Galatea Bellugi imposes a talent as much as an enchanting charm. On his face, and then in his voice too, this charm radiates. Details of light that we couldn’t help but notice as a movie buff. The Franco-Italian actress appeared in three films last year: Albino Rodrigue’s Daughter of Christine Dory, The Passion of Dodin Bouffant of Trần Anh Hùng And Dog of the breakage of Jean-Baptiste Durandwhich earned her a nomination for the César for Best Supporting Actress at the start of 2024. If the trophy was awarded to her counterpart Adèle Exarchopoulos, the young actress already considers herself a winner. With hope and recognition to spare, she rose to headline a few new films, including Gloria! the first feature film from the director and musician Margherita Vicariocurrently watching at the cinema.
© Nour Films
The Galatea Bellugi charm
Born to an Italian father and a Danish mother, Galatea Bellugi grew up in the world of comedy without dreaming of being part of it. “When I was little, I thought that cinema was just a game”, she confides when we ask her about her childhood memories. She joined the troupe of the Théâtre du Soleil d’Ariane Mnouchkine, where his actor father worked, and took his first steps on the stage at the age of 6. She continued her schooling and even embarked on international studies, in Montreal then in Copenhagen. “At that time, I said to myself that it would be nice to be able to continue making cinema while learning about life outside of the industry,” she explains. “I was at a somewhat unusual university, where group work was widely emphasized. It allowed me to exchange, debate and develop a critical outlook on the world. I was able to construct my ideas. In particular, I had courses on discourse analysis which taught me to ask myself questions. This is above all what the university offers: a space where we can ask questions. It’s useful in cinema as in life in general.” But Galatea returns to comedy thanks to his sister, Alba Gaiawho is a real source of inspiration for her: “When I saw him play in 3 x Manon [une mini-série télévisée française de Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, ndlr], a few years ago already, it was incredible. I saw her in another life, through another character. I said to myself that I would love to do that myself.”
In 2018, Galatea Bellugi touches the French public thanks to its unusual role in The Apparition of Xavier Giannoli, which earned her a nomination for the César for Most Promising Actress. Later, she definitely enters our hearts by portraying the juvenile double ofEva Ionesco In A golden youth. At 26 years old, Galatea Bellugi is one of the great promises of French and European cinema, since it also accepts Italian scores. The first time is for the rest of the invisible boy of Gabriele Salvatores. The second is in Amandaa sensitive and irresistibly absurd film from the director Carolina Cavalli. The last one is in Gloria!, where she plays Teresa, a young woman who transforms the world around her into joyful, unifying and surprisingly modern music for its time. Indeed, the story takes place in the 18th century, at the Sant’Ignazio Institute in Venice. A sort of convent for orphaned musicians, the institution confines young women under the orders of the choirmaster Perlina. As the Pope prepares to visit them, he is entrusted with the commission of an exceptional concert. Faced with pressure and a lack of inspiration, he was quick to transfer his exasperation onto the musicians, who would redouble their creativity to grant themselves the little freedom within their reach.
From the love of the first films
What fascinates Galatea Bellugi In Gloria!, it is the desire to carry the message of its director. Like many actors, this is often what leads her to accept a role. Through his film, what is the filmmaker trying to tell us? What was the force that led him to write his work? For Margherita Vicario, it is a question of retracing the history of forgotten Italian and European composers, and in particular of the choir girls of the orphanages of Venice, in order to rethink the place of women in music. An author, composer and performer herself, she has taken care to create an ambitious first feature film, drawing as much from the repertoire of period films as from that of fantasy. Above all, she likes to imagine sequences like theater scenes, where the music mixes with the singing and dancing of her actresses, all prepared to form this group of united sisters and to slip into the shoes of excellent musicians . Besides, Margherita Vicario co-signed the very dynamic, and frankly delightful, original soundtrack of Gloria!. “Even today, women who write their music are much less known than men. Just open Spotify to see it. And unfortunately, it’s not just in music that we see this. It’s in science, in cinema and in many different fields. There are so many women who have been pushed aside”explain Galatea Bellugi. She adds : “Margherita gave us the reasons why she was making this film. It brought another dynamic to the team because we all wanted to deeply defend what we were doing.”
