Italian filmmakers from here and abroad
Most of Italy's great names have been won over by the region's unique landscapes and architecture. Its history, particularly the murderous episodes of the First World War when Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops clashed, has inspired many dramas. Mario Monicelli's La Grande Guerra (1959) pays tribute to these combatants and to the beautiful region of Udine, as well as being a great film. A few years later, the great Pier Paolo Pasolini shot Medea in the region, which was released in 1969. Inspired by the Greek myth that came down to us through Euripides' text, the director delivers a dark version of the story of this woman who is madly in love with Jason, but who then descends into madness, murdering her own children. Maria Callas, the great singer of the time, plays the heroine, while Jason is portrayed by Giuseppe Gentile, an Italian actor and world record holder in the triple jump at the 1968 Olympic Games.
The Grado lagoon and its casoni, fishermen's cottages scattered around this splendid lake, charmed Pasolini, who established his centaur's village there. Just a few years after this shoot, it was Luchino Visconti's turn to set down his camera in Trieste for the superb Death in Venice (1971). Although the action of this gripping drama, adapted from Thomas Mann's work, takes place mainly in the lakeside city, Visconti used the Campo Marzio train station to represent the Venice train station. Today a museum dedicated to the history of the regional railroad, you can discover many trains still in working order, and perhaps even board one of these collector's items. It's enough to take you back to the strange atmosphere of this great Italian film from the 1970s.
Trieste is also the star of its own film in La Ragazza di Trieste, by author Pasquale Festa Campanile (1982). Adapting his own novel published the previous year, the filmmaker portrays an aging artist who finds a new muse in a mysterious young girl, even if she seems to be hiding a dark secret.
More recently, a new generation of Italian filmmakers has seized upon the Venetian landscape to establish comic tales( Checco Zalone'sTolo Tolo , 2020), love stories( Massimo Cappelli'sIl giorno più bello, 2006) or fantastical adventures( Gabriele Salvatores'Il Ragazzo invisibile , 2014), with varying degrees of success with Italian audiences. Among these, it's worth highlighting the work of Sicilian director Giuseppe Tornatore, who shot two films in the region. L'Inconnue (2006), a drama about a young Ukrainian woman caught up in a prostitution ring, was shot entirely in Trieste. You'll recognize the Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali, as well as the city's shopping streets and Villa Revoltella park. Acclaimed by national and international critics, L'Inconnue won five David di Donatello awards, the Italian Oscars, before winning the Audience Award at the Chicago Film Festival, and the Audience Award at the European Film Awards. Tornatore pursues a career rich in nuggets, with European and international stars. In 2013, he returned to Trieste to direct The Best Offer (2013), a suspenseful tale revolving around a gallery owner played by Geoffrey Rush. Piazza Guglielmo Oberdan and Via Guido Corsi feature in the film, while part of the action takes place in the beautiful Villa Mainardis in Gorizzo, an idyllic location that is now a renowned agriturismo. Finally, we wouldn't be complete without mentioning the drama series La Porta rossa (2017-), a quality crime drama mixing fantasy and thriller, also shot in Trieste.
When international cinema is infatuated with the confines of Italy
As with Italian productions, international film shoots are closely linked to the region's historical and political context. The great adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms , directed by Charles Vidor and John Huston (1957) with Rock Hudson in the lead role, was shot in Venzone for its opening minutes, before traveling throughout Italy as the story unfolded. In 1996, war was once again the subject of a major Hollywood film, The English Patient, by Englishman Anthony Minghella. Filmed between Tuscany and Veneto, with a stopover in Trieste, this work with its impressive cast (Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth) won no less than nine Oscars, including Best Picture. A must-see not only for the beautiful city views it offers, but also for its poignant love story.
On a different note, Trieste is also home to James Bond, one of the most famous figures in Anglo-Saxon literature. In To Kill Is Not To Play (1987), Timothy Dalton dons the tuxedo of 007 for the first time, at the heart of a story in which the Cold War is still very much alive. Traveling between Vienna, Kosovo, Morocco and the United States, Bond also ventures into the Passo di Pramollo, high above Udine, for a chase that only the saga has the secret for. Last but not least, how could we miss the mythical Godfather II (1974), shot between Italy and the USA? Instead of the Ellis Island immigration office, the old Pescheria Centrale market on the Trieste Riviera is the setting for this key scene in Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece.
Since the 2000s, series and films have regularly stopped off in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, thanks to the Regional Commission's support for the local economy and production. Naomi Watts, for example, can be seen in Piazza Unità d' Italia and in Caffè degli Specchi, where she was shooting Diana (2013), as well as Ewan McGregor, playing James Joyce in Nora (2000). More recently, the Borgias series (2014) set up shop in two of the region's castles, at Villalta and Gorizia. Proof of the region's architectural diversity, which you can discover through these numerous films.
