Sergio Grammatico

The story of Fernanda Wittgens, the first director of the Brera Art Gallery and the architect, during the war, of the rescue of many works of art and many Jews destined for deportation.

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The story of Mafalda is like the one of Cinderella, just the other way round. The dramatic real story of a Italian princess, born and raised in the comforts of a golden court, who will be forced by war to share the fate of ordinary people in a concentration camp. Mafalda di Savoia was chosen to represent the decline of nobility and the errors of war, which separate and destroy even noble families. Mafalda is a victim of political strategies that overlook her, and her tragic death shows the levelling power of war, that forces poor and rich alike to share the same destiny.

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In autumn of 1526, the Emperor, Charles V, sends his German landsknechts led by Georg von Frundsberg to march towards Rome. The inferior papal armies, commanded by Giovanni de'Medici, try to chase them in the midst of a harsh winter. Nevertheless, the Imperial armies manage to cross the rivers along their march and get cannons thanks to the maneuvers of its Lords. In a skirmish, Giovanni de'Medici is wounded in the leg by a falconet shot. The attempts to cure him fail and he dies. The Imperial armies assault Rome. The film is beautifully but unassumingly set, and shows the hard conditions in which war is waged and its lack of glory. It ends straightforwardly with the declaration made after the death of Giovanni de'Medici by the commanders of the armies in Europe of not using again fire weapons because of their cruelty.

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