ROME – “For a long time the cinematic narration of an Amab woman (Assigned Male At Birth, ed.) has always been altered by prejudice, adding nothing to the awareness of those who then watched that story. Today it is important to tell this type of stories, which do not have the presumption of wanting to normalize someone or something, because there is nothing to normalize. This story simply wants to tell a story. life that is the same as many other lives and the gender aspect of the protagonist does not make her a better or worse person than the others”. Thus Vittoria Schisano to the Dire agency, on the occasion of the presentation of the Netflix series ‘The life you wanted’.
Available on Netflix, the series – created and directed by Ivan Cotroneo, who wrote it together with Monica Rametta, and produced by Banijay Studios Italy – brought on the screen “something that wasn’t there before. We wanted to shine a light on underrepresented characters and categories”, explained Cotroneo to Dire. “I really believe in the power of representation and I believe in the possibility that people who watch the representation ask themselves questions.” The character of Gloria “is outside the stereotypical clichés with which transgender people are described. In addition to not being marginalized and not being a sex worker – continued the director – Gloria is a happy woman and this thing here it is revolutionary because we are used to stories of unhappy people. And so I thought: why can’t boys and girls who have a problem with the gender they were born into and who want to embark on a journey have the representation of an Amab woman? fulfilled and happy?”. Cotroneo hopes that “the representation of a character like Gloria, who hasn’t existed until now, can say ‘this is the world too’“, he concluded.
Gloria is convinced that she has found happiness in Lecce, where she founded a small tourist agency and found love with Ernesto but, one day, her life is turned upside down by the arrival of Marina (Pina Turco), her friend at university in Naples, before Gloria began her transition journey. Marina brings with her Andrea (Nicola Bello) and Arianna, her children from two different relationships, and is pregnant with a third, whose father is Pietro (Alessio Lapice), a young man with a passionate and perhaps even dangerous character. Gloria would prefer not to reconnect with Marina, she reminds her of a part of her life that she would like to forget. However, Marina hides many secrets and Sergio (Giuseppe Zeno), Arianna’s father, will soon arrive on stage, a man of integrity who is immediately very wary of Gloria. For her, the time has come to deal with “the life she wanted”, her past and her future, to discover that happiness sometimes comes in unexpected forms and that love is the only force capable of make life worth living. The cast also includes Bianca Nappi, Francesco Pellegrino and Bellarch.