Lucia Calamaro Makes Film Debut with 'Antartica – Quasi una fiaba'

Theatre director Lucia Calamaro (Rome, 1969) expands into cinema with her debut feature 'Antartica – Quasi una fiaba', releasing on May 7 via Vision Distribution. The film centers on ethical, fragile characters—scientists Maria, Fulvio, and Rita, played by Barbara Ronchi, Silvio Orlando, and Valentina Bellè—who work with ice cores that preserve ancient climate data. Calamaro describes the transition as growth rather than betrayal, emphasizing that cinema reaches a broader audience. The film explores themes of time, memory, and ice as a conservative, museum-like element. A key inspiration was the discovery of a rotifer revived after 22,000 years in Siberian ice. Calamaro, who studied in Uruguay and Paris and returned to Italy at thirty, sees her artistic quest as a search for communion with the public and a sense of home.