Italian singer-songwriter Margherita Vicario’s directorial debut “Gloria!” has scored a slew international sales ahead of its world premiere in the Berlin Film Festival competition.
RAI Cinema International Distribution has sealed deals to nine territories on Vicario’s vibrant musical comedy set in a late 18th century Venetian female orphanage where a young rebel named Teresa leads a group of performers to challenge classical canons and invent a precursor to pop music.
“Gloria!” has been snapped up for France (Nour Films); Germany and Austria (Neue Vision); Luxembourg, Belgium, Netherlands (Arti Film); Greece (StraDa Films); Korea (Green Narea Media) and Bulgaria (Beta Films) with several other distribution deals in advanced negotiations.
French-Italian actor Galatéa Bellugi stars as young underprivileged woman with visionary talent who works with a quartet of fellow female musicians challenging preconceptions and defying abuses perpetrated against them by the evil priest who runs the institution.
“In my work as a singer-songwriter, every time I released a song journalists would ask me: ‘What do you think about the situation of women in today’s music world?’ In order to find an answer, I embarked upon the research that led me to write‘Gloria!,’” Vicario said.
She added that the film’s storyline is historically accurate and that some of the baroque musical instruments used in the film are actually “strung with [animal] gut strings.”
“Gloria!” is produced by Valeria Jamonte, Manuela Melissano and Carlo Cresto-Dina with RAICinema in co-production with Katrin Renz at Tellfilm.
Italy’s 01 Distribution will be releasing the film on April 11 in Italian theatres.
