Gioia mia, Margherita Spampinato's debut feature, is the story of a child who journeys back in time when he is sent to spend the summer holidays with an elderly aunt in Sicily. She lives in the house where she was born and raised, a place which has never seen technology, where every object has always had its place, a place frozen in time.
The film explores the limits and contradictions of the opposing worlds of the two protagonists: eleven-year-old Nico’s fast-paced, technological modernity and Aunt Gela’s ancient, slow, mysterious environment, populated by angels and spirits, dominated by a magical sense of religion and steeped in superstition.
Nostalgia is the dominant emotion of the film and the root of the question that sparked the idea for the story: where has the childhood summer of yore gone, those long, hot, slow, boring days, afternoons with no school, commitments, or structured activities, with nothing to prove, when grandmothers and elderly aunts told children scary fairy tales, disturbing family memories, superstitions, and ancient legends?
The film was shot in Trapani. Iconic city landmarks featured in the film include the Cathedral dome, visible from the terrace of Gela’s palace, where sheets eternally hang drying in the wind. The 14th-century Cathedral of San Lorenzo stands in the heart of corso Vittorio Emanuele, also known as La Loggia, the city's main thoroughfare. The seaside scene was filmed on the beach beneath the Tramontana walls, a stretch of urban coastline parallel to Trapani's historic city walls.
Gioia mia, Margherita Spampinato's debut feature, is the story of a child who journeys back in time when he is sent to spend the summer holidays with an elderly aunt in Sicily. She lives in the house where she was born and raised, a place which has never seen technology, where every object has always had its place, a place frozen in time.
The film explores the limits and contradictions of the opposing worlds of the two protagonists: eleven-year-old Nico’s fast-paced, technological modernity and Aunt Gela’s ancient, slow, mysterious environment, populated by angels and spirits, dominated by a magical sense of religion and steeped in superstition.
Nostalgia is the dominant emotion of the film and the root of the question that sparked the idea for the story: where has the childhood summer of yore gone, those long, hot, slow, boring days, afternoons with no school, commitments, or structured activities, with nothing to prove, when grandmothers and elderly aunts told children scary fairy tales, disturbing family memories, superstitions, and ancient legends?
The film was shot in Trapani. Iconic city landmarks featured in the film include the Cathedral dome, visible from the terrace of Gela’s palace, where sheets eternally hang drying in the wind. The 14th-century Cathedral of San Lorenzo stands in the heart of corso Vittorio Emanuele, also known as La Loggia, the city's main thoroughfare. The seaside scene was filmed on the beach beneath the Tramontana walls, a stretch of urban coastline parallel to Trapani's historic city walls.
Lively, outspoken, impertinent young Nico, raised by a secular family in a modern, technological, and hyperconnected world, is forced to spend the summer in Sicily with an elderly aunt: religious and grumpy, she lives alone in an ancient building steeped in legend and superstition, with no Wi-Fi, devices, or technology of any sort, completely detached from time. His aunt greets him with irritation, and forcefully attempts to bring him into her world of angels and spirits, dominated by a magical sense of religion. The conflict between modernity and the past, reason and religion, speed and slowness, marks the beginning of their stormy relationship. Yet, little by little, a deep bond develops that neither knew they needed.
