June 2, 1946. A date that sees Italian women acquire the right to vote for the first time (without lipstick, so as not to dirty the card that had to be wiped and pasted) and become an active political subject.

The voices of the women who voted for the first time in Italy in 1946 were collected by an archivist and a visual anthropologist, Emanuela Mazzina and Silvana Profeta, in a documentary film, No lipstick, that reactivates the memories of a generation marked by fascism and war. Stories of life different for culture, social class, region of origin, enrich the “official” representation of history with many individual narratives.

“Go to vote without lipstick!” was a famous recommendation addressed to women in the Italian press. The ballots paper, if recognizables because of lips traces, would be invalidated. The documentary is named after this exhortation.  

More than twenty original video interviews, repertory materials and private film funds indagate the construction of the female imagination around the years preceding June 2

It’s not just the struggle for the right to vote That was beautiful because il was a victory for women. That we finally could vote. But it’s not just that. It’s what came after it’s what came after… that’s important. (Antonietta Zoradelli)E