A crumbling Venetian palazzo hides two men, one manuscript, and a lifetime of unspoken grief.
A young architect, Luca Fabiani, arrives in Venice to restore an ancient building in the Jewish ghetto. Here he discovers that on the top floor there is an apartment still inhabited by Elio Sorani, an elderly writer who has been living in seclusion for years, immersed in his memories. Elio is often visited by Giulia, a young woman who exchanges furtive and quick conversations with him. Giulia has an art gallery, where she meets with the man she is having an affair with, the Russian Sacha, an art critic who has now become a mediator of paintings between Italy and Russia. After overcoming an initial moment of mistrust, Luca and Elio become friends, and Elio gives Luca the manuscript of an unpublished novel, which Luca believes will enable him to reconstruct the writer's past.
Acting
Omero Antonutti's weathered face does half the screenplay's work.
Cinematography
Venice as labyrinth, not postcard—claustrophobic water and shadow.
Writing
The nested novel structure rewards patience like a literary puzzle box.
Director
Matteo Bellinelli
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Venetian Ghetto, established 1516, was the world's first segregated Jewish quarter—Bellinelli films it as haunted archive.
Antonutti, primarily a stage actor, used the same cane he'd carried since playing King Lear in '92; Bellinelli kept it unscripted.
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