It took theanniversary of the 700th anniversary of his death to realize a dream that Pupi Avati had in his drawer for 18 years, to make Dante, a film about Dante Alighieri. The project of the great Italian director finds concreteness today but it was announced a few months ago on the occasion of the presentation of the celebrations for the 700th anniversary of the death of the Supreme Poet. Filming has just begun and the goal is to finish the film by the end of the year, in order not to miss this important anniversary. Pupi Avati had thought of a film inspired by Dante's life in 2003, and in fact today he says “I don't dare believe it yet”.

portrait of dante

And he adds “Wait a long time. Eighteen years before you are allowed to make a film. You had it clear in 2003 when you wrote the first version of the subject. In the meantime you have done something else, much more, but that commitment with Dante has remained inside you, pounding, making you feel the passage of time as a fault. Then, finally, you meet those who listen to you and do not postpone, those who appreciate the idea and find yourself 'unprepared' for that assent, that welcome. This is my state of mind today, just a few hours from the start of shooting ”.

In the footsteps of Dante following the narration of his first biographer Giovanni Boccaccio

A state of mind open to the great adventure, which has just begun, of the story of Alighieri's life, from when he was a child, to his adolescence, up to maturity and death in Ravenna. Gradually following the places of the life of the Supreme Poet: from Florence where he was born to Ravenna, the film Dante moves to the convents, villages, castles that framed the author of the Divine Comedy. In Pupi Avati's film the narration of Dante Alighieri's life is entrusted to Giovanni Boccaccio. First biographer of the father of the Italian language in his Trattatello in Laude di Dante. Between lights and shadows, Boccaccio will retrace the human story of Alighieri from when he was a child and at the age of five he lost his mother, until his death at the age of 56.

Boccaccio visits Dante's daughter
Boccaccio visits Dante's daughter in William Bell Scott's painting

This is movie plot. Dante died in Ravenna in 1321. In 1350 Giovanni Boccaccio he was instructed to bring ten gold florins as symbolic compensation to Dante's daughter, Sister Beatrice, a nun in Ravenna in the monastery of Santo Stefano degli Ulivi. During his journey, Boccaccio, as well as his daughter, will meet those who, in the last years of the Ravenna exile, sheltered and welcomed the great poet. But also those who, on the contrary, rejected him forcing him to flee. From Florence to Ravenna, following a part of what was Dante's path.
Among the main actors of the film, Sergio Castellitto as Giovanni Boccaccio, Alessandro Sperduti as the young Dante and Giulio Pizzirani as the elderly Dante. Carlotta Gamba will be Beatrice. Alessandro Haber will play the abbot of Vallombrosa and Leopoldo Mastelloni Bonifacio VIII, while Romano Reggiani will play the poet Guido Cavalcanti. Dante's wife, Gemma Donati, will be Ludovica Pedetta. In the role of the elderly Gemma Donati, Erica Blanc. Sister Beatrice will be played by Valeria D'Obici.

Subject and script by Pupi Avati, in the cast inportant names of Italian cinema

Dante in Pupi Avati's version will be a "normal" man, far from the image to which the history of literature has accustomed us. The film Dante is the making of a long dream 18 years, with the satisfaction, on the part of the director, of being able to deal with and tell a theme like this in these times: "May it happen in today's Italy where the hierarchies of what and who counts are dictated by something else, a film on the life of Dante Alighieri, is unlikely. I still don't dare believe it ". The subject and the screenplay of the film are by Pupi Avati himself. The shooting of the film Dante, produced by Duea Film with Rai Cinema and in theaters with 01 Distribution, will last eleven weeks. It will shoot in Umbria, Marche, Tuscany, Emilia Romagna and Rome.

(credit photo in evidence: page fb Pupi Avati fans club)

The new film by Pupi Avati dedicated to Dante Alighieri last edit: 2021-06-29T12:30:00+02:00 da Cristina Campolonghi

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