AFFFF25: Being Maria

Australian Premiere

Based on Vanessa Schneider's book My Cousin Maria Schneider and informed by Back Home director Jessica Palud’s own experience working with director Bernardo Bertolucci, Being Maria is the true story of the actress' fallout in the wake of a film so lewd that she was criminally charged by Italian courts. 

1972: When 16-year-old aspiring actress Maria Schneider (Anamaria Vartolomei, Happening, AF FFF22) reconnects with the father and movie star who abandoned her as a child, she is kicked out of home. 

Distanced from her mother's controlling influence, she is drawn into the orbit of aspiring director Bernardo Bertolucci (Giuseppe Maggio), and cast alongside superstar Marlon Brando (Matt Dillon) in the salacious Last Tango in Paris, Bertolucci’s provocative new film inspired by his fantasies. However, this opportunity comes at a heavy cost. Despite only consenting to scripted nudity, Schneider is ambushed by an improvised scene of sexual assault devised by Bertolucci and Brando.

Being Maria is the powerful and damning exploration of the monstrous side of art, and the women left to pick up the pieces. In the wake of #MeToo, Palud poses a vital question: for women, is it ever truly just “show business”?