Finalmente L’alba, the newest feature film by Italian filmmaker Saverio Costanzo, has begun filming in Italy. Now that several A-listers have signed on, Costanzo is keeping the movie’s narrative and the actors’ roles secret until production begins. The film’s director recently gave an exclusive interview to Variety, in which he revealed that the story takes place in the 1950s on the set of a swords and sandals film in Rome. Finalmente L’alba, which means “Finally, Dawn Has Come,” will play place over the course of one long, exhausting night, as Costanzo said following the first casting announcements of Willem Dafoe, Lily James, Rachel Sennott, Stranger Things’ Joe Keery, and Italian newcomer Rebecca Antonaci.
This “high-end costume drama” takes place on location in 1950s Rome, sometimes known as “Hollywood on the Tiber,” and stars Antonaci as a novice Italian actress who auditions at the Cinecittà Studios. Antonacci’s protagonist is a young woman who is about to be engaged to a man she doesn’t love because her family needs her to do so for financial reasons. In the endless hours that follow Antonaci’s audition, she is forced into the competitive world of Hollywood and begins an arduous journey of self-discovery. Finalmente L’alba was both written and directed by Costanzo, who was inspired by the glitz and dynamism of Hollywood in the years following World War II when pictures like Roman Holiday (1953), starring Audrey Hepburn, and “sword and sandal” movies like Elizabeth Taylor’s lavish Cleopatra were made.
Director Giancarlo del Toro has said that Antonaci’s Wilma Montesi was based on a real person: This whole ordeal, this lengthy night being described, occurs just before Wilma Montesi is murdered… Because it was the first murder of a young lady in Italy, the news media went into a frenzy. She embodied an innocence that Italy would later abandon. When I set out to script this movie, she was the inspiration. That’s the setting, then. The film’s foundation includes Wilma Montesi.
James will assume the role of Josephine Esperanto, a child star who has spent her entire life in Hollywood. The film’s setting, on the cusp of a new era in American filmmaking, has Josephine questioning her acting abilities and self-identity. She is a sad, feminine, and seductive figure who struggles to find herself within the constraints of a Hollywood film. James rose to fame after playing the title character in both Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and Disney’s live-action Cinderella remake in 2015.
The most recent time we saw James’s transformation was in Hulu’s biography series Pam & Tommy, in which she played Pamela Anderson. Keery’s film debut will be as the new guy in town, Sean Lockwood. Costanzo adds Keery will play three roles in the film: himself, a royal from Mesopotamia in the Egyptian swords and sandals picture that Antonaci’s character auditions for, and an American soldier who helps rescue Rome from the Germans. Throughout the course of the night, Lockwood, like all of the other protagonists, will confront his own anxieties and go through a personal transformation.
Keery’s breakout performance as Steve Harrington in the Stranger Things series on Netflix has propelled him to stardom. Sennott, who is also relatively new to Hollywood, will star with Sean as the Egyptian princess. Josephine is attempting to adjust to a completely new kind of behaviour shown by these two as the 1950s give way to the 2000s. Sennott is a rising artist after her breakout appearance in Emma Seligman’s feature debut dramedy Shiva Baby, and her most recent part in the comedic slasher Bodies Bodies Bodies. Dafoe will portray Rufus Priori, an American art gallerist who befriends Josephine.
His character acts as the “Charon, [the boatman of Hades],” who will guide the actors through the long night. Dafoe is well-known for a variety of projects including Spider-Man and The Lighthouse. Both Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Gangarossa of Wildside contributed to the production of Finalmente L’alba. Costanzo wrote and directed both Hungry Hearts (2014), starring Adam Driver and Private (2004). The film is presently under development, and no release date has been set as of yet.