“The impetus to make this film was better to understand the consequences and complexities of the theme of abandonment, which I have dealt with in my own life, and which is something that I recognize is at the center of most of my creative explorations,” says Italian-born director and writer Andrea Pallaoro, talking about his latest film, Monica, about to be seen in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

Pallaoro’s work as a filmmaker focuses primarily on the exploration of women’s feelings and emotional journeys. Monica tells the story of a daughter (Trace Lysette) who comes back home after a long absence to care for her ailing mother (Patricia Clarkson), and to confront the wounds from her past.

Monica is a transgender woman who has been living in Los Angeles for years with no contact at all with her original family: we’ll eventually learn that she was kicked out of the house when she was 15. One day, Monica receives a call from her brother’s wife Laura (played by Emily Browning), who tells her that her mother Eugene (Clarkson) is dying; although reluctantly, Monica decides to go and help her.

Monica’s brother, Paul, is played by Joshua Close, who will soon be seen with Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon. Monica also features Adriana Barraza, who has already worked with Pallaoro in his debut film Medeas. Trans actor Lysette is well known for her role of Shea in the TV series Transparent and films like Hustlers, with Jennifer Lopez.

“During the past few years, my own mother’s illness has compelled me to confront my past and the psychological effects of loss,” continues Pallaoro, 40 (born in Trento, Italy), known for his Medeas (2013) and Hannah (2017), all written with Orlando Tirado. “My mother was diagnosed with a degenerative disease about six years ago. It’s not Alzheimer’s, but it’s a disease that has very similar characteristics.”

Monica explores the complexities of self-worth, the deep-rooted consequences of rejection and the lengths we go to heal our wounds.

“Through a cinematic language that stems from the juxtaposition of the aesthetics of intimacy and alienation,” Pallaoro explains, “my creative team and I delved into Monica’s inner emotional and psychological landscape to reflect the precarious nature of self-identity when challenged by the need to survive and ultimately transform.”

The mother in the film started to have dementia at 67, a very early onset; this has forced the filmmaker to explore these subjects from that perspective and, he adds, “to see some connections with the lives and the experiences with some friends of mine, especially one, a woman, transgender, whom I met when I first came to Los Angeles, and who became a very, very close friend of mine. I lived with her for about three months. I shouldn’t say that her story is the story of Monica, but it’s one that I feel has inspired it.”

It is for this reason that the main character in the film is transgender. “When we see trans characters on screen, the story usually focuses on their transition from one sex to the other,” observes Pallaoro. “Our film is not trying to do that; ours is more an exploration of the inner life of a woman who happens to be transgender.”

Producer Eleonora Granata-Jenkinson agrees during our three-way interview via Zoom: “In some ways this is a post-transgender film, because the body that Trace Lysette inhabits is 100 percent female, and there is no question about the fact that she’s a woman. Trace is a very famous transgender actress and we cast a huge net to find someone who really was able to convey the very deep emotions without being too obvious.”

The filmmakers insist that Monica is not a transgender film where there is a big revelation, along the lines of, “my name was Jonathan and now I am Jane”. “There’s nothing of that,” says Granata-Jenkinson. “There’s no other film that examines the journey of someone who is absolutely 100 percent a woman, who respects herself, who feels at peace in herself, who behaves as she behaves, and doesn’t have the big revelation moment of, ‘Oh, this is what happens when you change and this is how people accept you’. There is none of that.”

Director and producer hope that the film will put Lysette definitively on the map, and believe that she’s going to be the first transgender woman who will really achieve the status of best actress, “because she is an actress and does a phenomenal, beyond good performance throughout, with Andrea’s guidance,” says Granata-Jenkinson.

The production had 30 different candidates for the role of Monica, and they looked for casting not only in the US but all over the world: they screen-tested actors from South Africa, Australia and the UK. Trace Lysette is from Ohio, and by a fortunate coincidence the film was also shot in Ohio. A good omen for Pallaoro and his team.