicated to the printer Aldus Manutius (1449-1515) on his five hundred anniversary, and to all those who believed in the importance of books and in their diffusion after printing was invented.
Lucilla Colonna's first feature film narrates fifty years of italian Renaissance through the eyes of the poetess Vittoria Colonna (1490-1547).
When Vittoria was a child, her family lost everything because Pope Alessandro VI Borgia confiscated all its castles and property. Her personal conflicts continued with successors Pope Clemente VII Medici and Pope Paolo III Farnese. At nineteen she married the descendant of an ancient spanish family, Francesco Ferrante D’Avalos, who died prematurely fighting for the Emperor Carlo V.
Vittoria was a very cultivated woman and kept in her library precious books edited by Aldus Manutius' mark “Festina lente”. She met and corresponded with many influent people of Renaissance as Ludovico Ariosto, Pietro Aretino, Cardinal Reginald Pole, several sovereigns, and Bernardino Ochino who had to run away from the Papal Court to Switzerland. She contested the traditional roles of women and acquired high esteem and acknowledgement in the male-dominated society of her time. Michelangelo Buonarroti, her contemporary and ardent admirer, wrote poems praising her with these words: "A man in a woman, even a god is speaking out of her mouth".