Private Project

Molly Bloom

The film is a plunge into the heart, mind, and flesh of Molly, the main character of the final chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

It is the dead of night and Molly, in her bed, cannot get to sleep. Next to her face are the feet of her husband Leopold, who fell asleep upside-down and fully dressed. Molly’s voice, her irreverent, tragic, and childlike spirit, will lead us on a journey through her life and the people who inhabit it, whether living or imaginary. The present is then interwoven with a past that haunts her and a future that offers her what she feels she has lost, forever.

  • chiara caselli
    Director
  • chiara caselli
    Writer
    from "Ulysses" by James Joyce
  • Jacopo Quadri - Ubulibri
    Producer
  • Marta Donzelli and Gregorio Paonessa - Vivo film
    Producer
  • Beatrice Bulgari - In Between Art Film
    Producer
  • chiara caselli
    Key Cast
    lead actor
  • Matteo Cocco
    cinematographer
  • Enrica Gattolini
    editor
  • Paola Lo Sciuto
    costume designer
  • Barbara Bessi
    production designer
  • Antonio Barba
    sound
  • Marta Billingsley
    sound editor
  • Project Type:
    Feature, Short
  • Runtime:
    20 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    August 19, 2016
  • Production Budget:
    60,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Italy
  • Country of Filming:
    Italy
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    RED
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1.85
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • 73. Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica
    Venice
    Italy
    September 8, 2016
    world premiere
  • 19th Genova Film Festival
    genova
    Italy
    December 3, 2016
    critics award - given by S.N.C.C.I. (Union of Italian Film Critics)
  • Festival scope pro
    Montreal
    Canada
    December 14, 2016
    north america premiere
  • Moscow - Istituto Italiano di Cultura
    Moscow
    Russian Federation
    March 19, 2017
  • Premio Speciale Nastri d'Argento 2017
    Roma
    Italy
    April 20, 2017
    Premio Speciale Nastri d'Argento 2017
Distribution Information
  • Centro del Corto
    Country: Italy
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - chiara caselli

Born in Bologna, she is an actress, director and photographer.
She has acted, among others, for Michelangelo Antonioni, Liliana Cavani, Marco Tullio Giordana, Gus Van Sant, and Mia Handsen-Love.
In 2008 she began to exhibit her photography; in 2011 she was at the Biennale di Venezia, in 2014 her first solo exhibit in Tokyo. In 2018 she took part in the Moscow Photo Biennale, only Italian female photographer alongside Mimmo Jodice and Berengo Gardin.
She debuted as a director In 2000 with the short Per sempre, which was in competition at the 57a Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica di Venezia, and won the Nastro d’Argento Prize.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

The film is a plunge into the heart, mind, and flesh of Molly, the main character of the final chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses.
I was 12 when I first met Molly: she was Piera degli Esposti, playing Molly in the Bologna’s theatre where my mother brought me. Un indelible encounter. In that period I began to take photographs. It was only many years later that I fully grasped the connection with Molly, when the desire to convey interior life through images became the centre of my work as a photographer.
In 2010 I began my work, my journey into James Joyce’s text and Molly’s character. First the adaptation, then a stage reading, followed by a full play for the Festival di Spoleto. Molly was a body and a voice.
Now, through cinema, images can be added to the representation of interior life, crowded with voices and words, and crossed by visions evoked and evocative. A natural and necessary development.

Molly is an inexhaustable treasure, a gift for an actress. Vital despite her solitude, profoundly and carnally a woman, she is a universal image of humanity - mean, noble, and full of dreams.

“I have wept to see the beauty of the world passing like a dream behind her eyes...”
Writes Joyce of his wife, Nora, who inspired him for Molly’s character.
“But she’s much fatter” replied Nora.
I put her picture on Molly’s bedtable.