Anna, by Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli

In 1972, inRome’s Piazza Navona, the actor Massimo Sarchielli found Anna, 16 years old, homeless, on drugs and eight months pregnant, and decided to let her stay in his apartment. Sarchielli then called underground filmmaker Alberto Grifi to make a film about her, using one of Italy’s first video cameras. Anna is a masterwork in the filming of intimacy, real love and portrait cinema. A story that contrasts the power relation between the filmmakers and the girl in the domestic space with discussions about her situation among street philosophers ad angry young men, reflecting the letdown and disappointment in Europe after the revolt of the sixties. In its day, Anna dazzled at the Venice Biennale before languishing for over 30 years in obscurity until its recent restoration.

Anna, Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli, 1975, 225 min. [Courtesy of Fundació Grifi and Fondazione Centro Sperimentale de Cinematografia-Cineteca Nazionale]