Sandra is a 1965 drama film directed and co-written by Luchino Visconti, and starring Claudia Cardinale, Jean Sorel, and Michael Craig. A modern-day retelling of the Electra story, the film centers on the incestuous relationship between a young Italian woman (Cardinale) and her brother (Sorel), on her return to their ancestral home of Volterra. It premiered at the 26th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion.

Plot

Visconti's retelling of the Electra story starts with Sandra returning to her ancestral home in Italy. On the eve of an official ceremony commemorating the death of her Jewish father in a Nazi concentration camp, she revives a sexual involvement with her brother, which troubles her naive husband. The incestuous siblings determine to wreak revenge on their mother and stepfather, who supposedly denounced their father to the Nazis.

Cast

Title

The Italian title, culled from the poem "Le ricordanze" by Giacomo Leopardi, could be translated as "Glimmering stars of the Great Bear", and has a strong resonance with the movie's plot: English translation:

Production

The movie was shot on location in Volterra, a Tuscan town fifty miles southwest of Florence. Casa Inghrami and the Palazzo Viti were both used as settings for the family mansion there. It was initially reported that the principal actors would voice their own parts in the English-language version of the film. Ultimately though they were dubbed by others. This is the third of four films Claudia Cardinale made with Visconti, after Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Leopard (1963), followed by Conversation Piece (1974).

Awards

The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.