This stunning film, which packs a punch and relentlessly holds on to the viewer, until you realize you may have just run out of breath, world premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival in the 40th edition of Critics’ Week, one of the festival’s parallel section.
At the fictional 2024 Olympics games in Ludoj (which, as you might expect, doesn’t exist as a city and in Esperanto means “goafs” but more on that later!) three women are competing in different sports. Giovanna Falconetti (played by Brazilian born actress Yile Vianello) is a fencing champion, while Alex Sokolov (Russian actress and playwright Sofija Zobina) is a prizewinning shooter and influencer/model and, last but not least, real life Italian Olympian and World Judo Champion Alice Bellandi, who won the Gold Medal at the real-life Paris games in 2024, plays herself. Well, a kind of hyper-politicized version of her public and private personas — a sports champion with an injury, something which eats away at her career and her self esteem.
All three women, as is often the case in sports, are abused. They are first of all nearly destroyed mentally by a system that not only pits them again other women, in a fight for life or death (as the film shows terrifically) but also places them at the mercy of men, older men who eat away at their youth and self worth.
Alice Bellandi in ‘AGON’ which plays in this year’s Critics’ Week in Venice
I promised to get back to the word “goafs” the translation of the Esperanto word “Ludoj”, the city where the fictitious Olympic games take place. The literal meaning is “the part of a mine from which the mineral has been partially or wholly removed.” Exploited, in other words, depleted of its worth and left as an empty shell. Much as athletes find themselves after a competition.
As I watched AGON, a title taken from an ancient Greek word which the filmmaker confirms in his press kit is the “word for competition, conflict, struggle, used in various fields: sports, military, literary and legal,” my mind kept flashing back to that infamous kiss. The kiss planted on the unsuspecting lips of player Jenni Hermoso by then president of Spain’s football federation Luis Rubiales. Mind you, I’m not a #MeToo chick, I found most of those allegations ridiculously out of date, but the act I witnessed between that man of authority and the winning footballer repelled me. That same feeling was constantly with me whenever male coaches and family members were in the picture here, in director Giulio Bertelli’s stunningly haunting debut feature.
Without the usual cacophony of the sounds, cheers, boos and applause, that are usually present in sports, Bertelli manages to bring us into the bubble of what it must feel like to be a woman in sports. And the result is a film which not only allows us a fly-on-the-wall prospective into a world of pain, failure and disappointment, but also shows us that winning often comes at the cost of happiness. And isn’t that a complete contradiction to the reasoning behind playing “games” as they are called?
In the film’s synopsis, a sentence stood out to me, where the director states that the story is “informed by the historical figures of Joan of Arc, Cleopatra and Russian cavalry officer Nadezhda Durova.” All three heroines in their own right, and often derided and misrepresented for their choices by a mostly male narrative, they inform some of the themes of the film. Themes like the idea that a woman doesn’t have to be feminine to still call herself of that gender and that fighting, and winning, is not just a masculine prerogative.
Sofija Zobina in ‘AGON’ photo courtesy of The Match Factory
So how did Bertelli get to be so englightened, you may be asking right about now? Well, for one he’s a sportsman himself, a professional offshore sailor but also a professional lecturer who focuses on the relationship between filmmaking, architectural design and scriptwriting. Yet perhaps the aspect of his life that has influenced his thoughtful style, when it comes to women’s lives and the notions surrounding our existence and definition of success, has to do with his mom, Prada fashion maven Miuccia Prada. I can’t think of a woman who has more perfectly represented greatness than Signora Prada, who took a tired Italian leather goods house and turned it into a maison of fashionistas’ dreams. But also allowed her success, and that of the Prada brand, to become an inspiration for women everywhere, nurturing young talents and established powers to come together in a series of initiatives that run from Miu Miu Women’s Tales — you must watch the latest installments to this long-running series of short films, by Joanna Hogg and Alice Diop — to Prada Invites and a slew of sustainability projects.
Sometimes greatness runs in the family.
AGON starts off with a mechanical look at what it takes to create the human precision mechanism that will become the champion, from the uniforms to the tools of the sport and even shows us a knee replacement operation in all its violence. But through the skillful writing of Bertelli, who also helped to produce and edit the film, on top of directing it, this becomes a story of womanhood, the tragedy of excellence in women and the incredible sacrifices that are required of us to excel. What is that saying, we have to be twice as great and will probably make half as much as our male counterparts in life? And be thankful for that, of course, or else.
And whether than excellence plays out in sports, the arts or as a mom and wife, all equally demanding jobs, no film has ever addressed the extraordinary energy, dedication and talent demanded of women today quite like AGON.
Additional cast include Michela Cescon as Dola; Francesco Acquaroli as the Maestro; Chiara Caselli as the Delegation President; and Louis Hofmann as Yuri. Producers, along with Bertelli, are Max Brun, Jules Daly, Stella Rossa Savino, Joe Anton, Pietro Caracciolo and Matthew E. Chausse. The film was shot by Mauro Chiarello, with production design by Ludovica Ferrario and costumes by Marco Alzari. Tommaso Gallone and Francesco Roma edited along with Bertelli and the music is by London-based composer Tom Wheatley.
AGON is an Italy, United States, France co-production and is being sold by The Match Factory while in Venice.
All images used with permission.