Comencini, Francesca

(1961-)

   Director and screenwriter. Daughter of veteran director Luigi Comencini (and sister of Cristina and Paola, who also work in the film industry), Francesca Comencini abandoned her university studies in Italy and moved to France, where she soon directed her first feature, Pianoforte (1984). A love story afflicted with all the problems of drug addiction, the film earned her the De Sica Prize for young directors at the Venice Festival. After collaborating with her father on the screenplay of Un ragazzo di Calabria (The Boy from Calabria, 1987), she directed two more features, La lumiere du lac (The Light of the Lake, 1988) and Annabelle partagee (Annabelle Divided, 1991), before again working with her father on his remake of the children's classic Marcellino pane e vino (Miracle of Marcellino, 1991). She subsequently made a number of documentaries for French television before directing Le parole di mio padre (The Words of My Father, 2001), a loose but interesting adaptation of Italo Svevo's La coscienza di Zeno. This was followed by Carlo Giuliani, ragazzo (Carlo Giuliani, Boy, 2002), a documentary portrait of the young man killed by police at Genoa in 2002 during the violent protests against globalization. She subsequently directed a fifth feature, Mi piace lavorare—Mobbing (I Like to Work—Mobbing, 2004), a very socially committed film in which Nicoletta Braschi plays a single mother working in the corporate environment, subjected to the practice of "mobbing." The film was strongly praised, earning Nicoletta Braschi a nomination for the Nastro d'argento for Best Actress and itself winning the Special Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Berlin International Festival.

   Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema by Alberto Mira