As had been foreshadowed by the 83rd edition of the Venice Film Festival, this season in cinema will be rich in films adapted from books or freely inspired by them. In this substantial lineup, one work already known for having multiple adaptations catches the eye, and it is now ready to arrive on the big screen, from October 1.
We are talking about La città dei vivi, a film freely inspired by the eponymous text by writer Nicola Lagioia, presented on the Lido in the Horizons section.
From the text, a podcast had already been born, narrated by the author himself and produced by Chora Media, and a theatrical show directed by Ivonne Capece, which debuted at the Teatre Fontana in Milan in 2025 (we discussed it here).
Di cosa parla La città dei vivi?
The fifth work by Nicola Lagioia, the Apulian author who won the Strega Prize in 2015 with La ferocia (Einaudi) and former director of the Turin Book Fair, La città dei vivi is an investigative novel, published by Einaudi in 2020.
The book opens from the black-chronicle case that shook Italy in March 2016: the murder of 22-year-old Luca Varani in Rome, carried out by Marco Prato and Manuel Foffo. A murder that, at the time, sparked much discussion, as it appeared to lack real motives and was carried out by two young men from good families.
Lagioia traverses the streets of the Capital, a city at that moment without a mayor but with two father figures, and uncovers a jar from which every kind of horror emerges: corruption, the consumption of drugs among youths and adolescents, the negative repercussions of social media on people’s lives. But also sexual confusion, inequality, difficulties in becoming adults, emptiness of identity, and disorientation.
What happened that night is brought to light through interviews with those involved in the murder, testimonies, documents and also letters the author exchanged with one of the two killers.
Cosa sappiamo sul film
“Based on a story inexplicably true” and freely inspired by the novel, the film is directed by Edoardo Gabbriellini and features in the cast Valerio Mastandrea (the father of Luca Varani) and Emanuele Maria Di Stefano (who plays the boy). Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo sign the screenplay and the production is handled by Eagle Pictures, Cinemaundici and Lungta Film with the participation of HBO MAX.
The film draws attention to what preceded the brutal murder: we are transported into Luca’s life, who moves through the Roman outskirts with friends and his girlfriend and has behind him a family that adopted and loves him. One night, the boy, who is searching for his path, has an encounter that will forever change the course of his life.
About the film, Nicola Lagioia commented to Skytg24: “The story surrounding Luca Varani’s murder is delicate and reveals many things about the difficult times we live in. Edoardo Gabbriellini possesses the right sensitivity and the vision needed to tell it on screen in the best possible way.”
For the director, “this film attempts to observe with tenderness a boy who is not yet a man, through the cracks and the drift of his fragilities and his out-of-focus dreams.” The film, Gabbriellini goes on, “offers no explanation for the tragedy, no insight and no theories about adolescents or today’s society. It is a coming-of-age story interrupted, punctuated by all the humanity surrounding the protagonist, who becomes a chorus, or rather the music that marks the rhythm and the atmosphere of the city in which he moves.”
