ROME – Italian A-list actresses Valeria Golino (“Respiro”) and Alba Rohrwacher (“I Am Love”) are set to co-star in “Daughter of Mine” to be directed by Italy’s Laura Bispuri, whose transgender-themed “Sworn Virgin” made an international splash.
Principal photography is scheduled to start on June 5 in Sardinia.
Germany’s The Match Factory will kick off international pre-sales on “Daughter” in Cannes.
Golino, a 2016 Cannes competition jury member, and Rohrwacher, last on the Croisette in 2014 with “The Wonders,” will play the adoptive and biological mothers, respectively, of a 10-year-old girl, whose affection they vie for.
“The story is developed and written from three different points of view,” said Bispuri.
“It’s a triangle between these three women whose lives are inextricably tied – a journey of mutual understanding and acceptance and also of changing female identities, which are themes that are dear to me,” the director noted.
Rome-based Vivo Film, which produced “Sworn Virgin,” is producing “Daughter” in tandem with Italy’s Colorado Film and also with The Match Factory and Swiss shingle Bord Cadre Films. The film will receive financing from Rai Cinema, the Italian culture ministry, and the Sardinia Film Commission.
Bispuri said she was honored to be working with both Golino and Rohrwacher, who have never worked together before. “I really want to them to blend into the [Sardinian] setting and also with the locals, since we will also be working with non-professional Sardinian actors,” she added. This aspect will be similar to “Sworn Virgin,” in which Rohrwacher played an Albanian woman who, in accordance with an ancient custom, vows to remain a virgin and impersonate a man so she can obtain a man’s rights.
“Virgin,” which was Bispuri’s first feature, traveled widely. After bowing in Berlin, it won Tribeca’s Nora Ephron prize and was distributed by Strand Releasing in the U.S.
