''Scarlet Diva'' is a 2000 Italian

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

by actress and first-time director and screenwriter

Asia Argento Asia Argento (; born Aria Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento; 20 September 1975) is an Italian actress and filmmaker. The daughter of filmmaker Dario Argento, she has had roles in several of her father's features and achieved mainstream success with ...

Plot summary

''Scarlet Diva'' is a semi-

autobiographical An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...

film about the Italian actress and director Asia Argento's life as an actress. A self-destructive streak in Anna Battista (Argento) pulls her into drugs, sex and other excesses. To combat this descent, she attempts to fulfill her creative side by becoming a film director. Battista's attempts to realize her talent are thwarted by her desires and the uncaring responses of those around her. As part of her plans to become a director and bring her story to the screen, Battista travels to

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

but only meets a shady film producer ( Joe Coleman). She falls in love with an uncaring Australian

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

(Jean Sheperd), then finds out she is

pregnant Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring gestation, gestates inside a woman's uterus. A multiple birth, multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Conception (biology), Conception usually occurs ...

by him. But her life is still in disarray as she uses

drugs A drug is any chemical substance other than a nutrient or an essential dietary ingredient, which, when administered to a living organism, produces a biological effect. Consumption of drugs can be via inhalation, injection, smoking, ingestio ...

to help herself feel better.

Cast

as Anna Battista **Gloria Pirrocco as Young Anna * Jean Sheperd as Kirk Vaines * Herbert Fritsch as Aaron Ulrich *

Francesca D'Aloja Francesca D'Aloja (born 21 April 1963) is an Italian actress and screenwriter. Life and career Born in Rome, D'Aloja started her career as a theater actress. In cinema, after several secondary roles, she made her debut as main actress in 1992 ...

as Margherita * Vera Gemma as Veronica Lanza *

Daria Nicolodi Daria Nicolodi (19 June 1950 – 26 November 2020) was an Italian television and film actress and screenwriter, and associated mostly with the films of director Dario Argento. Early life and career Daria Nicolodi was born in Florence on 19 June ...

as Anna's Mother * Selen as Quelou *

Leo Gullotta Salvatore Leopoldo "Leo" Gullotta (born 9 January 1946) is an Italian actor, voice actor, comedian and writer. He became known for his role in '' Café Express'' (1980), and has won several David di Donatello awards, the first one being for hi ...

as Dr. Vessi * Joe Coleman as Mr. Paar * Justinian Kfoury as J-Bird *

Schoolly D Jesse Bonds Weaver Jr. (born June 22, 1962), better known by the stage name Schoolly D, is an American rapper from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Biography Schoolly D was born Jesse Bonds Weaver Jr. in West Philadelphia and raised in Philadelph ...

as Hash-Man * Leonardo Servadio as Young Alioscia *

Paolo Bonacelli Paolo Bonacelli (born 28 February 1937) is an Italian stage and film actor. Bonacelli graduated from the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome. After debuting on stage in Vittorio Gassman's ''Questa sera si recita a soggetto'', he had his fi ...

as Swiss Journalist

Production

''Scarlet Diva'' was shot entirely on

digital video Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (video) in the form of encoded digital data. This is in contrast to analog video, which represents moving visual images in the form of analog signals. Digital video comprises ...

, making it among the earliest feature films to be created with this technology. Though penetration isn't explicitly shown, Asia Argento revealed the sex scenes went way beyond acting. "It's true, the sex scenes are real. But I wasn't interested in penetration. I was interested in showing what the real sex did to the faces and the bodies of the actors," she said.

Harvey Weinstein reenactment scene

In October 2017, Argento revealed that the scene in which the producer tries to assault the main character is based on the alleged sexual assault on her by Harvey Weinstein, except "In the movie ..I ran away" according to Argento.

Reception and legacy

The film tied with two other films to win the

Brooklyn Film Festival The Brooklyn Film Festival (BFF), prior to 2011 called the Brooklyn International Film Festival (BiFF) is an independent film festival held every June in New York City. Started by Marco Ursino, Susan Mackell, Abe Schrager, and Mario Pegoraro in ...

Award for Best New Director.SCARLET DIVA by Asia Argento - Narrative Feature Film @ Brooklyn Film Festival
/ref> A videocassette of the film can be seen on a shelf behind the counter in a video rental store in

Dario Argento Dario Argento (; born 7 September 1940) is an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. His influential work in the horror film, horror and giallo genres during the 1970s and 1980s has led him to being referred to as the "Master of the ...

's film '' Do You Like Hitchcock?''

References

External links

* 2000 films 2000s erotic drama films 2000s English-language films 2000s French-language films 2000s Italian-language films Films directed by Asia Argento Foreign films set in the United States Italian erotic drama films Italian independent films 2000 directorial debut films 2000 drama films 2000 multilingual films Italian multilingual films Harvey Weinstein Semi-autobiographical films English-language erotic drama films English-language independent films French-language independent films Italian-language independent films {{erotic-film-stub