Rosanna between the lines
"ROSANNA BETWEEN THE LINES" HAS BEEN SELECTED AT MIA MARKET 2025, in the "Italian Doc It Better" section.
Logline
After devoting herself to her family, Rosanna Bianchi at 57 earns a graphology diploma and publishes three books. Now that she is housebound, I decide to film her as she tries to understand others by analyzing their handwriting.
ENGLISH TITLE: Rosanna Between the Lines
GENRE: Creative documentary
CATEGORY: Portrait; Self-discovery; Graphology and human sciences; Personal and family memory
TARGET AUDIENCE: auteur documentaries; history and biographies; graphology students and professionals
RUNTIME: 78′- 52′
LANGUAGES: Italian (English subtitles)
ORIGINAL CONCEPT, SCRIPT, DIRECTOR: Pepi Romagnoli
CAST: Rosanna Bianchi Romagnoli; Pepi Romagnoli; Friar Fermino Giacometti (Director of the Italian Institute of Graphology, Urbino)
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY & CAMERA OPERATOR: Giuseppe Campo
EDITING: Giuseppe Campo
EDITING SUPERVISION AND GRAPHIC PROCESSING: Edoardo Maimone
AUDIO POST-PRODUCTION: Earound Studio, Matteo Maranzana
EDITOR AND SUPERVISOR POST-PRODUCTION: Edoardo Maimone
ARCHIVE VISUAL AND MEDIA RESEARCHER: Rebecca van Straten
Music:
L. van Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, Symphony No. 5, Piano Sonata No. 17, Sonata No. 23 “Appassionata”
R. Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries
W. A. Mozart: Don Giovanni
G. Verdi: Dies Irae
C. Debussy: Clair de Lune
M. Ravel: Boléro
F. Chopin: Fantasie-Impromptu, Op. 66
A. Vivaldi: The Four Seasons: Winter & Summer
J.S. Bach: Suite No. 3 “Air on a G String”, Toccata and Fugue in D minor
P. I. Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker: Dance of the Sugar Plum
Fairy: Call Me Baby (instrumental version)
Golden Land: Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Universit
Archival images and film excerpts courtesy of:
Bridgeman Archive; Alamy; Getty Images; Swedish Institute; Bergman Institution; Mahatma Gandhi Foundation; Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien; LaPresse / AP; NBC News Archive – Casa d’Aste Osentat (Donald Trump dedication); Guilbert Gates (Napoleon on horseback); Patrick Osborn, Supervisory Archivist, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (Marie Curie’s handwriting); Tourism Salzburg; The Kremlin; Pennsylvania Prison; I viaggi dell’Anto (Van Gogh asylum photograph); Danielle Coyle, Assistant Archivist, King County Archives; State Archive Confraternity of Sant’Anna
Producer: Michelangelo Pastore
Executive producer: Maurizio Santarelli
Italian rights: Michelangelo film Info@michelangelofilm.it
International rights: Aleksandar Govedarica aleksandar@symbiozfilms.com
Synopsis
Rosanna is my mother. Today she turns eighty-eight: I invite her on an imaginary walk through the woods where she used to take me as a child, and, like in a game, I ask her to guess which famous figures are hidden in the handwritten texts I show her…
Saints and revolutionaries, dictators and inventors, Nobel Prize – winning women, writers, musicians, painters – and even serial killers. Her discoveries are astonishing…
Letters, images, and footage alternate throughout our conversation, until, in search of the meaning that graphology has had in my mother’s life, I travel to Urbino where I meet Father Fermino Giacometti, the current president of the Italian Graphological Institute, and I uncover something about her I had never understood.
director's note
The documentary is, above all, a journey to discover who we are through the signs in our handwriting. But it also reveals who some of the world’s most famous people really were, beyond their public image, through the way they wrote.
It is based on the studies and books of Girolamo Moretti, an Italian Franciscan friar who in 1905 codified the “science of graphology”, that arises from the impulses of our brain.
His extraordinary work continues to help people who are struggling to understand themselves and to overcome their personal challenges.
