“Fuori”, the Italian film in competition at Cannes pays tribute to the author Goliarda Sapienza

It's the only Italian film in competition in the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival this year, where it's scheduled to screen on May 20. And Il Venerdì di Repubblica dedicated its cover story on May 9 to it . Fuori retraces the time spent in prison in the 1980s by Goliarda Sapienza, a unique author who left her mark on literature with her freedom. “It's a film about the unease of the relationship with the world. A film about an artist. And artists are both in and out of the world. They live in a very uncomfortable space,” explains director Mario Martone in the columns of the weekly magazine.

Long ignored, Goliarda Sapienza has been rediscovered in recent years, particularly thanks to feminist movements.

Fuori, which opens in Italian theaters on May 22 (but does not yet have a release date scheduled in France), reveals one aspect of this figure considered avant-garde. It was impoverished, after having suffered numerous rejections for the manuscript of what would become her masterpiece, The Art of Joy, that Sapienza committed a theft. Incarcerated in the largest women's prison in Italy, she would create strong bonds with other inmates. After her release, she developed a relationship with one of them that would give her back the desire to live and write.

Valeria Golino plays the writer on screen. And she herself directed a fictional film inspired by the author: a miniseries adaptation of The Art of Joy , released in 2024. In the columns of Il Venerdì di Repubblica, she expresses her joy at being able to once again pay tribute to this figure she considers exceptional. “Goliarda Sapienza has always been a stranger to everything. Neither feminists nor the left appreciated her. She was unclassifiable and could not stand conventions or constraints. She was a prisoner of this world. And she became a free woman, a pioneer, unknown and reclusive.”