European Film Awards 2024: Maura Delpero on VERMIGLIO Reflecting on Family Legacies, Gender Roles, Mountain Life

The Italian filmmaker Maura Delpero was nominated at the European Film Awards 2024 with her latest film, wartime family saga Vermiglio.

The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 Venice Film Festival and is the Italian entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. Set against the majestic backdrop of northern Italy’s mountains, the film weaves a tale of family, memory, and social change.

The inspiration for Vermiglio can be traced back to Delpero’s father’s hometown, nestled in the rugged mountains of northern Italy. It was a place steeped in tradition and deeply tied to her family’s history.

“My father and his entire family were born there,” Delpero shared. “We still have the old house, with its big stone walls, where they all lived. That house became such an important image for me—it was the foundation of the film.”

A dream Delpero had shortly after her father passed away inspired the film. “One night, I dreamed of my father coming to visit me,” she recounted. “But he wasn’t the man I knew. He appeared as a six-year-old boy, playing in the old family house with his siblings—my aunts and uncles.”

The dream was vivid, more like a vision than a fleeting night-time image. “It was as if they were guiding me back to a time I couldn’t have known,” Delpero explained. “I began to write about those children playing in the house, and through them, I was able to imagine my family’s past. It allowed me to reverse roles—I was the adult now, seeing these people I’d always known as children.”

Delpero’s commitment to authenticity extended beyond historical aspects of the film. She also wanted Vermiglio to reflect the unique culture of the region, particularly its language. “Italy is a regional country,” she said. “We have a sense of national unity, but each region has its own identity, traditions, and dialects. In my father’s village, people still speak in dialect—it’s the language of feeling, the language of home.”

While some suggested she shoot the film in standard Italian to avoid the need for subtitles, Delpero resisted. “It would have been completely artificial,” she argued. “You speak Italian at the post office or in school, but when you’re at home, when you say ‘I love you,’ it’s in dialect. This is a film about relationships, so it had to be in the real language of these people.”

Vermiglio is also a story about transformation—both personal and social. The film zeroes in on a moment in history when traditional gender roles began to crack under the weight of necessity and modernity. Lucia, the film’s protagonist, embodies this transition. “She starts as a country girl, tied to the land and traditions, but she’s forced to leave that behind,” Delpero explained.

“Out of necessity, she becomes something radical for her time: a city woman, a working woman, someone who must say goodbye to her baby and face harsh realities.” Lucia’s journey is not framed as an act of rebellion but as a reflection of the social and economic pressures of the time. “She doesn’t choose to leave; she has no choice. And yet, through that necessity, she becomes a symbol of change—a woman who navigates a world in flux.”

The film also explores the generational tensions within Lucia’s family. The older generation, represented by the mother, clings to traditional roles. “The mother never steps out of the kitchen,” Delpero noted. “She doesn’t question the status quo. She only raises her voice to defend her son.”

In contrast, the daughters represent a new generation. “There’s something boiling in them, a longing for individuality and self-determination,” Delpero said. “They’re still tied to the traditions of their time, but they’re already pushing against those boundaries.”

One of the most intriguing characters is Ada, the middle sister, whose path reflects both the constraints and the possibilities of the era. “Ada joins a convent, which might seem like a surrender to tradition,” Delpero explained. “But paradoxically, it’s where she finds freedom. In the convent, she can study, smoke, and carve out a space for herself—a ‘room of her own,’ as Virginia Woolf would say.”

Vermiglio tackles deeply ingrained double standards surrounding female desire. Ada’s exploration of her sexuality is met with harsh punishment, in stark contrast to her father’s casual indulgence in the same. “There’s a moment where Ada and her father share the same erotic material,” Delpero said. “For him, it’s a harmless pastime—something he enjoys with a cigarette. For her, it’s forbidden and dangerous, something that leads to severe consequences.”

This disparity underscores the broader inequalities of the time. “Desire was not legitimized for women,” Delpero observed. “To feel it, let alone act on it, was seen as daring, almost transgressive. That’s a tension I wanted to explore—how women internalized these judgments and how they began to push back against them.”

The mountains of northern Italy are not just a backdrop in Vermiglio, they serve as a character, shaping the lives and psyches of its inhabitants. “Living in the mountains teaches you humility,” Delpero said. “You’re constantly reminded of something bigger than yourself. It’s not the same as being in a flatland or a beach town. In the mountains, you’re small, and the world around you is imposing.”

