SYNOPSIS

In Bologna’s working-class Pilastro neighborhood, inseparable best friends Gemma, Alex, and Lauriana are three wild seventeen-year-olds whose lives take an unexpected turn when a lip piercing seems to grant them mysterious superpowers. When Gemma gives birth, her mother insists on giving the baby up, convinced she cannot handle the responsibility. Refusing to accept this, the girls run away with the newborn, using their newfound powers to escape. What begins as a reckless flight soon becomes a transformative journey, forcing them to confront the true weight of their powers. A powerful message for all women: we must learn to embrace our own “superpowers” in order to finally take our lives into our own hands.

DIRECTOR'S NOTES

Piercing is an independent film that aims to reach festival screens and the hearts of audiences. Like its protagonists, it is a film free from stereotypes and challenges genre conventions: it is a story of superheroines who do not want to save anyone, set in the working-class suburbs of northern Italy, yet one that does not dwell on the clichés of social deprivation. It also incorporates a supernatural element which, rather than veering towards an American-style comic-book narrative, keeps the film firmly rooted in the tradition of contemporary European cinema.

As a screenwriter and director, my aim is to create an irreverent, multi-voiced coming-of-age story – a pop-inspired tale brimming with girl power – in which both daughters and parents find themselves on a journey of personal growth. The central theme, in fact, is the changing perception of femininity amongst the younger generations. The film’s main conflict, conveyed through the metaphor of superpowers, is that between the protagonists and their mothers, who have subordinated their own identities to oppressive and unjust social norms.

The very young girls, however, have no cultural constraints to intimidate them and do not impose any self-imposed limitations on their use of power. They will, however, have to learn to manage it and to reconcile with their parents. The all-female cast of protagonists is therefore the cornerstone of the story and its beating heart. In *Piercing*, it is the girls who speak, who hold the power and who drive the narrative forward.

BIO

Margherita Ferri is an Italian film director and screenwriter whose visual style is deeply rooted in the atmospheres of provincial Italy. After earning a degree in Communication Studies at the University of Bologna, she studied film at UCLA in Los Angeles and graduated in Directing from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, training with Paolo Sorrentino and Marco Bellocchio.
Her early award-winning short films — Violacielo, Ramiro, 20 mg, and AIKO — were screened at major Italian festivals. Passionate about documentary storytelling, she directed Quel treno speciale per Pechino and Under My Skin, finalist at the Solinas Prize, and curated the film section of the Gender Bender Festival.

In 2013 she directed Generazione d’azzardo and the web series STATUS (winner at Milano Film Festival). Her short documentary Odio il rosa! (2017), selected in over 30 festivals, anticipated the themes of identity later explored in her debut feature Zen sul ghiaccio sottile (2018, Biennale College Cinema, Venice Film Festival).
As a screenwriter, she received a Special Mention at the Tonino Guerra Prize for The Nest (Locarno 2019). She has directed episodes for ZERO (Netflix), Bang Bang Baby (Prime Video), and Home Sweet Rome (HBO Max), as well as documentaries for Rai 3. Her recent works include Cerchi (2024, Biografilm) and the feature film Il ragazzo dai pantaloni rosa (2024, Rome Film Fest).

CAST

Gemma  BEATRICE SAVIGNANI
Alex  ALICIA ANN EDOGAMHE
Lauriana  LISA PIRES LIMA
Elena  BARBORA BOBULOVA
Beatrice  THONY
Enrico  FRANCESCO COLELLA
Mo  SAMUELE CARRINO
Daniel  GIACOMO COVI
Johnny  ANDREA ARRU
Cristian  SAMUELE SBRIGHI