Sophia Loren hasn't worked on any projects since 2014
Without appearing in the cinema since the musical Nine (2009), Italian Sophia Loren will return to act in a feature film for Netflix. Called La Vita Davanti a Sè (The Life Ahead, in free translation), the film is a contemporary adaptation of the book The Life Ahead of Her (1975), by French author Romain Gary (1914-1980).
La Vita Davanti a Sé is directed by Edoardo Ponti (from Desire of Liberade), son of Sophia, with a script by Ugo Chiti (from O Conto dos Contos). There is still no release date, but it is speculated that the streaming platform will release the film at film festivals around the world to win over critics and start the campaign for next year's awards.
Sophia Loren will play the protagonist, Madame Rosa, a Holocaust survivor who runs a kind of daycare in the house where she lives on the coast of Italy. Her life changes when she starts taking care of Momo (Ibrahima Gueye), a 12-year-old immigrant from Senegal who had just robbed her.
In the original book, Madame Rosa was a retired prostitute who took care of other call girls' children in her apartment.
Oscar for best foreign film
The story was already adapted for the cinema in 1977, with Madame Rosa – A Vida à Sua Frente, which won the Oscar for best foreign film the following year. At the time, the role went to Simone Signoret (1921-1985), winner of the highest prize in the seventh art for Souls at Auction (1959).
“I am very happy to work with Netflix in such a special film. Throughout my career, I've worked with the biggest studios, but I can say with certainty that none of them have the reach and cultural diversity of Netflix, and that's what I like most about it,” Sophia said in a press release .
Winner of the Oscar for best actress for Two Women (1960), Sophia Loren has not worked on any project since 2014, when she made the short film Voce Umana (Human Voice). Previously, she had acted in the miniseries La Mia Casa È Piena di Specchi (My House Is Full of Mirrors), her own biography, in which she played her mother.
With a leap-year career, this will be only the 85-year-old veteran's eighth project this millennium. In the 1990s, she also acted little: she only made four feature films.
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