Maria Luisa Ceciarelli was born in Rome in 1931. But Monica Vitti a name built from the second half of her mother’s surname, Vittiglia was born twice: first as the muse of incommunicability, then as the queen of commedia all’italiana.

The first birth came in 1957, in a dubbing studio. Michelangelo Antonioni was searching for a husky voice for his film Il Grido. From the control booth he watched that young actress, a graduate of the Accademia d’Arte Drammatica, and murmured: “She has a beautiful nape she could work in cinema.” From that encounter came ten years of artistic and personal partnership, and four masterpieces that changed world cinema: L’Avventura, La Notte, L’Eclisse, Red Desert. The tetralogy of incommunicability. Monica Vitti became the face of existential anguish, Italy’s answer to the anti-rhetorical beauty of the Nouvelle Vague.

But inside the tormented woman of Antonioni’s films another actress was straining to break free. Mario Monicelli released her in 1968 with The Girl with a Pistol: Assunta Patanè, a Sicilian woman seduced and abandoned who chases her man all the way to London and discovers emancipation. This was the second birth. From that moment Monica Vitti held her own against the great scene-stealers Alberto Sordi, Vittorio Gassman, Ugo Tognazzi, Marcello Mastroianni, Giancarlo Giannini as no other Italian actress had ever done.

Five David di Donatello awards, three Silver Ribbons, a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at Venice in 1995. But above all: the love of an audience that recognised in her all Italian women fragile and immensely strong, neurotic and irresistible.

In this documentary, for the first time Monica Vitti lays bare her soul in a confessional interview of rare intensity. Donatella Baglivo enters into deep communion with the actress’s thoughts and memories, while the testimonies of other great figures complete the portrait of an unrepeatable artist.