Gioia Mia meets the public: two Italian festivals celebrated in November
Gioia Mia, the first feature film by Margherita Spampinato, whose rights were recently acquired by Ondina Studio, will be celebrated in France with two preview screenings: at the Dolce Cinema festival, the Grenoble and Isère Italian Film Meetings, and at the Ajaccio Italian Film Festival.
In November 2026, the film will be presented in several cinemas in the Grenoble region and in Corsica, as part of these two events dedicated to Italian cinema. Several screenings will allow the audience to discover this work before its national release, scheduled for March 24, 2027.
Two festivals to discover Gioia Mia in preview
From November 7 to 29, 2026, Gioia Mia will be presented as part of Dolce Cinema – The Italian Film Meetings in Grenoble and Isère. The film will stop in several venues across the region, including Le Club in Grenoble, Fellini in Villefontaine, Jean Giono cinema in Clelles, and Méliès in Saint-Marcellin. A screening will also be organized for school groups.
The film will also be featured at the Ajaccio Italian Film Festival, taking place from November 7 to 15, 2026. Three public screenings are scheduled for November 10, 12, and 14, as well as two school screenings on November 9 and 13.
These first screenings are opportunities to introduce the film to different audiences and bring Italian cinema to French theaters.
A multi-award-winning film on the international stage
Since its premiere at the Locarno Festival in 2025, Gioia Mia has had a remarkable journey, with over 60 awards won worldwide.
The film stood out at the Locarno Festival 2025, where Aurora Quattrocchi received the Pardo for Best Performance, while the film won the CINÉ+ Special Jury Prize in the Cineasti del Presente section.
In 2026, Gioia Mia also won two David di Donatello awards: Best First Film for Margherita Spampinato and Best Leading Actress for Aurora Quattrocchi. It also received the Best First Work award at the Globi d'Oro, as well as the CineKindl Award for Best Film at the Munich Film Festival.
An international journey that reflects the reception of the film and the unique perspective of its director.
Margherita Spampinato, a new voice in Italian cinema
Also awarded the Women in Motion Emerging Talent Award 2026 by Kering, Margherita Spampinato is emerging as one of the new voices in Italian cinema.
With Gioia Mia, she delivers an intimate and warm first feature film, taking us into the heart of a Sicilian summer. The film follows Nico, an eleven-year-old boy accustomed to urban and hyperconnected life, who finds himself plunged into a radically different world—an ancient, feminine world, marked by rituals, beliefs, and superstitions.
From this encounter between two generations and two ways of inhabiting the world emerges a coming-of-age story that is tender, funny, and moving. Through the eyes of her young protagonist, Margherita Spampinato paints a sensitive portrait of childhood and transmission.
Catch it in theaters in March 2027
Ondina Studio is delighted to support this first feature film and to introduce the French audience to Margherita Spampinato's unique perspective.
Gioia Mia — A film by Margherita Spampinato.
In theaters from March 24, 2027.
Cast note:
Gioia Mia is a film of summer, childhood, and transmission, carried by a duo as funny as it is moving: a child who thinks he knows everything about the world and an old woman who seems to belong to a vanished world.
With Gioia Mia, the director delivers an intimate and warm first feature film: the Sicilian summer of an eleven-year-old boy, urban and hyperconnected, plunged into an ancient, feminine world, filled with rituals, beliefs, and superstitions. The film turns this clash between present and past into a coming-of-age story that moves and amuses.
A tender and luminous comedy about childhood, the bonds formed where we least expect them, and those summers that, without us realizing it, stay with us for a lifetime.