In 2021 italiana.esteri.it launched an ambitious project: Ritratti di donne, a gallery of ten short videos outlining a feminine Italy of great drive and personality, which successfully set out to tell the story of our country through the voices and stories of leading figures on the contemporary Italian cultural scene, including literature, art, music, cinema, theatre, archaeology, fashion and business.

This first edition will be followed by a second, even more topical one in 2022: Ritratti di donne 2 – Science , ten new clips of leading figures in Italian women’s research, technology and industry. To mark the occasion of Italian Research Day in the World, 15 April, the first 5 are being made available, while the remaining 5 will be published later in the year.

The series was produced in collaboration with the Premio Solinas and Dugong Films.

The first five female scientists of ‘Ritratti 2’:

SIMONA CELI graduated and obtained a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pisa. Since her undergraduate years, she has worked on tissue characterisation of the cardiovascular system and fluid dynamics, integrating numerical modelling and experimental work. In 2008 she founded the research laboratory BioCardioLab (bcl.ftgm.it) at the Ospedale del Cuore della Fondazione Toscana G. Monasterio. After a post-doctoral period at Yale University, she returned to Italy and since 2015 has been directing the BioCardioLab, coordinating its activities and research team. She participates in and coordinates numerous national and European projects in the field of medicine and bioengineering. Since 2017, she has been a member of the executive board of the Italian chapter of the European Society of Biomechanics and is an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Pisa. Since 2022, she has been a member of the scientific committee of the GISE Foundation for Research and Innovation in Cardiology.

RITA CUCCHIARA  is, since 2005, a Full Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. She is Director of the AIRI Interdepartmental Research and Innovation Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Scientific Director of AImageLab, a Research Laboratory in Computer Vision, Machine/Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Multimedia of the “Enzo Ferrari” Department of Engineering, as well as Scientific Advisor of the “AI Academy” in Modena, an initiative co-funded by the Emilia Romagna Region for research in Artificial Intelligence and technology transfer to local industries. Her area of research is mainly Computer Vision and Deep Learning, with over 350 publications on the topic. Rita Cucchiara received her degree in Electronic Engineering (1989) and her PhD in Computer Engineering (1993), both from the University of Bologna.

DONATELLA DE PASCALE has, since 2019, been Chief Technologist at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn and Director of the Department of Ecosustainable Marine Biotechnology.  She has participated in numerous European and national projects as a partner and as a coordinator. Her research activity is mainly focused on the isolation and characterisation of natural products of marine origin. She has published about 80 articles in international journals. She has been an Independent Evaluator for the European Commission since 2013 and is a member of several international networks and organisations focused on the sustainable exploitation of marine resources for biotechnological applications. For 11 years she was a researcher at the Institute of Protein Biochemistry, CNR, Naples. She graduated in Biological Sciences in 1992 from the University of Naples and received her PhD in Biotechnology in 2000.

BARBARA MAZZOLAI is Associate Director for Robotics at the Italian Institute of Technology – IIT where she is responsible for the Bioinspired Soft Robotics laboratory. She has a degree in Biological Sciences and a PhD in Microsystems Engineering. She is a pioneer in the interdisciplinary study of plants and their behaviour, and how it can be reproduced in technological applications. Mazzolai works on soft robotics inspired by nature. She is responsible for innovative and bold research projects, such as the European projects Plantoid, GrowBot, I-Seed and the latest I-Wood, with which she won prestigious European Research Council (ERC) funding in 2020.

ARIANNA TRAVIGLIA directs the Centre for Cultural Heritage Technology (CCHT) of the Italian Institute of Technology in Venice.  A researcher at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University (Sydney) from 2006 to 2015, she was also a lecturer in Computer Applications to Archaeological Management and Digital Humanities at Ca’ Foscari University from 2003 to 2019. She has been and is currently Principal Investigator of several projects funded by the European Commission and other international bodies related to the use of technologies for cultural heritage. She works as a consultant for the Council of Europe in the field of digital technologies and Artificial Intelligence for the protection of archaeological heritage. She is a member of the Executive Steering Committee of the Computer Applications in Archaeology (CAA) Association and serves as coordinator of the scientific and technical committee of the CDP Foundation.

THE CREATIVE TEAM

The Author  –  Annamaria Granatello President and Director of Premio Solinas, with which she has collaborated since ‘92. She is a creative producer and founded Arià Film – Creative Development Production, Apollo 11 and the Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio. She was Project Development Manager for E.T. Fiction, consultant for the Carisal Banking Foundation and Italian correspondent for Cinemed. She has worked in theatre and contemporary art, collaborating with RomaEuropa, Teatro Palladium and Tevereterno. Communication teacher at Herzog, Karta Bianca and Roma 3 University for the Advanced Training Course in “Economics and management of cultural heritage”. She was a Member of the Advisory Commission for Theatre for the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism in 2012 and 2013. In 1999 she published ‘Il mercato cinematografico italiano attuale e l’economia dell’esordio’ (The Current Italian Film Market and the Economics of Debut Filmmaking), for Lindau.

The Premio Solinas
It was created in 1985 in La Maddalena, Sardinia, in memory of Franco Solinas, a Sardinian writer and screenwriter, with the aim of highlighting the role of the screenwriter and underlining the strength of ideas and stories. 35 years since its creation, it is an essential reference It was created in 1985 in La Maddalena, Sardinia, in memory of Franco Solinas, a Sardinian writer and screenwriter, with the aim of highlighting the role of the screenwriter and underlining the strength of ideas and stories. Thirty-seven years after its creation, it is an essential reference point for authors, producers and industry on both the Italian and international scene and a permanent creative workshop with 144 audiovisual products made and distributed by the finalist and winning projects of the competitions: 125 films, 12 short films, 3 web series and 4 TV series pilots. Over the years the Award has been a partner of certain MEDIA Programs (SOURCES, ACE, EQUINOXE, ARISTA) and has worked closely with Mediaset, Rai International, Rai Cinema, Rai Fiction, Rai Play, Apollo11, trade associations, universities and the Italian Cultural Institute of Madrid, with which it worked to create the Solinas Italy-Spain Award.

Dugong Films

Dugong Films is a film production company founded in 2010, to develop projects by authors who express the contemporary world with an original gaze, pursuing creative work that crosses the boundaries between genres.
Dugong’s works have been screened at major festivals around the world such as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Locarno, Rotterdam, and in prestigious art contexts such as the Tate Modern in London, Art Basel, Moma, Maxxi and Venice Biennale.

Visuals by Julia Set Lab / Image Research Lab:

The images of the theme song and the covers are created by the Julia Set Lab studio with which Dugong Films has been collaborating for years through the creation of the Image Research Lab , a laboratory devoted to scientific research applied to the production of moving images.

Starting with the filming of phenomena ‘from life’, sequences of abstract and material images develop contemporaneously, comparable to multiple scenarios concerning the shapes and movements of nature, shot in various observation scales.