Gloria!, interview with director Margherita Vicario at Cinema Made in Italy 2025

At the 2025 Cinema Made in Italy festival at London's BFI, Fred Film Radio had the chance to speak with singer-songwriter turned filmmaker Margherita Vicario about her stunning directorial debut, "Gloria!". Margherita Vicario explained her two-part compulsion to share the story as autobiographical elements borne out of her desire to capture the intricacies of the creative process "inside the soul of an artist," as well as to unearth a part of feminist history, in terms of female composers, that's long been buried, like "dried flowers caught in the pages of history". We discussed how the movie mashes up genres in the sense of serving up core tropes of a traditional period drama, yet then often totally subverting them with anachronistic music, and injecting a contemporary feminist energy into proceedings, perhaps recalling the likes of Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette". She further revealed how she fostered a close bond between the actors to replicate the sisterly bond the characters had within the convent, as well as having them take music classes to convincingly pull off playing the violin and piano. Finally, Margherita Vicario shared how she wanted to balance shedding light on how female talents of the past were never given their full chance to shine under oppressive patriarchal structures, with a sense of joy, empowerment and inspiration as audiences leave the cinema.