THERE’S STILL TOMORROW (C'è Ancora Domani)

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Storyline (warning: spoilers)

Trigger warning: domestic violence
This bold, bittersweet tale of spousal violence, directed by and starring Italian national treasure Paola Cortellesi, topped the country’s box office last year where it outgrossed Barbie and Oppenheimer. Closer to home, it was the winner of the Sydney 2024 Film Festival.
Set in the scarred remnants of Rome following the second World War, There’s Still Tomorrow is an overtly saccharine working-class drama that’s equal parts funny and stone-cold serious.
The film is a feminist appraisal of an industrious heroine who escapes a life of misogyny and domestic abuse. It sounds bleak, but its frequently facetious tone is apparent right from the opening scene, where Cortelessi’s Delia strolls through the streets of Rome to a punk-rock backing track from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
Welcome to Delia’s world: a society grappling with the trauma of war, where American GIs patrol and men dominate the social order. Delia is a hero we know - our mother, our sister, our friend. A woman for whom dreams have given way to survival, and life is defined by a cruel husband and the weight of familial responsibility.
On the surface, There’s Still Tomorrow might sound like a fairly stock standard tale of female emancipation with a touch of camp, but we’re talking about a black-and-white film that channels post-war Italian neorealist cinema with dialogue spoken almost entirely in the Romanesco dialect of the 1940s. It’s far more Bicycle Thieves than Barbie.
There’s Still Tomorrow is a work of rare wit and enduring significance, deserving of every accolade and, most of all, your time.