‘Gli appunti di Anna Azzori (The Notes of Anna Azzori) - Constanze Ruhm’

Constanze Ruhm’s essay film revolves around another film: Anna by Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli (Berlinale Forum 1975). In the early 1970s, the two Italian directors found Anna Azzori, a drifter who needed money and help, on the Piazza Navona in Rome. As they documented her unravelling life, control over the process remained firmly in their hands. The leitmotif in Gli appunti di Anna Azzori raises the question of the place of women and their struggles in a world that was full of discrimination at the time – and which still is today. The film uses interference noise, elaborate voiceovers, snowy images, characters who turn into trees, rocks or stars (and back again), river nymphs and young women at a casting call. It also features lots of archival material, including images from feminist demonstrations in Italy.