Deleddian cinema

The image of Sardinia made up of feuds, burdocks, bandits, exoticism and folklore has distant and complex origins analyzed, among other things, in works dedicated to the relationship between Grazia Deledda and cinema such as “Sardinian scenarios: Grazia Deledda between cinema and television”, edited by the film critic Gianni Olla and the Rai Sardegna broadcast “Grazia Quasi Cosima” (1987), created by Maria Piera Mossa with the collaboration of Jacopo Onnis.

Grazia Deledda has been a continuous source of inspiration for Sardinian cinema. The references are many even when the films are not directly inspired by his novels. Deleddian's latest works, 'The Secret of the Lonely Man' and '... With love Fabia”, they came out repeatedly in 1989 and 1993. However, the Nuoro writer's interest in cinematographic art is modest. He does not even participate in the drafting of the screenplay for 'Ashes', the famous film based on his novel and starring Eleonora Duse, who translated it into a screenplay together with director Febo Mari.

The only document found to date, written by Deledda directly for the cinema, is a subject from 1916, discovered a few years ago by Professor Ferdinando Cordova, professor of contemporary history at the University of Rome, in the letters of the journalist Olga Ossani, a leading intellectual of the time, a friend of Grazia Deledda and Eleonora Duse. The subject premiered in the newspaper “L'Unità” on February 1, 1994.

“The Sardinian cinema scenario”, this is how Olga Ossani headlines the typescript sent to her by Deledda. Very careful from the point of view of the description of the landscape and the characters, the subject describes the love of Maria and Giovanni, secretly in love and forced to stage a kidnapping to crown their love story: a melodrama, unusually with a happy ending.
Grazia Deledda's “Sardinian Cinema Scenario” was published by Prof. Cordova in the text “Dear Olgogigi”: letters to Olga and Luigi Lodi. From Byzantine Rome to Fascist Italy, 1881-1933", edited by Ferdinando Cordova, F. Angeli, 1999 and, the following year, in the volume “Sardinian Scenaries: Grazia Deledda Between Cinema and Television”, edited by Gianni Olla, Giovanna Cerina, Ferdinando Cordova, Alessandra Piras, Aipsa, 2000.

Deleddian subject for cinema

Update

19/9/2023 - 18:40