Gioia Mia (Margherita Spampinato, 2025)

Gioia Mia (or: Sweetheart) is a sweet natured coming-of-age film, in which an eleven year old Italian boy from Rome gets to spend his summer vacation with his great aunt in Sicily.

Written and directed by Margherita Spampinato, Gioia Mia had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, which is often considered the fourth most important European festival (after Cannes, Venice and Berlin).

At Locarno, it won two awards: veteran actress Aurora Quattrocchi won the prize for best performance, while the movie also took home the Special Jury Prize CINE+.

Is the movie worth the accolades? Well, absolutely! It’s a little gem of a movie, which Spampinato based on her own childhood memories and tells its story in a very subtle way. It’s also very well acted, by both the older and younger generations of actors in the movie.

After a dreamlike opening scene the movie continues rather matter of factly when eleven year old Nico (Marco Fiore) is sent off for the summer by his unseen parents to his great aunt Gela (Aurora Quattrocchi), who has lived all her life in the same apartment in a small Sicilian village.

Immediately it’s clear that two worlds collide. Nico is glued to his mobile phone, doesn’t believe in taking afternoon naps and only wants to eat ‘normal food’, whatever that may be.

He’s also sad because he won’t be seeing his beloved Violetta (Camille Dugay Comencini) again, so his life is basically meaningless anyway.

Gela, for her part, may be ancient, but she’s not stupid, and she likes a challenge. The devoutly Catholic woman takes away Nico’s phone, makes him wear pyjama’s in bed and gives him a taste of proper Sicilian food.

The ebb and flow between Gela and Nico gives the film both heart and mileage, while it’s up to the supporting cast to add another dimension to the movie.

There’s a small group of children, led by the feisty Rosa (Martina Ziami), who live in the same building as Gela, and who are in the habit of entering various apartments, when the residents are out. Not to steal, just to snoop around a bit, and maybe look for ghosts.

Gela’s own circle of friends also talk about spirits a lot, but I’m not spoiling much by telling you that Gioia Mia is not a horror movie, in fact it’s more interested in the ghosts from Gela’s past that may or may not have something to do with why she never got married.

Nico dreams of one day kissing a girl, and even though Rosa and he get off to a rocky start, who knows, they may just end up liking each other a little more as the story progresses.

As usual with films like these, Gela and Nico can learn something from each other, and at the end of their month together Nico has certainly changed a bit, and probably for the better.

Gioia Mia is absolutely a summer movie, but most of the movie takes place indoors, in Gela’s apartment or in the central hall of the apartment building.

Visually, this leads to a fascinating interplay between dark and light, with Spampinato making the conscious decision to keep direct sunlight out of frame for most of the movie.

At least, until the carefully crafted story reaches a well-timed moment of crisis and Spampinato finds a reason to send her characters out on to the beach and into the sunlight - and then it’s richly and rightly glorious.

I give it four stars!

Note: After its world premiere in Locarno, the movie has played the international festival circuit, while also getting a theatrical release in some countries. It was released in Italy in December, it’s released in the Netherlands on February 26 and it will be released in Argentina in April.