Come l'ombra / As the Shadow

Showing at the Mar del Plata Film Festival: Come l'ombra, directed by Marina Spada

Synopsis from AllMovie.com:

A bored Italian travel agent agrees to take in the cousin of a handsome Ukrainian teacher she has recently become acquainted with, only to find her generosity propelling her into a dark mystery in director Marina Spada's sophisticated sophomore outing as a director. Claudia (Anita Kravos) spends her days working and her weekends visiting her sister and parents. In her spare time Claudia has taken to studying Russian. When Claudia catches the eye of charming Ukrainian professor of languages Boris (Paolo Pierobon), who has only recently arrived in Italy and has taken to offering language lesson as a means of making ends meet, the pair immediately make a connection and their relationship gradually begins to grow deeper. Their bond seemingly solidified, Boris soon approaches his newfound friend with the prospect of putting up his Ukrainian cousin Olga (Karolina Dafne Porcari). Though Claudia readily agrees under the stipulation that the arrangement only be for a few days, the bond between the lonely Italian and the amiable language teacher soon expands to include the newly arrived, beautiful blonde until one day Olga goes mysteriously missing. Now determined to find out just what fate befell her amiable temporary roommate, Claudia sets out to discover the truth behind Olga's perplexing disappearance.

Poesia che mi guardi

Showing today at the Venice Film Festival: Poesia che mi guardi, directed by Marina Spada

Synopsis from the website for Venice Days:

Beginning with Antonia Pozzi, an original and passionate Italian poet of the 20th century, who killed herself at the tender age of 26 in 1938, Poesia che mi guardi reflects upon the role of the artist and poet in society, then and now. The film gives voice to her poetry and her tormented existential search, her wariness towards men, who dismissed her poetic talent as an emotional disorder, and towards her social environment, Milan’s upper class, which kept her from living her life with sincerity and passion. The driving force and narrator of the film is Maria, a filmmaker who, fascinated with Pozzi, studies and her work and researches the world and people of her life. A decisive moment for Maria comes when she meets a group of university students who write their poems anonymously on walls around Milan, convinced that in our lives there is always a great need for poetry. Maria involves them in her project: she wants Antonia Pozzi’s poetry to be revived in Milan through the students, no longer as a solitary and intimate expression, but as a shared moment. She wants this action to redeem Antonia Pozzi, to give her the recognition and visibility denied her when she was alive.