International Competition
The Secret Drawer
Il cassetto segreto
Costanza Quatriglio / Italy, Switzerland / 2024 / 120′ / Italian | English subtitles
Sicily, the world, a house, a library. In January 2022, Costanza Quatriglio returned to the house where she grew up, long closed, and opened its doors to archivists and librarians to donate to the Sicilian Region the universe of knowledge that belonged to her journalist father. It is the library and archives of Giuseppe Quatriglio, a historical signature of the Giornale di Sicilia and other important newspapers, writer, essayist and friend of men of culture of the twentieth century. Thus begins a sentimental journey through photographs, 8mm reels, sound recordings made by her father from the 1940s onward in Europe and around the world, and footage shot by the director between 2010 and 2011 with him in his almost 90s. Personal memory and collective memory mingle in a dense dialogue between presence and absence. Palermo and Sicily, with their history and culture, are the vantage point of the world from which everything starts and to which everything returns.
ScreenplayCostanza Quatriglio
EditingLetizia Caudullo
PhotographySabrina Varani
MusicGiovanni Di Giandomenico, Editore FM Records
ProductionIndyca, Luce Cinecittà, Rai Cinema
Costanza Quatriglio
She made her debut with L’isola presented at the 56th Cannes Film Festival in the “Directors’ Fortnight” in 2003, winner of numerous awards at the most prestigious international festivals (including the Cicae award, the Fipresci award, the Silver Ribbon for Paolo Fresu’s music) and distributed in France and Latin America. In the same year, at the 60th Venice International Film Festival she presented the making of Racconti per L’isola in the “New Territories” section. In 2023 The Island was restored in 4K by Cinecittà. The restored copy was presented at the 21st edition of Alice in the City at the Rome Film Festival. Before the realization of L’isola, she signs short films and documentaries that have won awards at major festivals, such as Anna!, presented at the Cannes Film Festival in the “Universelle” section and in international competition at the Turin Film Festival; Ècosaimale?, her first documentary, which won the Jury Prize at the Turin Film Festival in 2000, Il bambino Gioacchino, competing at the Festival dei Popoli in 2001 and, also from 2001, L’insonnia di Devi, a documentary on international adoptions co-produced by Tele+. In 2004 she realized Raìz, a 3-part 50′ miniseries for Rai Tre, in 2006 at the Rome Film Festival she presentedIl mondo addosso, in 2009 at the Locarno Festival she brought the Special Event Il mio cuore umano about the singer Nada Malanima. In the same years, until 2007, she was director and also Creative Producer of the well-known TV series Un posto al sole. In 2012 she made Terramatta; with which she began experimenting with the reuse of archival material, screened at Venice Days within the Venice Film Festival, SNCC’s Critics’ Film, won the Silver Ribbon for Best Documentary 2013 and several awards in international festivals. In 2013, at the 70th Venice International Film Festival, in Official Selection Out of Competition, she presents Con il fiato sospeso, an out-of-format film starring Alba Rohrwacher, winner of the Gillo Pontecorvo Award for Best Film in a Latin Language and reported to the Nastri d’Argento; in 2014 at the 32nd Turin Film Festival she presents Triangle, winner of the Cipputi Award for Best Film and Silver Ribbon for Best Documentary in 2015 and is present at Venice Days with the collective film 9×10 Novanta produced by Cinecittà for the 90th anniversary of Istituto Luce. In 2015 with 87 ore experiments with the radical use of video surveillance images, receiving the 2016 Special Award at the Silver Ribbons in the Documentary category.In 2018 he returned to fiction film: at the Locarno Film Festival he presented out of competitionSembra mio figlio, with which she won the Golden Ciak “Bello e invisibile” and the Nastro d’Argento of Legality. In 2018, she received the Visions From the World Award, the Amnesty International and the Premio CIR. Since 2019, she has been the artistic director of the Sicilian branch of the Experimental Center of Cinematography dedicated to documentary cinema. In the same year, at the 76th Venice International Film Festival she presided over the jury of the section “Venezia Classici”. From 2020 to 2021 she signs the musical films Palermo Sospesa, La bambina che non voleva cantare, inspired by the biography of Nada Malanima, and Trafficante di virus, inspired by the story of scientist Ilaria Capua, which premiered at the Turin Film Festival and is distributed by Amazon Prime.