Greta Gerwig’s Barbie may be the most financially successful movie ever to be directed by a female filmmaker, and the highest-grossing film of 2023. But it was beaten at the box office in Italy by another film, also made by a woman and speaking directly about the female experience.

There’s Still Tomorrow (C’è Ancora Domani), by 50-year-old actress, writer and singer Paola Cortellesi, is now being released across Europe, including the UK. It became a phenomenon in Italy last year, taking more money than both Barbie and Oppenheimer.

As of last month, it had made around £31.5m in cinemas, was the country’s biggest film of 2023, and the most successful film ever directed by an Italian woman.

Cortellesi tells BBC News that she still can’t quite believe its success.

“No-one could ever have predicted the wave of participation and affection from audiences over this movie,” she says.

“I’ve been an actress for nearly 30 years, and I’ve written scripts for the last 10 years, now I’ve made my first film aged 50. And to share the screen and the box office with a huge film like Barbie, that also deals with the experiences of women, it’s got to be a good thing.”

Part of the reason There’s Still Tomorrow might have struck such a chord in Italy, however, is that the heroine, Delia, (also played by Cortellesi) suffers violent physical and emotional abuse by her husband. In the film, Delia is a housewife and mother living in poverty in post-war Rome in 1946, the year Italian women first got to vote.

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