Award-winning director Pupi Avati is
set to start shooting a biopic on Dante on the 700th anniversary
of the 'Supreme Poet's death, a project he has been nurturing
for 18 years.
"I had it all clear in my mind in 2003, but never gt anyone to
say yes. Then, 18 years later, I finally got the go ahead,"
Avati said Monday.
The film is based on fellow great poet Boccaccio's account of
his more illustrious predecessor, and sees Giulio Pizzirani as
old Dante dying in Ravenna and then Boccacio, played by Sergio
Castellitto, retracing the poet's steps back to his native
Florence, meeting all the figures who helped him or hindered him
in his exile.
Young Dante is played by Alessandro Sperduti.
Avati, whose previous credits include the two giallo
masterpieces, The House with Laughing Windows (1976) and Zeder
(1983), said "making the film in the Italy of today, where
hierarchies of who and what counts are dictated by very
different things, seems unreal. I still can't believe it.
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