Italian directer and writer Mitzi Peirone’s Taormina Film Festival opener Saint Clare employs a number of cues from the story of Joan of Arc, the 15th century warrior and martyr who believed that God had chosen her to lead France to victory in its long-running war with England.
Saint Clare is set in a small town where a solitary, young woman (Bella Thorne) is haunted by voices that lead her to assassinate ill-intended people and get away with it, until her last kill sucks her down a rabbit hole riddled with corruption, the trafficking of young women and visions from the beyond.
It’s based on Don Roff’s novel, Clare at Sixteen. Peirone, who took a crack at co-writer Guinevere Turner’s (American Psycho) version, explained, “The Italian in me had to bring European, Joan of Arc, had to bring history, had to bring Renaissance paintings and chiaroscuro,” to the film.
Rebecca De Mornay who plays Clare’s grandmother and a former Hollywood actress, told Deadline, “Joan of Arc has always been a real influence on my life… that she existed, that at 18 she was leading an army and that she talked to God and was misunderstood.” De Mornay added she has “always identified with her spirit.
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