
Free love in "Diva Futura", as told by the cast of the new film
Life, birth and protagonists of the pornographic agency of Riccardo Schicchi and Ilona Staller
February 5th, 2025
These were the years of the first mobile phone. Scarface was hitting the cinemas, and the news pages were filled with the story of Emanuela Orlandi. The World Athletics Championships were taking place in Helsinki, and the U.S. probe Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to leave the solar system, while in Zurich, Swatch watches were entering the market. It was 1983, and on Via Cassia, in the northernmost part of Rome, the agency Diva Futura was born. Created by the minds of Riccardo Schicchi and Ilona Staller, the pornography company for people who were «amoral, but never immoral,» carved out a space among people's fantasies, offering the most magical and significant figures of Italian popular culture at the time. The term porn star did not exist before the visionary Schicchi coined it; he elevated women rather than oppressed them, enamored by their essence, which was far more accommodating and charming than that of men, and to which he was attracted for his entire life. A happy island during its years of existence, it faced continuous raids and investigations that eventually led to its closure in 2021, nine years after its founder's death. In 2024, Diva Futura is the film that premiered at the Venice Film Festival and is now set to arrive in Italian theaters, directed by Giulia Louise Steigerwalt, in her second film following her debut with Settembre. She brings together actors Pietro Castellitto, Barbara Ronchi, Denise Capezza, Tesa Litvan, and Lidija Kordic to portray the sensual and industrial world behind the public façade. Arriving in theaters on February 6, Diva Futura by Giulia Louise Steigerwalt will be distributed in more than three hundred cinemas by Piper Film.
«Diva Futura arrived in the wake of the 1970s revolution that had shaken up the conservative environment,» says Steigerwalt. «It represented a stronghold of Italian national-popular culture, with Cicciolina entering politics because, at the time, Pannella saw an affinity with the Radical Party, but also because it was a provocative act, a real break from what had come before. And, if we think about it, what the Honorable Ilona Staller proposed were issues that remain central today, from animal rights to the introduction of emotional-sexual education in schools.» Drawing inspiration from the book Don't Tell Mom I’m a Secretary by Debora Attanasio, who was Riccardo Schicchi’s secretary for ten years, both the literary work and its cinematic adaptation delve into the icons Moana Pozzi and Éva Henger. Steigerwalt, also the screenwriter, extracted those events so absurd they could only be real, using them as a starting point to explore the lives beyond the public and adult film scenes in which the artists of Diva Futura participated. As the director explains:
«I found an incredible story. Their goal was certainly to create scandal, but while sending positive messages such as female empowerment, never forgetting to do so with fun and irreverence. A world of pornography that contrasts with what happens today. Riccardo had about three hundred backdrops painted by real artists for his films because there was always an artistic intention behind his work. Therefore, even with our Diva Futura, we tried to elevate a trajectory that eventually fell but can serve as a point of reflection for looking at contemporary times and the different paths the porn industry has taken since.»
Indeed, this emphasis on the role of women and their importance was also noted by Ronchi, who plays Debora, the author of the book on Diva Futura’s members. «Debora saw the dream of free love and eroticism where women's pleasure was central,» Ronchi tells us. «If we think about it, they were the divas, the ones who became rich and famous. The men in the films with Cicciolina, Moana, or Éva are completely forgettable. There was an ideal of feminism that also passed through these figures. They were cultural icons, but they were also often ridiculed.» This belief, as Barbara Ronchi refers to it, was upheld throughout Schicchi’s life and is portrayed in the film by his actor, Pietro Castellitto. «It wasn’t just an ideology, but a necessity. From a young age, Riccardo was destined to create Diva Futura—it was his passion that shaped his entire existence,» Castellitto explains. «He invented a profession that didn’t exist. There was such naturalness in what he built, which also implied the freedom to fail. He took on this work with great avant-garde vision, facing difficulties and sacrifices. He created a world where people asked many more questions, and that was exactly his revolution. Especially if we think about today, where pornography only asks if you're eighteen years old.»
Thus, the film could not do without the very stars who drove its profits but, more importantly, the dreams of Diva Futura. While Tesa Litvan had the chance to interact with Éva Henger, asking her more than she could have hoped for, Denise Capezza had to embody the mystery surrounding Moana, who was incredibly fragile and reserved in her private life until her passing in 1994. «Portraying a mystery was complex,» Capezza explained. «She had such modesty in her emotions that she never revealed them. I had to convey the pain of not being taken seriously, of being elevated as a diva but marginalized when she wanted to do something else, whether it was writing books, acting in films, or entering politics [alongside Schicchi, she was the lead candidate for the Love Party from 1991 to 1994, ed.]. But she never spoke about this great suffering, which Debora, instead, witnessed firsthand and later recounted in her book. Like the immense disappointment she felt when she failed to win the mayoral election in Rome.» These were inner journeys that her colleagues also embarked on. «We have always seen Cicciolina as a colorful fairy, blue, yellow, or pink, but talking with Giulia, we wanted to show a side of her that the public didn’t know,» explains actress Lidija Kordic. «We wanted to explore her private life not as Cicciolina, but as Ilona.» Just as Tesa Litvan did with Henger. «When I met her, she made me feel like part of the family. For her, it was an exciting period of her life, though today she regrets certain aspects of her past. My goal was to capture this trust she felt towards others, as well as a deep sense of love.»