Pazza D'Azzurro = Nietta's Diary / directed by Gabriella Romano ; produced by Gabriella Romano.

[Place of publication not identified] : Privately Published, 1996.

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NIETTA'S DIARY is a film about the lesbian relationship of Antonietta (Nietta) Aprà and Linda (Flafi) Mazzuccato in pre- and post-war Italy. The film centres upon the passionate love story as recounted through Nietta's unpublished diaries. By the time of her death in 1990, Nietta Aprà was an established art historian who had worked at the prestigious Castello Sforzesco Museum in Milan for many years and had been published widely. She was also a lesbian whose relationship with the translator Linda (Flafi) Mazzuccato endured 40 years. She made no secret of it and courageously lived in an "out" manner even during the fascist regime. This drama -documentary is based on her explicitly romantic diaries, which she always hoped would be published. The film alternates dramatic re-enactment of Nietta's and Flafi's life together, and actual interviews with colleagues, friends and relatives of the couple who survive in Italy today. Threading throughout the film are the poetic words of the diaries themselves, contrasting with the hard reality of public opinion, reported gossip and trite stereotypes. Whilst her non-conformist life-style and those of other lesbians at the time have been omitted in the public memory of Italian post-war society, through the power of her private writing, Nietta ensures that her account of her life with another woman endures.

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November 07, 2022