In Conversation with a Maestro of Documentary Cinema

From the silent era to today, Italian women have stepped behind the camera to tell their stories. We've partnered with Directed By Women to keep those stories alive by featuring women who gave and continue to give voice to the female experience through cinema.

She’s one of Italy’s most promising directors and now she is teaming up with Martin Scorsese to present her latest work on Netflix. 

The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s 2016 artist in residence was the Tuscan native director Alice Rohrwacher. Born in Florence in 1981 to an Italian mother and German Father, she attended Torino University where she graduated with a degree in Classic Literature. Her first jobs after college included writing for theater and playing music. She entered the film industry as an editor of documentary films before directing her first feature, Corpo Celeste (Heavenly Body), the tale of a teenage girl painfully assimilating into the culture of southern Italy and the Roman Catholic Church. The film premiered in Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight in 2011, and was then selected for a number of international film festivals before being released in the United States.