Italian filmmaker Rosita Larocca is prepping her debut feature-length documentary, Gia – The Shadow of Beauty, an intimate, formally ambitious portrait of late supermodel Gia Carangi (1960-1986), seen not as a pop-cultural myth, but as a fragile, visionary young woman navigating desire, abandonment and visibility in the hyper-accelerated world of 1980s New York. The project is set to enter production later this year and will be seeking new international partners at Berlin’s European Film Market (12-18 February).

Positioned firmly outside the conventions of the celebrity biopic, Gia – The Shadow of Beauty is conceived as a subjective encounter, rather than a chronological retelling. “This is the story of a girl who only wanted to be seen,” runs the logline of the film, which frames Carangi’s meteoric rise and tragic disappearance as the by-product of an era – and an industry – unable to deal with complexity, queerness and vulnerability.

Rather than “playing” Gia, up-and-coming Los Angeles-based Italian actress and model Marta Pozzan will act as an on-screen presence who seeks her out: listening, addressing and walking alongside Carangi’s memory in a posthumous dialogue that blends testimony, archival material and dreamlike reconstruction. Pozzan, who appeared in Netflix’s From Scratch opposite Zoe Saldaña and recently premiered Charlotte Ercoli’s Fior di Latte at Tribeca, brings both industry proximity and emotional distance to the role, moving between red carpets and introspection, image-making and self-erasure. This year, Pozzan will star alongside Rebecca Knox, Kaley Ronayne and Jessica Sula in Elise Finnerty’s horror White Sands.

Larocca’s approach is rooted in proximity, rather than judgement. “In Gia – The Shadow of Beauty, the actress doesn’t judge Gia or explain her from the outside,” the director tells Cineuropa. “She seeks her, talks to her and listens to her – like an older sister walking in her shadow.” The film will weave together archival footage, testimonies and stylised visual sequences that blur memory and imagination, shaping what the director describes as “a living, moving dialogue”, rather than a closed historical account.

Formally, the project is also notable for its integrated use of ethical and functional artificial intelligence within the editing and visual reconstruction process. According to Larocca, this choice allows the production to dramatically reduce costs linked to location shooting, permits, crew and equipment, while enabling early contextualisation of 1980s settings.

The documentary is being produced by Italian outfit Artex, with Lizzy Harris – whose background spans radical.media, Vogue, Wieden+Kennedy and Condé Nast – serving as the executive producer for her own US banner, Pool Creative. Harris brings more than 15 years of experience across branded content and feature-length documentaries, including the 2016 Tribeca-opening The First Monday in May and the viral Vogue pilot for 73 Questions, starring Sarah Jessica Parker.

The creative team assembles a cross-disciplinary group of established figures from cinema, fashion and music. Composer Luca Tomassini, with over 500 television productions to his credit, will craft the score, while editor Walter Fasano – a long-time collaborator of Luca Guadagnino’s (Suspiria [+lee también:
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Beyond its formal experimentation, Gia – The Shadow of Beauty positions itself squarely within contemporary debates around identity, image and mental health. For Larocca, revisiting Carangi today is less an act of nostalgia than of urgency. In an era dominated by aesthetic perfection and algorithmic visibility, the filmmaker sees Gia as both a warning and an embrace: a queer figure who “shone before there was even a name for it”, and whose struggle resonates with younger generations facing addiction, anxiety and the pressure to become “someone” before even understanding who they are.

Crucially, the film rejects scandal and sensationalism. “This is not a biography,” the team insists, “but a rebirth.” Conceived as a love letter, rather than an exposé, the documentary seeks to reclaim Carangi’s subjectivity from the noise that consumed her, reframing her life as a space of unfinished questions, not tragic inevitability.

With production slated to begin later this year and international financing still open, Gia – The Shadow of Beauty is now positioning itself on the European co-production landscape, with Berlin set to be the first major stop on the project’s market journey.