Roberto De Paolis opens the Orizzonti Competition at the 79th Biennale di Venezia with his second feature Princess, a dynamic sex street drama played by real victims of human trafficking.
The 79th Venice International Film Festival, organized by Biennale di Venezia is in full swing after opening yesterday with Netflix’s White Noise directed by auteur Noah Baumbach. Like every year, the festival is taking place at Venice Lido and will be live until September 10th, 2022. As part of this year’s program, we have delved into the Orizzonti Competition, which opened with Roberto De Paolis’ second feature Princess, whose debut film Pure Hearts was presented in Cannes 2017’s Director’s Fortnight.
Princess tells the story of young Nigerian illegal immigrants, many of them trafficked, who sell their bodies in a pine forest outskirts of a big city in Italy. Based on real experiences of Nigerian sex workers, these women are real victims of trafficking, who also wrote the
screenplay with Paolis and then played themselves freely, with acting coached by Tatiana Lepore.
Glory Kevin is iconic as Princess, the sweetest character you’ll ever see this year, who often does not tell her identity when customers ask her name. Princess works with her friend Success (Sandra Osagie), with whom she competes for customers, usually white men in trucks or sports cars when they stop at the edge of the forest. Princess will do anything for money, although being a prostitute is not her will, she barely enjoyed her sex scenes. One day, she meets a kind stranger who looking for mushrooms in the woods named Corrado (Lino Musella, recently seen in this year’s Locarno’s competition title Il Pataffio and last year’s Venice winners È stata la mano di Dio, Qui rido io), unlike her regular customers; the rich client (Maurizio Lombardi) who takes her in his Ferrari; the crazy taxi driver (Salvatore Striano) who taking an act of revenge by having inveigled her into posing nude and then drives off with all her clothes; Princess gives Corrado the hard sell but instead of having sex in the forest, Corrado takes her home, buys her some lollipop and panini and feeds the seagulls in the seaside.
By combining a mix of drama and comedy with a documentary approach, Paolis strikes a dexterous balance between harsh reality and melancholy of an unusual place. It’s surprisingly smooth, thanks to the non-professional actors who played themselves as immigrant sex workers in this film. The titular character moves us with a pleasant, striking appearance (with wonderful costumes designed by Loredana Buscemi) anchored by a surprisingly good performance by Kevin who takes us to her world in an enchanted forest. As we follow her for 110 minutes, we laugh and carried away on every emotional level. Another strong element from this film was the original soundtrack by Emanuele de Raymondi who also composed Pure Hearts. He opened Princess with a majestic score that takes viewers straight to a fantasy-feeling from Dreamworks’ fairy tales Shrek franchise and gives us subtle scores in another way. Princess is a dynamic character study of the life of a young illegal migrant who snares in the chains of prostitution in the forest where she tries to survive.
Princess is produced by Young Films, Indigo Film, and Rai Cinema, with Lucky Red set for an Italian distribution. Italy’s True Colors has taken over the international sales for this film.
