Yesterday, director Alice Rohrwacher and make-up artist Aldo Signoretti received Oscar nods.
Rohrwacher's Le Pupille, a WWII drama of teen rebellion set in a Catholic boarding school, is among the five nominees for the live action short category, with the awards set to be handed out on March 12.
It is the latest work by the 41-year-old Fiesole born director and screenwriter, who won the Grand Prix at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival for The Wonder and best screenplay at Cannes in 2018 for Lazzaro Felice.
Le Pupille (The Pupils) follows a group of defiant young girls at a Catholic boarding school in Italy during a time of scarcity and war.
Upon receiving the nomination, Rohrwacher said:
“The film is about desires, pure and selfish, about freedom and devotion, about the anarchy that is capable of flowering in the minds of each one of the girls within the confines of the strict boarding school.”
She added:
“Although the obedient girls can't move, their pupils can dance the unrestrained dance of freedom."
"I dedicate the Oscar nomination to the 'naughty girls' who are not naughty at all, and who are fighting everywhere in the world.
“I wish that, like in my short film Le Pupille, they will be able to break the cake and share it with each other.
“These girls and women are in Iran, in Afghanistan, but everywhere, also in Sweden and Umbria.”
A still from Rohrwacher's 'Le Pupille'. (Photo: ANSA)
Veteran Italian make-up artist Aldo Signoretti has also been recognised by the Academy for his work on Baz Luhrmann's biopic Elvis.
Rome-born Signoretti, 69, who has three previous nominations to his name for Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! (2001), Mel Gibson's Apocalypto (2006) and Paolo Sorrentino's Il divo (2010), was nominated for his contributions to the makeup and hairstyling team on the biopic about the beloved king of rock and roll which took cinemas by storm globally last year.
