25/07/2024 - Alessandro Borghi leads the director’s new film, selected in competition in Venice, set at the end of the First World War and produced by Marco Bellocchio

Alessandro Borghi (nominated seven times at the David di Donatello awards, most recently for The Eight Mountains [+see also:
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film profile], and seen this year in the Netflix series Supersex) is the lead in the new film by Gianni Amelio, titled Battlefield [+see also:
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film profile]. The film, written by the director himself, will be in competition at the upcoming Venice Film Festival, and will come out in Italian cinemas in September.

In this dramatic story set at the end of the First World War, Borghi stars alongside Gabriel Montesi (nominated for the David di Donatello for Bad Tales [+see also:
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Two medical officers and childhood friends work in the same military hospital, where the most seriously injured arrive daily from the front. But many of them inflicted their wounds on themselves, they are only pretenders, ready to do anything in order not to go back to fighting. Stefano, from an upper-middle-class family, with a father who dreams of a political future for his son, is obsessed with these self-harming soldiers and, besides being a doctor, also acts as a cop in his own way. Giulio, seemingly more understanding and tolerant, is uncomfortable at the sight of blood and is more inclined towards research, having wanted to become a biologist. Anna, their friend since their university days, suffers for being a woman. At the time, without an influential family behind you, it was difficult to get a medical degree. But she faces difficult and voluntary work at the Red Cross with grit.

Meanwhile, something strange is happening among the patients: many are worsening mysteriously. Maybe someone is purposely provoking complications to their wounds so that the soldiers can be sent home, even crippled or mutilated, so long as they do not return to battle. There may therefore be a saboteur in the hospital, which Anna is the first to suspect. But on the war front, right at the end of the conflict, a kind of infection spreads that strikes more than enemy weapons. Soon, it reaches civilians as well.

Appearing in the cast are also Giovanni Scotti, Vince Vivenzio, Alberto Cracco, Luca Lazzareschi, Maria Grazia Plos and Rita Bosello. The set design is by Beatrice Scarpato and the costumes by Luca Costigliolo.

With Battlefield, Gianni Amelio will be in competition at the Lido for the eighth time, after winning the Golden Lion in 1998 with Così ridevano and the Silver Lion for directing in 1994 for Lamerica. His most recent participation was in 2022 with Lord of the Ants [+see also:
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interview: Gianni Amelio
film profile]. The Calabria director also won the Jury Grand Prize in Cannes in 1992 (and the David di Donatello for directing) with The Stolen Children.

Battlefield was produced by Marco Bellocchio and Simone Gattoni for Kavac Films, Beppe Caschetto for IBC Movie and Bruno Benetti for OneArt with Rai Cinema, with the collaboration of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia Film Commission and the Trentino Film Commission. International sales are handled by Rai Cinema International Distribution.

(Translated from Italian)