Shelter Me (Riparo)

There’s something really special about the experience of watching a movie with subtitles. You automatically transform from couch-dwelling TV-watcher to a connoisseur of the arts who has been whisked away to a foreign land. Subtitles also make you pay attention – the laptop has to be put away and the magazines put down…the focus is now on the story unfolding in front of you. In Shelter Me, the story being told was in Italian, and it was anything but a typical lesbian film.

Shelter Me stars Maria De Madeiros and Antonia Liskova as a lesbian couple who, when the movie begins, are just returning from a vacation abroad in Tunisia. De Madeiros plays Anna, the obvious head of their household. (For those who think she looks familiar but can’t figure out why, De Madeiros appeared opposite Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction, where she played his sweet little girlfriend who had an affinity for potbellies.) Not long into the film and it is already very clear that Anna is the solid, mature, and more stable of the two women and that Mara (Liskova) isn’t quite as together – she lost her wallet twice in the first five minutes of the movie. Things get complicated for the couple when, while going through customs to get back into their country, Anna discovers that they have a stowaway in their car. She decides not to tell Mara until after they have crossed the Mediterranean and from there everything changes between the two.

Mounir Ouadi plays Anis, the young Moroccan with a strong desire to live and work in Europe who snuck into their car by paying the staff at the hotel where the two women were staying in Africa. Anis is adorable, completely alone, and helpless so Anna decides to take him in, against Mara’s wishes. Mara allows Anis to live with her and Mara and gets him a job at her family’s business – where Mara also works. It soon becomes clear that Anna has a history of taking in strangers (sheltering them) as we learn that she did the same for Mara.

But Shelter Me isn’t just a movie about a nice Italian woman who helps those in need. When things begin to come unraveled between Anna, Mara, and Anis the film becomes a warning of what can happen when one person tries to control things around them, even when they have the best of intentions, learning that they cannot fix everything for everyone.

Shelter Me was beautifully shot with excellent acting and well developed characters. The relationship between the two women, where there was clearly great love, was handled realistically and honestly in its depiction of how sometimes, no matter how important someone is to you, you can’t stop yourself from doing something that will hurt them.

Cherrygrrl gives Shelter Me 4 cherries: for being a film that featured lesbians, without being a lesbian film, and taking on a subject that applies to everyone.

This film is available from our friends at Wolfe Video by clicking here!

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