Alice Rohrwacher, a versatile screenwriter and director of critically acclaimed films from around the world, was honored on January 17 at the European Film Awards in Berlin with the European Achievement in World Cinema Award. This prestigious prize crowns a successful film career. Her works include Le meraviglie, Lazzaro Felice, La Chimera and Corpo Celeste, which won her the Nastro d’Argento for Best New Director at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.
From Rohrwacher’s interviews, it’s clear that adolescent anxieties are a recurring theme in her productions. Alice Rohrwacher describes adolescence as a state of mind that transcends the mere biological dimension of the term, telling Variety: “My protagonists are adolescents in the sense that they haven’t yet figured out where they belong.” In particular, her debut film, Corpo Celeste, provides a clear and vivid image of the adolescent state of the soul through the eyes of young Marta, who searches for a sense of belonging in the Catholic faith that she lost, or perhaps never had, after leaving Switzerland for her mother’s native village.
After winning the award, the director declared at the European Film Awards that she doesn’t want to look back, but instead wants to experiment and be more daring in the future with different forms of expression, particularly with silent film.
