Facing Windows

Facing Windows (La finestra di fronte, 2003) is an Italian melodrama by Ferzan Özpetek you can watch online on iFILM. Giovanna is worn thin by a factory job, two kids, and a marriage that went cold years ago.

Then her husband brings home a confused old man (Massimo Girotti) who has lost his memory. He's an irritation at first, but behind his silence sit a wartime love and a guilt half a century deep. Meanwhile Giovanna (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) keeps staring at the window across the courtyard, where a handsome neighbour, Lorenzo (Raoul Bova), seems to hold the life she never got.

Özpetek braids two stories — the old tragedy of Italy's Jews and the quiet unravelling of an ordinary woman — until the past starts answering the present. The film swept several David di Donatello prizes, Best Film and Mezzogiorno's lead performance among them. It's for viewers who like sensual European cinema about the pull between a dream and a vow. Stream Facing Windows (2003) online on iFILM.