“I’m leaving again…
Once more.
How difficult it is to turn your back on the sea…
and think of those who stay behind.”
From Valentina Pedicini’s thesis film, My Marlboro City (2010)

Dear Valentina,
How difficult it is for us to imagine that you’re gone. 
You were a special person, and that you shall always be. 
The films you left behind were your life, and through those films, you shall remain forever with us. 
 

	Pater Noster - 2008
	Mio sovversivo amore - 2008
	My Marlboro City - 2010

Valentina Pedicini was born in Brindisi, Italy in 1978. At the age of 18 she moved to Rome, where she began her involvement as an activist in feminist organizations, while at the same time pursuing formal studies of the history of Italian dialects and linguistics.

Her love for writing and imagery soon became a driving force in her life, a true passion. Her life and work began to revolve around that love. Hers was the courage shown by so many women who have hailed from the south of Italy, and their unbreakable bond with that homeland.  

She worked as a screenwriter before coming to Bolzano, where she first attended a course on film project development, Recounting the Adventure, before enrolling in ZeLIG’s three-year program. In her films, the world of women and life in southern Italy would remain key themes. Her short films "Pater Noster" and “My Subversive Love”, which she made while still a student at ZeLIG, were featured at numerous film festivals in Italy and internationally. Her three years at ZeLIG seemed to go by in the blink of an eye. She graduated in 2010, after presenting her thesis film "My Marlboro City", with a major in Directing and Project Development. 

“From the Depths” (Dal profondo), her first film after graduating, was released in 2013, and tells the story of Patrizia, the last of the Italian women to work the pitch-black mines of Sardinia. It received a host of noteworthy recognition, including the coveted Solinas Award, and was named best Italian documentary at the Rome Film Festival, while garnering a nomination for the David di Donatello Award.   

In 2016 Valentina made her first fiction short, “It Was Yesterday” (Era Ieri), an autobiographical film featured at the Venice International Film Critics’ Week.

Her first feature-length film “Where the Shadows Fall” (Dove cadono le ombre) was released in 2017, based on the life of Swiss author Mariella Mehr. It sheds light on the dramatic developments of the eugenics program carried out by an association known as Pro Juventute to the detriment of the once itinerant European ethnic group known as the Yenisch. The film made its debut at Venice Days. 

In her last film, Faith (2019), Valentina returns to Laura, the main character in Pater Noster, the first of her endeavors as a ZeLIG student. It shines the spotlight on the community known as the Warriors of Light, to which Laura belongs. Faith was shown in the Feature-Length Documentary section at the  International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), where it was hailed by both audiences and critics alike. Faith was also among the nominees of the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists’ Nastri d’Argento, and winner at the prestigious Docs Festival in Barcelona and at the ShorTS International Film Festival.

Over the course of her career, Valentina called upon many ZeLIG graduates to work with her.

Her last stop at ZeLIG was in January 2020, when she held a masterclass for our current student body, sharing a wealth of experience in filmmaking and her sense of urgency to express herself through the medium of film.