Valeria Golino, Queen Of Open Roads 25, On Her 4 Fab Films [VIDEO]

This year’s Open Roads Regina (Queen) is Valeria Golino, who appears in four of the 15 films being screened, delivering a quartet of varied, potent and nuanced screen portrayals.

In Mario Martone’s Fuori she etches a fascinating portrait of celebrated Italian writer Goliarda Sapienza, opposite Matilda De Angelis as her capricious friend and jail buddy. Golino also worked five years on adapting Sapienza’s novel, The Art of Joy, for television.

Ludovica Rampoldi’s sly feature debut, A Brief Affair (Breve storia d’amore) deftly casts Golino as a no-bullshit therapist who is quite unapologetic about her infidelity.

She plays a grieving mother taking a criminologist to task in Leonardo Di Costanzo’s unsettling film, Elisa, which premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival.

And in Nicolangelo Gelormini’s La Gioia, she frumps herself up so she’s virtually unrecognizable as the spinster teacher who falls for a young student (an impressive Saul Nanni) and is then swindled by him. This wonderful and disturbing dark comedy also bowed at the 2025 Venice Film Festival.

You can read more about all four films HERE.

Golino made her big U.S. splash when she starred in the Oscar-winning 1988 Barry Levinson film, Rain Man, opposite Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. She had already made a handful of Italian films and won a several accolades including the Best Actress Award at the 1986 Venice Film Festival (now, the Volpi Cup) for A Tale of Love . She would go on to win that award again almost 30 years later for her work in For Your Love.

Rain Man led to American movies like Hot Shots!, The Indian Runner, Hot Shots! Part Deux, Leaving Las Vegas and Escape From L.A., into the 1990s.

But her greatest work would be in her return to Italian cinema, beginning with her extraordinary performance in Emanuele Crialese’s Respiro which bowed at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and won the Critics Week Grand Prize.

Subsequent film credits include Mario’s War (2005), Texas (2005), Quiet Chaos (2008) and Human Capital (2013).

She made her directorial debut with the celebrated film Honey (Miele) in 2013, and went on to helm Euphoria which screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.

Golino was recently featured in Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2018), Volare (2019), The Beautiful Game (2024) and Pablo Larrain’s Maria (2024).

She has been nominated for over 30 David Di Donatello Awards (Italy’s Oscar) as lead and supporting actress, writer, director and producer, winning four—two for Supporting Actress (Human Capital, 5 is the Perfect Number), one for writing (The Art of Joy) and one for lead actress (Mario’s War).

Her TV credits include, Julius Caesar (2002), In Treatment (2013) and The Morning Show (2021).

Upcoming, she just wrapped Marco Perego’s Petrichor with Isabella Rossellini, Tommaso Ragno and Lorenzo Zurzolo as well as two films with Alessandro Borghi, Gianni Amelio’s Nessun dolore (No Pain) and Roberto De Paolis’ Da tenere bene a mente (Worth Keeping Well in Mind).

Open Roads runs through June 4th. For more info and/or tickets visit Open Roads.

The Contending had the absolute pleasure of a VIDEO chat with Golino, while she was in New York for Open Roads.