Sunday 23 November at 21:00

After decades on stage, Eleonora Duse looks back on a legendary career that seems to have run its course. But in the savage days between World War I and the rise of Fascism, the Divine Duse heeds a call stronger than any resignation and returns to where her life began: the stage. It is not only the desire to act that drives her, but a deep urgency: the need to reaffirm herself in a world that is inexorably changing and that threatens to take everything away from her, including the financial independence she has won with her life's work. Once again, Eleonora chooses theater as the only refuge for truth and resistance. Armed only with her art, she defies time and disenchantment, transforming every word and every gesture into a revolutionary act. But the price of holding up beauty against the brutality of power and history is high. Relationships seem to dissolve, and her health worsens. Yet Eleonora will face her last journey convinced that one can give up life itself, but never one’s true nature.

Pietro Marcello (b. 1976, Caserta) is an Italian filmmaker and artist known for blending documentary and fiction. After studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, he co-founded the Cinedamm Festival in Naples and began directing documentaries such as Il cantiere (2004) and La bocca del lupo (2009), which won major awards at Turin, Berlinale, and Cinéma du Réel. His acclaimed works include Lost and Beautiful (2015), Martin Eden (2019), Futura (2021, co-directed), and Scarlet (2022, opening film at the Directors' Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival).

Greek Premiere