''Purple Sea'' ( it, Viola di mare, also known as ''The Sea Purple'') is a

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

Italian

romance drama film Romance films or movies involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion (emotion), passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typica ...

directed by

Donatella Maiorca Donatella Maiorca (born September 13, 1957, in Messina) is an Italian film director. Career Donatella Maiorca began working as an actress and assistant director while she was a student of psychology at the Sapienza University of Rome. In 1981 sh ...

. It is based on the

non-fiction novel The non-fiction novel is a literary genre which, broadly speaking, depicts real historical figures and actual events woven together with fictitious conversations and uses the storytelling techniques of fiction. The non-fiction novel is an otherwi ...

''Minchia di re'' written by Giacomo Pilati. The film premiered at the 2009

Rome Film Festival International Rome Film Fest is a film festival that takes place in Rome during the month of October. The name in Italian is Festa del Cinema di Roma. Sections The Rome Film Festival official program is divided into several sections: Cinema d'Og ...

. It was nominated for two

Nastro d'Argento The Nastro d'Argento, also known by its translated name Silver Ribbon, is an Italian film award awarded each year since 1946 by the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists (Italian: ''Sindacato Nazionale Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani ...

Awards, for Best Actress (

Valeria Solarino Valeria Solarino (born 4 November 1979) is an Italian actress, born in Venezuela. Life and career She was born in Barcelona, Venezuela to a Sicilian father and Turinese mother. After studying philosophy at the University of Turin, she debute ...

) and Best Original Song ("Sogno" by

Gianna Nannini Gianna Nannini (; born 14 June 1954Who Is Who
''Bello e possibile'' ...

Plot summary

The film tells the love story between Angela and Sara in 19th-century

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

(circa 1860, during the

Expedition of the Thousand The Expedition of the Thousand ( it, Spedizione dei Mille) was an event of the Italian Risorgimento that took place in 1860. A corps of volunteers led by Giuseppe Garibaldi sailed from Quarto, near Genoa (now Quarto dei Mille) and landed in Ma ...

). To survive the scandal, Angela's family winds up passing her off as a boy, going so far as to alter her birth certificate. Angela cuts her hair short and hides her own femininity, in defiance of the mentality of the place.

Production

Produced by the Italian Dreams Factory, with the support of the

Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities The Ministry of Culture ( it, Ministero della Cultura - MiC) is the ministry of the Government of Italy in charge of national museums and the ''monuments historiques''. MiC's headquarters are located in the historic Collegio Romano Palace (via ...

and the Region of

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

. The movie, filmed in

San Vito Lo Capo San Vito Lo Capo ( scn, Santu Vitu) is a town and ''comune'' in North-Western Sicily, Italy, administratively part of the province of Trapani. The small town is located in a valley between mountains, and is home to a public beach that is destin ...

Trapani Trapani ( , ; scn, Tràpani ; lat, Drepanum; grc, Δρέπανον) is a city and municipality (''comune'') on the west coast of Sicily, in Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Trapani. Founded by Elymians, the city is still an impor ...

, and

Favignana Favignana ( scn, Faugnana) is a ''comune'' including three islands (Favignana, Marettimo and Levanzo) of the Aegadian Islands, southern Italy. It is situated approximately west of the coast of Sicily, between Trapani and Marsala, the coastal ar ...

, was shown at the 2009

and distributed to theaters on October 16, 2009.

Meaning of the title

The film's title refers to the Sicilian name of the

Mediterranean rainbow wrasse The Mediterranean rainbow wrasse (''Coris julis'') is a small, colourful fish in the family Labridae. It can be found in the Mediterranean Sea and in the northeast Atlantic Ocean from Sweden to Senegal (though it is a rare wanderer to the southe ...

(''Coris julis''), a

protogynous Sequential hermaphroditism (called dichogamy in botany) is a type of hermaphroditism In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and ...

fish that is born female and turns male as it grows older.

The ''Viola'' (violet) is a fish and God has willed it. When it is male it is called ''Minchia di Re'' (king's penis). For love it becomes female and has the colors of the flower. It turns male again after the water has taken its eggs.

Reception

The film won two awards at the 2009 New Italian Cinematic Events festival: the Città di Firenze Award for best film and the

Susan Batson Susan Batson (born February 27, 1943, in Roxbury, Massachusetts) is an American producer, actress, author, acting coach, and a life member of the Actors Studio. Batson graduated from Girls Latin School and Emerson College. One of three sister ...

Award for best actress, Valeria Solarino in the role of Angela. The N.I.C.E. festival, run by Viviana del Bianco, represents the most important festival of Italian cinema in America, with showings in New York, San Francisco, and Seattle. At the International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival of Bilbao in 2011, Valeria Solarino won the award for best actress and Isabella Ragonese received special mention. ''Viola di mare'' won the 2009 Capri Peace Award. The film was nominated for the Marc'Aurelio d'Oro for best film at the

. It was an official selection at the 2010 San Francisco

Frameline Film Festival The Frameline Film Festival (aka San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival) (formerly San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival; San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival) began as a storefront event in 1976. The first ...

Cast

: Angela/Angelo *

Isabella Ragonese Isabella Ragonese (born 19 May 1981) is an Italian actress. She studied acting at the Teatès School in Palermo, under director Michele Perriera. During her studies, she wrote, directed and starred in several adaptations of his plays. In 1998 s ...

: Sara *

Ennio Fantastichini Ennio Fantastichini (20 February 1955 – 1 December 2018) was an Italian actor. Life and career Born in Gallese, province of Viterbo, Fantastichini studied acting at the Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica Silvio D'Amico. His breakout role wa ...

: Salvatore *

Giselda Volodi Giselda Volodi (born 1959) is an Italian actress. She was born Giselda Mazzantini, in Tangier, Morocco, to the family of writer Carlo Mazzantini and artist Anne Donnelly. She is the sister of writer/actress Margaret Mazzantini and producer Moir ...

: Lucia *

Maria Grazia Cucinotta Maria Grazia Cucinotta (; born 27 July 1968) is an Italian actress who has featured in films and television series since 1990. She has also worked as a film producer, screenwriter and model. Internationally she is best known for her roles in ' ...

: Agnese *

Marco Foschi Marco Foschi (born 1 April 1977) is an Italian actor and voice actor. He played in the 2012 film ''King of the Sands'' directed by Najdat Anzour and in the 2012 American-Italian television movie ''Barabbas'', as Jesus Jesus, likely fro ...

: Tommaso *

Lucrezia Lante Della Rovere Lucrezia Lante della Rovere (; born 19 July 1966) is an Italian actress in film, television and theatre, who made her debut in Mario Monicelli's '' Speriamo che sia femmina'' (1986), where she acted along with Catherine Deneuve, Stefania Sandr ...

: Baronessa *

Corrado Fortuna Corrado Fortuna (born 31 March 1978) is an Italian actor and director. Career Born in Palermo, Fortuna debuted in 2002 with the title role in the film ''My Name Is Tanino'', directed by Paolo Virzi, with whom he then worked as assistant directo ...

: Ventura * Alessio Vassallo: Nicolino * Giovan Battista Costa: Young Nicolino * Ester Cucinotti: Concetta

References

External links

* * * {{Portal bar, film, Italy, LGBT Lesbian-related films Films set in Sicily LGBT-related films based on actual events LGBT-related romantic drama films 2009 films 2009 romantic drama films Italian LGBT-related films 2009 LGBT-related films Films based on Italian novels Films based on non-fiction books 2000s Italian-language films