Synopsis
The Unknown Woman (La sconosciuta, 2006) is an Italian-French thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Giuseppe Tornatore — the director behind Cinema Paradiso — casts Kseniya Rappoport as Irena, a Ukrainian immigrant who arrives in a small northern Italian town and pushes her way into the household of a wealthy family as their new maid and nanny.
Her reasons aren't explained upfront. Tornatore builds the film as a mosaic: Irena's careful maneuvering in the present cuts against flashbacks where she is trafficked and abused across borders. She works toward complete trust with the family's fragile young daughter, while Michele Placido and Claudia Gerini, as the couple, grow slowly uneasy about a woman whose past they cannot read. Pierfrancesco Favino appears in a smaller but pivotal role.
Rappoport picked up the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at Venice 2006, and it's the kind of performance that holds a fractured narrative together: ice-cold and devastated at the same time. Tornatore builds toward a revelation that reframes everything before it. Stream The Unknown Woman (2006) on iFILM.
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