Writer-director-star Giada Colagrande makes her debut in the noirish erotic drama OPEN MY HEART (APRIMI IL CUORE). She plays Caterina, the younger sister of prostitute Maria, who has also raised her sibling since she was a two-year-old. Caterina is essentially imprisoned in the home of the... [More]

Writer-director-star Giada Colagrande makes her debut in the noirish erotic drama OPEN MY HEART (APRIMI IL CUORE). She plays Caterina, the younger sister of prostitute Maria, who has also raised her sibling since she was a two-year-old. Caterina is essentially imprisoned in the home of the pair, remaining there even when Maria brings home her clients. She is only allowed out for dance classes that Maria escorts her to and from. But when Caterina develops a relationship with a man at the dance academy, upsetting Maria's carefully balanced house and their abnormal sibling relationship, her sister becomes unhinged and possibly dangerous. Colagrande's film mixes disturbing sexual elements with traditional imagery (such as Maria's embodiment of the mother-whore dichotomy) taken from the Italian Catholic backdrop the work sets itself against. [Less]