Two screen legends, one tea party, and a lie that becomes art.
1957. ANNA MAGNANI is in America, invited to the ceremony of awarding the Oscars, and BETTE DAVIS does not miss the opportunity to meet her and invite her to her home for tea. With the help of an interpreter the two actresses exchange compliments and Davis, who is in possession of some films they have interpreted, proposes to Magnani to look at them together. The evening, however, will take an unexpected turn ... ANNA MAGNANI and BETTE DAVIS, they really met and exchanged confidant letters for years. Their meeting is the starting point for LA GRANDE MENZOGNA, to then become a bittersweet comedy about the life of the anomalous and “difficult” artists, shot partly in color and partly in black and white, in a perfect quote from the photography of the years films '50.
Cinematography
Gorgeous '50s color/black-and-white aesthetic shift.
Acting
Impersonations that capture essence, not caricature.
Production
Intimate scale, maximal period detail in 15 minutes.
Director
Carmen Giardina
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Magnani and Davis genuinely corresponded for years, though they never actually shared tea—Giardina invents the meeting they deserved.
The film operates as a 'what if' fanfiction elevated to art, joining a lineage of Italian cinephile tributes from Fellini to Moretti.
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