Emma Morano – L’ultima donna dell’800

Riccardo Bianco and Gerta Beqiri Tell the Story of Emma Morano

The meeting with Emma Morano is not just a simple interview — it is a brief but intense journey that lays bare her suffering and our own selfishness. Emma attracted the attention of media from all over the world, not only because she was the last living woman born in the 1800s, but also due to her unusual diet of raw meat and bananas.

But who Emma Morano truly was, how exhausted she had become from people like us — visiting her modest apartment with a barrage of often frivolous questions in the face of her immense fatigue — has never really been told.

For us, it was impossible not to notice it. Impossible not to confront our own selfishness, our hunger for a story, and realize the despair of this elderly woman who longed only for peace and quiet.

Emma seemed to be reciting a script, giving answers to questions we hadn’t even asked — recounting the violent husband she bravely escaped from, the child she lost too soon. But on the day we met her, Emma was tired. She played her part and stated her simple truth: she felt fine, but she couldn’t go on answering our questions — she no longer remembered anything from her youth.

Just outside her room, we could hear her complaining about our presence, even cursing us. It’s easy, then, to understand our discomfort — what was meant to be an interview became a somewhat forced encounter.

And yet, Emma’s reaction was completely natural — she could no longer bear to live in a body in decline, to recall distant memories now faded in her mind. The filmmaker of her memory plays back only the images of those moments that marked her most deeply, while her body groans under the weight of 117 years.

Still, once we met this woman — who had no extraordinary achievements beyond simply being born in the 19th century and having lived this long — we realized we had to step aside and allow Emma to live out her remaining years in peace.

We returned home with no answers to life’s big questions, but burdened with guilt. We had disturbed a weary person, someone exhausted from living in a body that had become a prison, no longer willing to respond to those of us searching for the secret to such longevity.