Film recommendation – C’è un soffio di vita soltanto (A breath of life)

When it comes to cinematic representations of older adults, it is rare to find examples of films that make older people the focal point of the narrative, that depict them as drivers of the plot, as opposed to supporting figures in storylines that champion younger protagonists. It is even more so when it comes to representations of people belonging to the so-called fourth age, i.e. aged 75+. Examples are even more scarce when we look for intersectional representations of older adults, such as films depicting the ageing experience of LGBTQ+ individuals. For these reasons, the Italian documentary C’è un soffio di vita soltanto (“A breath of life”), which premiered at the 39^th Torino Film Festival and was released in Italian theatres in January 2022, is a remarkable outlier. The film, directed by Matteo Botrugno and Daniele Coluccini (Et in terra pax, 2011; Il contagio, 2017), at their first experience with a non-fiction feature, chronicles the everyday life of Lucy Salani (1924-2023), a 96-year-old transgender woman living in Bologna, Italy. Lucy has lived an extraordinary life, being the only Italian transgender person to survive detention in the Nazi concentration camp of Dachau. The film starts with Lucy receiving an invitation to join the official commemoration of the liberation of Dachau concentration camp. She is eager to join but after outbreak of the Covid pandemic (the film was shot in the Spring of 2020) the ceremony is cancelled. Lucy will eventually participate in an emotional visit to Dachau, organized by the directors.

The documentary relies extensively on Lucy’s accounts and personal memories, which span nine decades and intersect with tremendous transformations occurred in Italian society in the 20^th and 21^st Centuries. Lucy’s life has been marked by multiple traumas: as a child, she suffered sexual abuses on the part of a clergyman, an experience that forever changed her relationship with religious faith, as well as her family, which had failed to support her. As a prisoner in Dachau, she was charged with moving corpses out the gas chambers, which she recounts with vivid horror in her eyes. After the liberation, Lucy struggled to make ends meet as an upholsterer and eventually became a sex worker, in a society that did not – and in many respects still fails to – recognise any rights to transgender people. In Bologna, where she has been living for most of her life, she became a prominent figure within the Italian movement for LGBTQ+ rights. The film itself was made with the support of Cassero LGBT Center, a historical Bolognese association traditionally at the forefront of civil rights struggles. In the course of the documentary, we observe Lucy meeting Ambra and Simone, two young volunteers of the Cassero, who have now become her acquired grandchildren. We also see her having coffee at her home with Porpora Marcasciano, another historical figure of Italian transgender activism and herself a protagonist of the documentary Le Favolose (“The fabulous ones”), directed by Roberta Torre and released in the same year.

Despite her old age, Lucy continues to lead an independent life: we see her driving her car, grocery shopping, running errands and cooking for her visitors. She lives alone, immersed in a network of friendships and extended family members for whom she is a point of reference. Her dilapidated flat is a place where other marginalised subjectivities find a home. Activism and community building are important parts of her everyday life, but Lucy has a distinctly individual outlook on life, starting from her own identity. Despite being aware of her status as a transgender person since the age of three, Lucy never wanted to legally change her birth name: “Why can’t a woman be called Luciano?” she explains in the film, “You get a hole and then you become a woman? No, I was already a woman before, and I didn’t feel like changing the name, my parents gave it to me, it’s sacred and I won’t change it”. From this statement, which she utters decisively but matter-of-factly, emerges the strength of a woman who has navigated fiercely and independently a very tough life, without ever losing empathy and warmth. Lucy’s nature is, in her own words, that of an intruglio, a special concoction brewed by a Nature who did not exactly know what to make of her. She is indeed a multifaceted figure: she is passionate about science and particularly astronomy but is also a tarot card reader; she is a fierce materialist, but also believes in life on other planets. For almost a hundred years, Lucy has lived embracing her own hybrid uniqueness: her story and testimony, which the film recounts with sensitivity and irony, serve as an invitation to younger generations to do the same, despite social pressures. C’è un soffio di vita soltanto is available to stream on RaiPlay and Plex.

Written by: Gloria Dagnino

Image credit: : C’è un soffio di vita soltanto (A breath of life, 2021), directed by Matteo Botrugno and Daniele Coluccini, photography by Matteo Botrugno, Daniele Coluccini, Luca Matteucci, production by Blue Mirror, Bielle Re, Kimerafilm, Tama Filmproduktion, Rai Cinema, Sky.