The lush and breathtaking beauty of the Alps, filmed with painterly grace under natural light from frigid winter to redemptive spring, provides the physical and emotional backdrop for VERMIGLIO, Maura Delpero’s visionary film, which won the Silver Lion at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. This singular portrait of a sprawling family, set in the small, mountainous village of Vermiglio during the waning days of WWII, follows a series of dramatic, consequential events after the arrival of a taciturn Sicilian soldier (Giuseppe De Domenico), who hides out in town after deserting the army. While there, the soldier develops a romance with the family’s eldest daughter, Lucia (Martina Scrinzi). Vermiglio shows the lives of a provincial family in a remote village suspended in time by the customs of a fading era. Conjuring stories from her own family’s past, Delpero creates a deeply personal and human tale that recalls the great neorealist movement in Italian cinema, but through Lucia’s perspective Vermiglio feels distinct and novel. Italy’s Official Selection for the 2025 Academy Awards.
“The remarkable, raw-boned and ravishing VERMIGLIO takes place in the past but operates like a future family secret playing out in the present tense, a perspective that is not quite Godlike, but comes from that which we might as well call God.” —Jessica Kiang, Variety
“Delpero masterfully captures the characters’ experiences and psychology through gesture, performance, and framing rather than dialogue. Krichman’s cinematography, perhaps the best of the year, invokes painting and theater.” —Lucia Ahrensdorf, The Film Stage
