Chutzpah – Something About Modesty and Shame
Film Screening & Ticket Information
When & Where to See this Film!
BARE ESSENTIALS: 3 films that hide nothing.
April 22, 2024 @ 9:30PM • Kaufman Astoria Studios – Zukor Theatre
Film Bloc Line Up:
Synopsis
In the midst of a personal and work crisis, I begin to film everything obsessively: my parents, grandparents, children, friends and lovers, but also myself and psychotherapy. Some footage is consensual, some is “stolen.” This way my personal-intimate becomes narrative: the recent separation, the pain of my children’s being apart, my parents’ separation, my inadequacy as a mother. But in this autobiographical process of “coming out” I inevitably clash with the privacy of those close to me. The result is a kind of intimate diary that, in becoming public, is perhaps shameless and obscene. But where are the boundaries between what should remain private, offstage, and what can be made public and shared?
Credits
Monica Lisa Stambrini, Director, Benzina, Electric Chair – the making of Me&You by Bernardo Bertolucci,Queen Kong, ISVN, Lady Oscar
Valerio Antonini, Producer
Pietro Torcolini, Producer
Raffaella Milazzo, Producer
Mark Olexa, Producer
Monica Lisa Stambrini, Key Cast
Director Biography
MONICA L. STAMBRINI, filmmaker (USA, 1970). Graduates in Film School in Milan and directs various short films, documentaries, videoclips and art-videos.
In 2002 her first feature film – Gasoline (Benzina) – in competition in Toronto Film Festival, Turin Film Festival, opens the London Film Festival and wins “Best actresses” in Annecy. Gasoline is released in many countries (Strand Release in the USA, Millivres in UK).
In 2007 she directs the tv-movie Terapia D’Urto – part of the tv series Crimini for the Italian tv RAI.
In 2012 the documentary Electric Chair – the making of the film Me &You by B.Bertolucci was screened both in Venice and Rotterdam Film Festival.
In 2014 she is the founder of Le Ragazze del Porno (the Porn Girls project) – a collective of Italian women filmmakers to create art house explicit films.
In 2016 Queen Kong, an arthouse x-rated short-film written produced and directed by Stambrini (starring Janina Rudenska and Luca Lionello and the porn star Valentina Nappi) is released and wins the Best Narrative Short Film award at Queens World Film Festival 2016, Best Film at Subversive film society in LA, Best Narrative Short Film at Cinekink NY and at Erotic and Bizarre Film Festival in Barcelona. It’s the “special event” at the 52° Pesaro Film Festival in Italy and it’s still attending film festivals around the world (FilmMadrid, DocLisboa, Annecy Film Festival, etc.).
ISVN – Io sono Valentina Nappi (I am Valentina Nappi) is her second “explicit” film in cooperation with the young porn star Valentina Nappi. ISVN and Queen Kong are released in DVD and VOD by Cecchi Gori Entertainment.
Chutzpah, something on modesty, an autobiographic documentary, premiered at Biografilm Festival in Bologna 2023 and international competition in DocLisboa 2023.
Currently she’s working on more documentaries: one about the 92year old artist Isabella Ducrot and another one about the telecommunications company Telettra founded by her grandfather in Italy after the Second World War.
