Mainstream Film ‘Diva Futura’ Depicts 4 Decades in the Italian Adult Industry

VENICE — Mainstream fiction film “Diva Futura” premiered this week at the Venice Film Festival, offering a look at four decades in the Italian adult industry.

The film, directed by Giulia Louise Steigerwalt, centers on the history of prominent Italian adult agency Diva Futura, a joint venture by industry veteran Riccardo Schicchi and one of the country’s most renowned adult performers and celebrity politicians, Hungarian-Italian Illona Staller, who performed as Cicciolina.

Actors Pietro Castellitto and Eva Henger portray Schicchi — from whose perspective the film is narrated, using as source material Debora Attanasio’s “Don’t Tell Mom I’m a Secretary” memoir — and Ciccionlina. The film then goes on to develop Schicchi’s story through his relationships with Moana, Attanasio and Eva Henger.

“The sun-dappled warmth and sumptuous compositions of director Giulia Louise Steigerwalt’s filmmaking reflects the agency’s ambition to find exquisite what is labeled grotesque by the moral arbiters of the era,” wrote IndieWire’s Leila Latif, who saw “Diva Futura” at its debut Venice Film Festival screening

Steigerwalt’s focus, Latif added, “is on depicting how Schicchi’s vision for his company was born out of a pure, sweet desire to make its subjects ‘beautiful forever,’ fortified further when he and Attansio reject the market’s hunger for more brutal material.”

“Diva Futura” is currently seeking international distribution.