Giovanna Mezzogiorno presented her short film as a director entitled Unfitting in which she tells how she was marginalized from the entertainment world after her weight increased by twenty kilos. “Ostracized from cinema because I had gained 20 kilos. Nobody helped me,” explains the star. And she adds: “Women were crueler than men”
The autobiographical story that he brings to the big screen is a story of denunciation, even if the Mezzogiorno short does not lack a good dose of irony. However, his is a parable that talks about “digital bullying”, “aesthetic dictatorship” and body shaming.
The title Unfitting (which means inadequate) is very telling. The work was applauded at Rome Film Festivalwhere the famous Italian actress presented her directorial debut.
The kilos gained by Giovanna Mezzogiorno were the consequence of the pregnancy of her twins, Leone and Zeno, who are now 12 years old.
Those 20 post-pregnancy kilos have condemned her to a hateful ban by the seventh art, although she confesses that she never expected it.
Her talent had certainly not weakened but she was now considered “inadequate” (unfitting, precisely) according to the dominant aesthetic canons in the world of cinema (and not just cinema: from fashion to advertising to social networks, the restrictive aesthetic canons imposed from above unfortunately dominate every environment and sector).
Mezzogiorno: “I lost weight because I let myself be influenced by my environment”
Giovanna Mezzogiorno gave a recent interview to the newspaper The messenger in which she explains: “I wanted to tell my story which resembles that of many other women penalized because they are not physically perfect. I, who am almost 50 years old, have been very ill. But for a girl this kind of pressure can be devastating.”
In the end the actress decided to lose weight, losing those twenty kilos that had made her cut off from her environment. But the violent weight loss that she says she undertook had serious consequences on her health, which is why Giovanna Mezzogiorno claims to bitterly regret what she considers to have been her “weakness”.
“I lost weight because unfortunately I let myself be influenced by my environment, by society. I was going crazy. So I embarked on a violent weight loss that had serious health consequences. It was a weakness I regret. In the end they managed to make me lose twenty kilos, but at what cost…”.
Mezzogiorno: “I didn’t expect cinema to turn its back on me”
The protagonist of films like The window opposite, The last kiss And Basilicata coast to coastjust to name a few of the titles from the actress’s rich filmography, confessed that she didn’t expect her world, that of cinema, to turn its back on her in that way.
“I didn’t expect cinema to turn its back on me. I had gained weight also through my own fault, after the birth of the twins I let myself go and neglected physical exercise. But I was taken aback by the attitude of my environment,” she told The messenger. “No one helped me, apart from the doctors who looked after me. Not even that actor who I considered a brother but disappeared into thin air when the cinema started cutting me out and embroidering unfounded legends about me: he’s ill, he’ll never get back into shape… even a cyst on his eye that I showed in a TV program served to fuel the evil towards me”, adds the actress.
Giovanna Mezzogiorno: “Women were crueler than men”
The actress also talks about the lack of solidarity on the part of women, explaining what happens in environments like hers when the cameras are off, especially among colleagues. “Support from other women? Are we joking? Women were much crueler than men. Female solidarity does not exist. It’s a slogan that we fill our mouths with because it’s cool, that we flaunt because it recalls the air of the time”.
For now Giovanna Mezzogiorno doesn’t mention any names, not even when she talks about “that actor who I considered a brother but disappeared into thin air when cinema started cutting me off”. And not even about her colleagues who would have mocked, offended and discriminated against her. When asked why she chose not to name names, she replies: “For now I haven’t mentioned them. But I know one by one those who mocked me, discriminated against me, offended me. In the future I might change my mind… They must feel uncomfortable in their chairs.”
The short film presented at the Rome Film Festival
Unfitting was born from an idea by Silvia Grilli, director of the weekly Gracewho explained “after listening to Giovanna’s stories, I thought that an interview was not enough”.
Silvia Grilli said: “It all started with a conversation with Giovanna Mezzogiorno about some episodes that had happened to her on some sets, a sort of bullying immediately after her pregnancy, following the change in her body. – At that point, doing a search on Giovanna on the internet I started to find a series of comments along the lines of ‘how much does she weigh?’, ‘Giovanna Mezzogiorno swollen’, or ‘sick’, and I thought that this digital bullying deserved something more than one interview, so I asked her to write and direct Unfittinginadequate.”
The short is produced by Manuela Cacciamani in collaboration with Grace and Bulgarians. It stars Carolina Crescentini, who plays the role of an actress who is ostracized from the world of cinema because she has gained weight. The cast also includes Ambra Angiolini, Massimiliano Caiazzo, Fabio Volo, Marco Bonini and agent Moira Mazzantini.
As Giovanna Mezzogiorno is keen to underline, this short film of hers is not revenge, it is not a revenge against those who put her aside because of the kilos by which her weight had increased.
“No, I’m not vindictive. I wanted to tell my story which resembles that of many other women who are penalized because they are not physically perfect”, explains the actress.
The protagonist Carolina Crescentini: “I also experience the same bullying”
The actress Carolina Crescentini plays the protagonist who is marginalized because of her weight.
“I also experience the same bullying, because it is bullying!”, he explained to Carolina Crescentini. “I wear a size 42 which seems like an insult to everything. To fashion, to costume designers who tell you if you can lose weight so you can wear a certain dress instead of finding another… I have a good character, because I make fun of myself, which is my defense. When I get bullied, I’m the one who makes fun of the situation because it hurts, a lot. But it is a continuous, constant lack of respect and education, simply put, and if this short film can make those who made us feel uncomfortable for the longest time feel uncomfortable even for just three seconds, it will already be a small victory. This is a problem in particular of women, which has become boring, and after so much talk about emancipation if we get lost in this we are ridiculous, we who have allowed it for too long, and those who continue to make such bar chatter. Then there are many colleagues, who at times let off steam, in order not to do the famous fitting, the fitting of the wonderful dress for a red carpet or a press conference, in order not to experience that humiliation – because even the dressmaker at the brand that needs to widen your armhole – they turn to vintage. Always holy, of course, but it’s not right. We are called to do as much work as we can emotionally carry. We are the transition from paper to image and should regardless of the waistline. This thing is painful and makes me angry, I think that sooner or later I will have a great monologue, even on a bench in a park, in which I will say many things, because the time has come to put some people in their place”, he said. said Carolina Crescentini a Ciak Magazine.
Source-tg24.sky.it