Writer/director Maura Delpero is capturing love in the time of World War II.
Delpero’s “Vermiglio,” which is the official Italian entry for Best International Feature at the 2025 Oscars, is set in 1944 Italy in the eponymous mountain village high up in the Italian Alps. As war looms as a distant but constant threat, the arrival of deserted soldier Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico) disrupts the dynamics of the local teacher’s (Tommaso Ragno) family forever.
Per the official synopsis, as the “four seasons marking the end of World War II, Pietro and Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), the eldest daughter of the teacher, are instantly drawn to each other leading to an unexpected fate. As the world emerges from tragedy, the family will face its own.”
Roberta Rovelli, Anna Thaler, and Rachele Potrich also star.
“Vermiglio” premiered at 2024 Venice, and was recently nominated in the Best Motion Picture, Non-English Language category at the Golden Globes. Other titles in the category include “Emilia Pérez,” “All We Imagine as Light,” “The Girl With The Needle,” “I’m Still Here,” and “The Seed Of The Sacred Fig.”
“Vermiglio” also won the top prize of Best Film, or the Gold Hugo Award, at the Chicago International Film Festival. The previous three winners of the Gold Hugo at Chicago are Gabor Reisz’s “Explanation for Everything,” Hlynur Palmason’s “Godland,” and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Memoria.”
IndieWire’s review out of Venice praised the cinematography of “Vermiglio,” writing, “The world inhabited by the central family of Maura Delpero’s ‘Vermiglio,’ living in the small town of the same name nestled above the rolling Val do Sole valley beneath snow-capped Mount Boai, is as isolated as it is breathtaking. Delpero regularly dwarfs her characters in the frame against these far-reaching landscapes where even the cool blue winter light that is captured pouring in through chinks in bedroom shutters possesses a magical, almost liquid quality. […] Delpero’s latest commences with a series of silent scenes: A large family awakens for the day, a cow is lovingly milked, and ladlefuls of its warm milk are doled out to this taciturn brood. The year is 1944, and miles away, the final brutalities of World War Two are taking place, with only the occasional sound of a plane overhead making its horrors tangible to this remote village.”
The film is produced by Francesca Andreoli, Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli, Maura Delpero, Santiago Fondevila Sancet, Carole Baraton, Pauline Boucheny Pinon, Jacques-Henri Bronckart, and Tatjana Kozar.
Delpero previously made her narrative debut with 2019’s award-winning “Maternal,” which centered on a young Argentinean nurse traveling to Italy to work with pregnant teens.
A Janus Films release, “Vermiglio” premieres December 25 in theaters. Watch the trailer below.
