Daniela Ambrosoli
- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Daniela Ambrosoli, Swiss Italian, is associated with dance from birth. Her mother, the German Sonja Bragowa, danced in the twenties in Düsseldorf under the legendary choreographer Mary Wigman. Later Daniela accompanied her daughter through all steps of a ballet career: first as a small ice princess at the Losone ice rink 'Siberia', then to the leading schools in Zurich, Hamburg and Toronto - until a back injury ended the dream prematurely. Daniela Ambrosoli has retained her passion for dance to this day. She founded and runs in Switzerland one of the world's few foundations to support the training of young dancers all over the world. The Pierino Ambrosoli Foundation, Zürich 1990, is well known and acclaimed everywhere.
The collaboration with the Italian film director Renato Pugina, for documentaries of the RSI, and by her children, Aliocha Merker (camera man & photographer, Rome) and Shari Yantra Marcacci (photographer & director, LA), brings Daniela Ambrosoli into contact with the film world.
The Making of a Dream' is not her first film, but her most personal. The filmmaker Daniela Ambrosoli has condensed her lifelong passion for dance into a film about the microcosm of young people who give everything to become ballet stars. The one-hour documentary film accompanies them from the first childish steps to the limelight and to the last curtain, which the aging body often forces earlier than many are dear. Cinematographic works: cinema documentary "HN-Hermann Nitsch" (2009), about the famous Austrian artist, Hermann Nitsch, founder of the Viennese Actionism, and his Orgien-Mysterien-Theater as well as collaborations for several documentary films for RSI (The Radiotelevisione della Svizzera italiana).
"The Making of a Dream - Life as a Ballet Dancer" 2017 is a new documentary directed and produced by Daniela Ambrosoli. A cinematic essay about ballet, dance, young dancers and their lives. This documentary explores the difficult journey of discerning young people from the first steps in amateur dance schools to a career as the main dance performer in one of the world's most famous dance companies.
Many interviews were taken, with famous protagonists of the dance scene worldwide, such as the well-known dancer Etoile from The Scala in Milano, and Béjart's muse, Luciana Savignano and among others, with the Swiss actress Sabine Timoteo, a former dancer. The film crew visited several acclaimed companies and schools in Switzerland, The Netherlands, Italy, and in the USA Boston and New York.
From May 2018, "The Making of a Dream" was shown for six weeks at the Stüssihof Cinema in Zurich and is distributed worldwide by Taskovskifilms London. On November 11, 2018, the documentary "The Making of a Dream" was broadcast on the Ticino television channel RSI at 10.30 in the Paganini show.
In 2021 she completes her newest documentary "papa & dada". The film follows the question: How does starting a family actually "work" as a couple of two men and what does everyday family life look like? What are the particular obstacles, which are the challenges? The documentary "papa & dada" follows up on these questions and transports us into the world of the famous ballet dancer John Lam and his husband lawyer John Ruggieri. In the biggest possible openness, the two of them tell their story and grant an intimate insight into their everyday family life with their sons Giovanni and Santino in Boston. Complemented by the experiences and stories of other same-sexual couples and other companions from different parts of the world, the film draws a lovingly and unbiased picture of a family life of two fathers and leads the viewers to question such things as: What are the differences in comparison to the normal family unit of father-mother-child? What are the similarities? What actually defines a family? Where do we really stand when it comes to the acceptance of same-sex families?
The collaboration with the Italian film director Renato Pugina, for documentaries of the RSI, and by her children, Aliocha Merker (camera man & photographer, Rome) and Shari Yantra Marcacci (photographer & director, LA), brings Daniela Ambrosoli into contact with the film world.
The Making of a Dream' is not her first film, but her most personal. The filmmaker Daniela Ambrosoli has condensed her lifelong passion for dance into a film about the microcosm of young people who give everything to become ballet stars. The one-hour documentary film accompanies them from the first childish steps to the limelight and to the last curtain, which the aging body often forces earlier than many are dear. Cinematographic works: cinema documentary "HN-Hermann Nitsch" (2009), about the famous Austrian artist, Hermann Nitsch, founder of the Viennese Actionism, and his Orgien-Mysterien-Theater as well as collaborations for several documentary films for RSI (The Radiotelevisione della Svizzera italiana).
"The Making of a Dream - Life as a Ballet Dancer" 2017 is a new documentary directed and produced by Daniela Ambrosoli. A cinematic essay about ballet, dance, young dancers and their lives. This documentary explores the difficult journey of discerning young people from the first steps in amateur dance schools to a career as the main dance performer in one of the world's most famous dance companies.
Many interviews were taken, with famous protagonists of the dance scene worldwide, such as the well-known dancer Etoile from The Scala in Milano, and Béjart's muse, Luciana Savignano and among others, with the Swiss actress Sabine Timoteo, a former dancer. The film crew visited several acclaimed companies and schools in Switzerland, The Netherlands, Italy, and in the USA Boston and New York.
From May 2018, "The Making of a Dream" was shown for six weeks at the Stüssihof Cinema in Zurich and is distributed worldwide by Taskovskifilms London. On November 11, 2018, the documentary "The Making of a Dream" was broadcast on the Ticino television channel RSI at 10.30 in the Paganini show.
In 2021 she completes her newest documentary "papa & dada". The film follows the question: How does starting a family actually "work" as a couple of two men and what does everyday family life look like? What are the particular obstacles, which are the challenges? The documentary "papa & dada" follows up on these questions and transports us into the world of the famous ballet dancer John Lam and his husband lawyer John Ruggieri. In the biggest possible openness, the two of them tell their story and grant an intimate insight into their everyday family life with their sons Giovanni and Santino in Boston. Complemented by the experiences and stories of other same-sexual couples and other companions from different parts of the world, the film draws a lovingly and unbiased picture of a family life of two fathers and leads the viewers to question such things as: What are the differences in comparison to the normal family unit of father-mother-child? What are the similarities? What actually defines a family? Where do we really stand when it comes to the acceptance of same-sex families?
