PRIMAVERA, the debut film by Damiano Michieletto—known as an opera director—lives and breathes the spirit of a Venetian spring, shaped by the canals and the music. Michieletto’s opera productions have been celebrated at La Scala in Milan as well as at opera houses in London, Paris, and Berlin. Ludovica Rampoldi’s screenplay is loosely based on Tiziano Scarp’s novel Stabat mater.

Venice in the early 18th century. At the Pietà orphanage, abandoned girls are trained to become musicians. The Pietà orchestra is renowned throughout Europe; after all, the orphanage has been training musicians for hundreds of years. The orphan girls play in the church gallery behind a grille so that the wealthy socialite audience can better concentrate on the music. Pietà’s board hires Antonio Vivaldi (Michele Rondino), who is struggling with his career as a composer, as the orchestra’s teacher. The exceptionally talented Cecilia (Tecla Insolia, radiant in the lead role of Primavera) rises to become the first violinist. European nobles and royalty travel to Venice to hear Vivaldi’s compositions and the Pietà orchestra—but the music does not open the orphanage’s locked gates. Cecilia wants to see the world and refuses to let adversity dampen her longing for freedom.

Tickets: 12/10€, sold at the door. Doors open 20 minutes before the first screening.
Language: Italian
Subtitles: Finnish, Swedish
110 min, From 12 years