Alice Rohrwacher is taking Bologna to the Oscars with “Le Pupille” – the ceremony on 12 March

Le Pupille, a short film directed by Alice Rohrwacher and shot in Bologna, will be at Oscar night in Los Angeles on 12 March, nominated for the Short Film Live Action Academy Award^®.

The four other nominees are: An Irish Goodbye by Ross White & Tom Berkeley, Ivalu by Anders Walter, Night Ride by Eirik Tveiten, The Red Suitcase by Cyrus Neshvad.

Le Pupille is a Tempesta and Esperanto Filmoj production for Disney, available exclusively on Disney+. The nomination includes the producers: Carlo Cresto-Dina, Alfonso Cuarón, Gabriela Rodriguez.

The 37-minute film was shot in Bologna, in the Pio Istituto Sordomute Povere, via della Braina; in the deconsacrated Church of San Barbaziano at the crossroads of via Barberia and via Cesare Battisti; and salita di San Luca.

It tells the story of a group of rebellious orphan girls and four nuns in a Catholic school in Italy during the run up to Christmas against a backdrop of famine and war. “A film about pure desires, and those that are self-serving, about freedom and devotion, about the anarchy can that blossom in anyone’s imagination inside a rigid boarding school. The obedient girls can’t move but the pupils of their eyes can dance unfettered in freedom” read the director’s notes. A spirited tale that ends with a bold moral: what if those considered “bad girls” are actually the best?

The cast includes Alba Rohrwacher, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Melissa Falasconi, Carmen Pommella, Greta Zuccheri Montanari, Luciano Vergaro, Tatiana Lepore.

Italy will also be represented in Los Angeles by Aldo Signoretti, part of the team nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis.

The nominations for Best International film include EO, by Jerzy Skolimowski, an Italian minority coproduction, produced by Skopia Film (Poland, 80%) and Alien Films (Italy 20%), already joint winner of the Jury Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and the EFA Excellence Award for Best Soundtrack. The film was partly shot in Italy, in Sicily and around Rome.