'Let's hold the cards like love notes': tomorrow 80 years ago

And it is intelligence that has guided Paola Cortellesi to surround herself with very good actors, first and foremost, Emanuela Fanelli, in the role of Marisa - a free and happily married woman unlike De' -, without fearing competition from a counterpart on the terrain of comedy, but on the contrary strengthening the interpretation of both. With them is Valerio Mastandrea, a crude and guasculine husband, with a cynical and fatal at times grotesque language; Giorgio Colangeli, the impeccable father-in-law Sor Ottorino, who is only tempted to further exhaust De', who in fact acts as his carer.

There is also intelligence in appropriating the lesson of the Commedia all'Italiana, without imitating it sterilely, but kneading it with the little moves of the mouth and almost imperceptible movements of the shoulders and arms that make Cortellesi a highly original mask in the noble sense of the Commedia dell'Arte. When, at the climax of Iva''s anguish comes close to bordering on the rhetorical, Cortellesi comes up with the gimmick of musical ballads. Iva''s plea for forgiveness to De' is consumed on the carpet of Nessuno, sung by Musica Nuda, while Iva' rediscovers a little gallantry with puppet moves. At first, the brutal transition from post-war swing to the songs of Dalla, Silvestri, Concato seemed a little brutal to the writer. But in the end it was clear that the songs are a long rope with which the director unites the women of the other century with those of today to thank them for having prepared the ground in times when one could do nothing other than be tenacious. Bravo to Cortellesi, who behind the camera continues in the vein of a civic-mindedness that characterises her entire career as a comedian, author, singer, actress, and imitator with the meticulousness that has accompanied her every sketch, song, or clapperboard.

Brava because the film won awards, but above all because it filled the theatres by word of mouth, proving that cinema is alive if the films are good, without necessarily waiting for an American landing. Bravo also for portraying a story of feminism without absolutism, recounting a woman who puts on lipstick not to flirt, but to kiss the Republic to come.

With a different grit there are other films about how women faced or fought for the right to vote. There is Sarah Gravron's Sufraggette from 2015, which chronicles the British feminist movement in the early 20th century, following the story of civil disobedience by some activists. In truth, Winifred Banks, Jane and Michael's mother in Mary Poppins was also a suffragette, but more of a caricature. Then there is Petra Volpe's Contro l'ordine divino (2017), set in Switzerland in 1971, where women are fighting for the right to vote at cantonal level.

There is a new way of making films, pioneered by Jane Campion, Kathryne Bigelow and, before that, Agnès Varda, Liliana Cavani, Lina Wertmuller, all the way up to Elvira Notari, forerunner of Neorealism. It is about women's view of the world through the big screen, which has brought a different angle to cinema, which for a long time was male-only, especially in Europe. Women had a hard time getting behind the camera, to remain at best superbly 'behind the scenes' as scriptwriters, like Suso Cecchi d'Amico. But now the wind has thankfully changed. Greta Gerwig's films from Lady bird to Small Women to Barbie have broken stereotypes, The Dark Daughter by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sister by Ursula Meier have spoken of 'bad' motherhood and Without Evidence by Béatrice Pollet of denied motherhood. Women's bodies and forbidden ageing were theorised and terrorised by The substance by Coralie Fargeat. Chantal Ackermann in the 1970s taught us radicalism. In Italia we have new names we are proud of, Alice Rohrwacher, Maura Delpero, Susanna Nicchiarelli, Valeria Golino, Emma Dante.

The Venice International Film Festival signed in 2018 the 50/50x2020 Charter, promoted by the Women in Film, Television & Media Italia movement, to make a concrete commitment to gender equality. In 2020 the festival was supposed to achieve parity in attendance between female directors and directors but we are still a long way off.

According to research by the European Audiovisual Observatory, the share of professional women in European film production between 2019 and 2023 is still far from parity: female producers are 31%, as are female editors; female scriptwriters 29%; female directors 25%; female cinematographers 12%; female composers 10%.

At the end of There's Still Tomorrow the (male) polling station president invites the women to remove their lipstick so as not to invalidate the ballot by licking the glue that must seal it. Today that glue is gone and the lipstick we can comfortably keep. All that is missing is parity in numbers: but there is still tomorrow.