West Coast Premiere
One Time Screening
Enthusiastically received at Venice Film Festival, Francesco Cecere’s exquisite drama follows Nena (Isabella Ragonese), a young teacher who is posted to a provincial Puglian town where she struggles to connect with the local children while missing her aristocratic boyfriend.
She’s confident that by the end of the school year she will be able to transfer closer to home. The village to which she’s sent turns out to be far worse than she ever imagined: rundown, desperately poor, filled with wild children and parents with whom she has little in common. Giorgia Cecere’s stunning debut chronicles Nena’s struggle to control her own destiny despite the many restrictions on and prejudices against independent women in her era.
Director: Giorgia Cecere
Writers: Giorgia Cecere, Yang Li Xiang
Runtime: 90 min.
Distributor: RAI Trade
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy
Language : Italian w/English subtitles
Rating: Not Rated
Starring: Isabella Ragonese, Francesco Chiarello and Alberto Boll
FESTIVALS: Italy, Venice Film Festival, Bobbio Film Festival; France, Terra di Cinema – Festival de Tremblay-en-France; Japan, Festival del Cinema Italiano Tokyo; Australia, LavAzza Italian Film Festival; USA; Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, New York
“In screenwriter Giorgia Cecere’s lovely and unassuming first film, The First Assignment, the plot unravels at a deliberate pace, but not a scene is wasted.” Film-Forward.com
