OFFICIAL SELECTION (Competition) – 2024 BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION – 2024 NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2024 ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL (Opening Night Gala)
Written and directed by dynamic Italian actress and singer Margherita Vicario, GLORIA! depicts the ebullient, music-fuelled story of an overlooked maid at a Venetian orphanage whose hidden talent helps inspire an uprising.
1800. Mute Teresa (rising star Galatéa Bellugi, The Taste of Things) is a servant at Venice’s Sant Ignazio College, a religious institution for girls overseen by stern priest Perlina (Paolo Rossi). Tasked with only the most menial of duties, Teresa is punished for any form of transgression, but observes the orphanage orchestra from the sidelines, and yearns to take part.
When news arrives of an imminent visit by the newly enthroned Pope, the college is thrown into chaos. With Perlini distracted by the struggle of writing a new Baroque composition to mark the occasion, Teresa finds a hidden piano in the storeroom. Soon, she and a quartet of students begin secretly gathering each night to take turns on the instrument, their ecstatic clandestine sessions quickly setting them on a new path…
Celebrating the lives of the many Italian women written out of the margins of music history, this joyous and uplifting film will speak to anyone who has felt restrained or silenced by the system. GLORIA! dares you not to stamp your feet in solidarity.