Sophia Loren returns to screen after 11-year absence, to play Holocaust survivor

The doyenne of Italian film stars, Sophia Loren, is returning to cinema after an 11-year absence. 

Now 86, but still trailing her legendary glamour, Loren stars in a new Netflix film, The Life Ahead, directed by her son, Edoardo Ponti. 

Loren plays Madame Rosa, a Jewish Holocaust survivor who helps raise the children of deceased sex workers, because she, too, was once a prostitute. She then strikes up an enduring friendship with Momo,
a 12-year-old Senegalese orphan who tries to steal her candlesticks.

The film is based on a novel by Romain Gary and is the second to be made – a 1977 film starred Simone Signoret as the eponymous Madame Rosa.

Following a premiere in Rome in October, Netflix will stream The Life Ahead on 13 November.

Loren, despite more than a decade off-screen,  “jumped at the chance” to play Madame Rosa, who, she says, reminded her of her own mother. She has worked with her son twice before, most recently on 2002’s Between Strangers.