Dormant Beauty

Streaming video - 2014

The issue of assisted suicide made national headlines in Italy when the decision was made to end the life of Eluana Englaro, after she spent seventeen years in a vegetative state. DORMANT BEAUTY shows how assisted suicide affects the lives of four characters struggling with their own beliefs. A senator, forced to vote for a law with which he profoundly disagrees, is torn between his conscience and his loyalty towards the leaders of his party. His daughter, a right-to- life activist, falls in love with an advocate for assisted suicide. A famous actress turns towards faith and miracle cures in the hope of bringing her daughter out of an irreversible coma, thus neglecting her son who longs for his mother's love. And the beautiful Rossa, l...ost in despair and determined to die, is saved by the young doctor Pallido and reawakens to life. These converging stories profoundly wrestle with the how to find meaning in life in the face of death. Winner of two prizes at the **Venice Film Festival**. *"With typical intelligence and complexity, director Marco Bellocchio weaves three stories around the politically hot topic of euthanasia, turning a real-life Italian national drama into engrossing narrative..." - Deborah Young, **Hollywood Reporter*** more