Vermiglio

Director: Maura Delpero

Vermiglio

Italy-France-Belgium, 2024, 119‘

Director: Maura Delpero

Cast: Tommaso Ragno (Cesare), Roberta Rovelli (Adele), Martina Scrinzi (Lucia), Giuseppe De Domenico (Pietro), Carlotta Gamba (Virginia), Orietta Notari (Zia Cesira), Santiago Fondevila (Attilio)

Venice – Grand Jury Prize, La Pellicola d'Oro Award – Best Chief Electrician (Kristian De Martiis), NuovoImaie Talent Award – Best New Young Actress (Martina Scrinzi), Sorriso Diverso – Best Italian Film, Green Drop Award (Maura Delpero)

 

 

In four seasons nature completes its cycle. A girl can become a woman. A belly can swell and become a creature. One can lose the path that led safely home, one can sail seas towards unknown lands. In four seasons one can die and be reborn.

In Vermiglio, a mountain village where the war is a distant but omnipresent horizon, the arrival of Pietro, a soldier escaping the war, disrupts the dynamics of the local schoolmaster's large family, changing them forever. The love between Pietro and Lucia, the eldest daughter, leads to their marriage and an unexpected destiny.

Economy is the watchword of this deceptively formalist film: every aspect of the filmmaking, from Mikhail Krichman’s immaculate compositions, to the worn, neat costuming from Andrea Cavalletto to the simplicity of Matteo Franceschini’s spartan piano-based score, speaks to the restraint that Delpero exercises in playing on our feelings.