TORONTO – Indigo Film, the production company behind some of Italy’s more recent successes such as Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar winning film La Grande Bellezza and his follow up film Youth, has announced the filming of Primavera this month – a feature film about Antonio Vivaldi, baroque composer and violinist. Besides platforming Sorrentino on several of his projects, the Rome-based company has developed a reputation for buttressing emerging talent and remaining on the cutting edge of industry innovation, both in front of and behind the camera.

Their efforts, since the mid-nineties, have congealed in the 21st century as a major Independent Production house, which has arguably become a conveyer belt of hits. The much buzzed about and David di Donatello nominated Comandante (2023), and this year’s Golden Lion Nominee Sicilian Letters (2024) are two such examples. The excitement around the Primavera project is also bolstered by the involvement of its award winning Screenwriter Ludovica Rampoldi, known mostly for penning “The Traitor” and the TV series “Gomorrah”. Rampoldi’s script, set in 18th century Venice, is loosely sourced from Tiziano Scarpa’s novel “Stabat Mater” – which follows the life of Cecilia, a young orphan living in the Ospedale della Pietà, who meets the enigmatic composer Antonio Vivaldi, igniting her passion for music. “Under his mentorship and through his music, Cecilia gains the courage to break free from the life she was destined for and pursue her passion”, reads the film’s official synopsis on IMDb.

Co-starring in Primavera are Tecla Insolia (The Art of Joy) as Cecilia and Michele Riondino (Palazzina Laf) as Vivaldi. In the director’s chair is debutant Damiano Michieletto, an Italian stage director, known for opera. Michieletto has staged productions at leading opera houses and festivals worldwide, but this will be the Venetian Director’s first film venture. “I feel the adrenaline rush, having long wanted to make a feature film. At the age of nearly 50 I am discovering new languages in which to test myself,” said Michieletto while offering special praise for his female lead Tecla Insolia for her “freshness, her hidden fragility and her unpredictability”.

With Warner Bros Entertainment on board as Distributor, Primavera seems locked for a world tour and a proper international release. Fitting treatment for a subject like Antonio Vivaldi, a virtuoso violinist and composer from Venice – a city that was once known as “Queen of the Adriatic”.

Baroque Venice was among the most prestigious musical centres in Europe, known for its four Music Conservatories where compositions of the highest esteem were crafted and performed. Its music lured travelers to the lagoon between the mouths of the Po and Piave rivers, and supplied them with hand-written copies of the latest Italian compositions. And now, three centuries later, Indigo’s Vivaldi film will hope to match this surviving account from a Vivaldi audience member: “Vivaldi performed a solo accompaniment admirably, and at the end he improvised a fantasy which quite confounded me, for such playing has not been heard before and can never be equalled, he played his fingers but a hair’s breadth from the bridge, so that there was hardly room for the bow. He played thus on all four strings, with imitations and at an unbelievable speed”.

(Michele Riondino photograph by Maurizio Greco)  

Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix