Genre: Drama

Language: Italian with English Subtitles

Director: Ferzan Ozpetek

Cast: Barbora Bobulova, Andrea di Stefano, Lisa Gastoni, Massimo Poggio

Released: 2004

Duration: 114 Minutes

Rating: M contains offensive language and nudity

Distribution: Palace Films

Winner 2005 David Di Donatello Awards – Best Actress & Best set design plus 10 nominations; Winner 2005 Globi d’Oro (Italian Golden Globes) – Best Director, Best Actress, Special award

From the director of ‘Facing windows’ and Ignorant fairies’ comes a wonderful warm new drama, centering on a steely-hearted woman who inexplicably finds her redemption.

Irene (Barbara Bobulova) inherited from her father not only his successful real estate companies, but also his talent for business.

But when two of her close friends commit suicide following her buy-out of their company, Irene’s soaring self-confidence begins to crack, and she retreats to the family’s historic palazzo residence in central Rome, which she had originally planned to restructure.  In the room of her mother, who had died mysteriously when she was just a little a girl, Irene searches for the truth in the indecipherable words scrawled on the wall.  The spirit of her mother and an encounter with Beni (Camille Dugay Comencini), an unpredictable and surprising street kid, set the stage for Irene’s unlikely metamorphosis that leads to the film’s miraculous, surreal conclusion.

“‘Cuore sacro’ has a complicated message at its heart but weaves its plot, characters and its arguments ever so elegantly into a satisfying whole”  Boyd van Hoeij, Europeanfilms.net