The Song of Aida (La chanson d'Aïda)

As a teenager, Aida dreamed of becoming a model and singer. Now in her thirties, she is trapped in an arranged marriage and feels stuck living in a shack in a Roma community in Bari, Italy. She suffers from depression, longs to leave her marriage and return to Romania, where living conditions are better. Shot over a twenty-year period, filmmaker Giovanni Princigalli offers an intimate portrait of one woman’s struggle for emancipation, providing insights into life in the deeply patriarchal and tradition-bound Roma community in Bari, Italy. Princigalli makes it clear from the opening sequence that the Roma community in Bari does not represent that of Roma in other parts of Europe today. 

Princigalli was born in Bari, Italy and studied Political Sciences at the University of Bari. His first film Japigia Gagi (Roma Stories) profiles the Bari community as he found it in 2001 and 2002. Song of Aida draws on footage from this early project as well as from visits in 2014 and in the early 2020s, when he focused on Aida’s story. This longitudinal view allows viewers to embrace Aida’s struggle as she finds her voice and independence from her family. The film also shows poetic animations that are used to illustrate the imagination of the protagonists.