This sense of scale permeates the film. For Delpero, the mountains are more than a setting—they are a way of life. “Mountain people carry a sense of something larger than themselves. It’s in their behavior, their culture, their way of walking through the world. That’s what I wanted to capture in Vermiglio—how the mountains shape not just the landscape but the people who live within them.”

One of the defining features of Vermiglio is its multi-character, novelistic structure. Instead of focusing solely on a single protagonist, the film explores the lives of multiple family members, offering a rich tapestry of interconnected stories and perspectives.

For Maura Delpero, this choice was intentional and tied to the themes of the film. “Family is not just about individuals; it’s about how those individuals influence one another,” Delpero explained. “Each character’s actions ripple through the family, creating a dynamic that’s both deeply personal and inherently communal.”

This approach mirrors the structure of a novel, where the narrative shifts between characters, revealing their unique temperaments, struggles, and roles within the larger family unit. “It’s like turning the pages of a book,” she said. “Each character offers a new perspective on the same situation, enriching our understanding of the world they inhabit.”

Delpero acknowledged the challenges of this choral style, particularly in a medium like cinema, which often prioritizes a single, dominant point of view. “Scriptwriting manuals always talk about the hero’s journey, about focusing on one main character,” she noted. “But I wanted to embrace plurality. It’s not just a creative choice—it’s a political one. By giving equal weight to multiple voices, you can explore themes more deeply and from different angles.”

Delpero’s roots in documentary filmmaking influenced her approach to Vermiglio. For her, the process of creating fiction starts in much the same way as crafting a documentary—with immersion in the setting and an eye for authenticity. “I spent time in the territory, absorbing the culture and the environment,” Delpero explained. “I wrote the script while living there, letting the place guide the story.”

This commitment to authenticity extended to her casting choices. More than half of the cast were non-professional actors, many of whom came from the region itself. “It wasn’t just about finding people who looked the part,” she said.

“They brought the culture with them. They became the bridge between the fictional story and the real world it was based on.” Working with non-professionals posed its own challenges, as they lacked the technical skills of trained actors. But Delpero saw this as an opportunity rather than a limitation. “The non-professionals taught the professionals about the world we were trying to depict,” she said. “They brought an authenticity that can’t be faked.”

Vermiglio is rooted in a historical period that feels both distant and eerily familiar. For Delpero, this “recent past” offered a unique lens to explore modern issues like migration and societal change. “This period fascinates me because it’s not so far away that it feels abstract, but it’s distant enough to reveal patterns and lessons we might overlook in the present,” she said. “It’s a past that still echoes in our lives today.”

The film reflects on how quickly societies forget their histories. “Italy was once a poor country, a nation of emigrants,” Delpero pointed out. “Now, as one of the wealthier countries in the world, we look at immigrants as ‘the other.’ It’s shocking how easily we forget that not so long ago, we were in their shoes.”

While Delpero’s creativity is fueled by instinct and intuition, she is equally committed to imposing structure on her narratives. This balance between free-flowing inspiration and meticulous planning is crucial to crafting a film as complex as Vermiglio. “Once the raw ideas emerge, the real work begins,” Delpero said. “A multi-character, multi-layered film like this requires a lot of structure. I had to decide how much the audience would know compared to the characters, when to reveal certain information, and how to maintain the emotional arc across multiple perspectives.”

For Vermiglio, the film’s structure was shaped by two key elements: the seasons and pivotal turning points in the characters’ lives. “The seasons provided a natural rhythm to the story," while the turning points gave structure to it. 

When Maura Delpero began her career, the world of filmmaking was still very much a "male profession." Reflecting on her early experiences, she described how the lack of female role models shaped her journey. “When I started out, all my references in cinema were men,” she recalled. “There were so few female directors, you could count them on your fingers. It wasn’t just about representation—it was about feeling like I was stepping into a space that wasn’t built for me.”

Despite the challenges, Delpero persisted, becoming one of the few women to carve out a space in Italian cinema at the time. Today, she acknowledges the slow but significant progress in the industry. “Things are changing, but it’s gradual,” she said. “Cinema reflects society, and as society evolves, so does the industry. But there’s still a long way to go.”

Her success at festivals like Venice, where Vermiglio received accolades, highlights the importance of visibility for women in the field. “I’m honored to stand on the shoulders of the women who came before me, even if there were so few,” Delpero said. “Their work paved the way for the next generation, and I hope that my films can contribute to that legacy.”