“In David Lean's Summertime, Katharine Hepburn complains to her married lover that she must share him with his wife and family. He replies: ‘We all want steak, but often there is only macaroni.' Peter Keglevic's first feature film, Bella Donna, is about learning to be happy with macaroni, about the accommodations made necessary in the face of dreams, about making it through each night (and by extension through life) with some dignity. It is less sad than melancholy, with moments of ecstasy, comedy and tenderness. The characters are: Lena, a cafe singer who specializes in songs Marlene Dietrich and Zarah Leander made famous, in love with two men; Fritz, a young saxaphone player, uncouth, hypocritical and a slave of romantic myth; Max, married to Lena but willing to do anything--including helping her enjoy her ‘infidelities'--to keep her next to him; Flo, a friend of Lena's who must learn to accept that her cancer is incurable; Jutta, a former stand-in for Dietrich whose dreams of glory and romance are past but who continues in the belief that life makes sense--especially when her bella donna makes her eyes shine. The setting is Berlin during a scorching summer. Keglevic has described his film as a ‘melancholic operetta, because the characters continually act out great emotion; as a result, they are frequently funny. This melancholy produces an overwhelmingly positive feeling.' David Overbey, Toronto Film Festival, 1983