ILARIA BORRELLI
Actor, director, screenwriter, producer, writer, wife and mother. It’s Ilaria Borrlli. Born in Naples, Italy, she began her journey into the art world from a young age by studying piano at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome, where she graduated in 1987.She then began studying Architecture at Rome’s Sapienza University, but her passion for acting led her to quit Architecture to study acting at Silvio D’Amico’s Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome, and later in Paris at Corinne Blue Actor’s Studio Method.
She became an actress in theatre and television and after an important career on stage, the restless and creatively uNanatisfied Ilaria decided to move to New York and attend The New School where she also received her degree in film production and continued her studies in production, as well as acting with Susan Betson of Actor’s Studio.
After a short hiatus participating in a major French TELEVISION production, she starts making her own films as a director.
The fact that she became a mother of two made her particularly aware, as she focused on the violence that children must suffer in our time. This changed her approach to life and she felt she had to project these stories through movies.
Borrlli, through her films, tries to awaken and raise public awareness of humanitarian issues, such as forced marriages and child prostitution.
Her film “Talking to the Trees” follows the story of Mia, a photographer from Italy who travels to Cambodia to surprise her partner, Xavier, who works there. When he arrives, he discovers that Xavier is exploiting the area’s child prostitution ring and Mia tries to save three girls, victims of the ring.
“Talking to the trees” had the full support of UNICEF and the United Nations. Borelli’s aim is to make known to the general public the conditions under which underage girls are forced to live in the poorest regions of the world.
The film, a real slap in the face, that leads us from our lives to the prosperity of the Western world that we are fortunate enough to have and leads us straight to the hell of a Cambodian state, where prostitutes are children as young as 11 years old, forced to live the daily horrors of all forms of sexual abuse, without escape.
Talking to the Trees (2012), (Talking to the Trees) received many accolades, including best film LOS ANGELES WOMEN INTL, as well as many other nominations at the Montreal Film Festival and the Madrid International Film Festival.
Her films include: Mariti in Affitto (2004), (Husbands for Rent) Come le Formiche (2007), (Like Ants), 2013 “FROZEN SOULS” short film about the war in Afghanistan, which was named best war film at the American International Film Festival.
He has written many scripts for films, worked as a director in theatre and in Italian and French television.
From 1999 to 2007, Borrlli published four novels, awarding major literary prizes.
Both in her books and in her films she depicts the modern frame of gender relations, highlights the paradoxical pressure of social roles and the
oppression of the female sex. It is taught through its work against societies that culturally and socially control women and sometimes treat them as inferior beings. It breaks social norms and opposes the religious and social status of third countries, which oblige thousands of girls to be blackmailed, to marry minors (8-12 years old) of whom a large number die of internal bleeding on the first night of their marriage. The most “lucky” live with indelible marks on their soul and body. This will also be the theme of the next film, the forced marriage that will be shot in the desert of Egypt soon.
She supports emancipated principles for equality and peace, fights against the violent patriarchal family and has been awarded for her work and the dynamic voice she articulates through her actions.
Ilaria Borrély lives permanently in Paris, is married and has two children.
