03/10/2025 - The Italian director is working on his Boudu and Eddie Saeta co-production, which is loosely based on Thomas Mann’s novella, previously brought to the big screen by Luchino Visconti in 1971

Fabrizio Ferraro is kicking off filming in Venice on his new movie, Morte a Venezia, which is loosely based on the novella, Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann, who would have celebrated his 150th birthday this year. Published in 1912, the story is considered to be one of the German writer’s most significant works, which is also known to wider audiences thanks to the 1971 film of the same name directed by Luchino Visconti, Death in Venice.

Mann’s book revolves around famous writer, Gustav von Aschenbach, who falls madly in love with a Polish boy called Tadzio while on holiday in Venice. Despite a cholera epidemic, Aschenbach decides to stay in the city to stay close to the youngster, until he succumbs to the illness and dies, scarred by desire and decadence. Ferraro’s black and white version of the film “immerses itself in the gloom of the current crisis with Thomas Mann’s text as a compass”. The cast is led by Mexican-born Swiss director, Pablo Sigg.

Ferraro is returning to Venice to shoot his movie exactly one year on from the release of his previous film, Desert Suite [+see also:
interview: Fabrizio Ferraro
film profile], which was presented in a world premiere in the Giornate degli Autori’s 2024 Venice Nights line-up.  His other most memorable and recent feature films include Wanted, presented in Rome Film Fest’s 2023 Freestyle section; I morti rimangono con la bocca aperta, another Italian-Spanish co-production presented in Rome’s Progressive Cinema Competition, as well as in the IFFR’s Harbour section in 2023, and The Luminous View [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], selected for the Berlinale Forum in 2021.

After an initial two weeks in Venice, filming will wrap between the end of 2025 and the start of 2026 between Venice and Naples. Morte a Venezia is an independent production by Ferraro’s Boudu in co-production with producer Luis Miñarro’s Spanish firm Eddie Saeta and RAI Cinema. The film’s release is scheduled for autumn 2026.

(Translated from Italian)