Il regista di matrimoni (2006)

Franco Elica, a Roman director in crisis, is under pressure from the commission overseeing yet another film adaptation of The Betrothed and is troubled by his daughter’s marriage to a devout Catholic. Involved in a murky scandal, he decides to leave Rome and takes refuge in Sicily. There, he meets Enzo Baiocco, a local director who specializes in filming weddings and introduces him to a professional and human world very different from the one Franco is used to. During his stay, Elica also meets Orazio Smamma, a former colleague who has faked his own death in the hope of achieving, posthumously, the fame he never attained in life. Smamma introduces him to Prince Ferdinando Gravina di Palagonia, a fallen nobleman who has arranged a marriage of convenience between his daughter Bona and a wealthy industrialist in order to repair the family’s finances. The prince hires Franco to film the wedding. Franco agrees, but when he meets Bona, a young and captivating woman, he is struck by her enigmatic presence. An ambiguous relationship develops between them, marked by silences and mutual observation. Bona expresses a desire to run away, but soon afterward she disappears. On the day of the wedding, Franco fails to show up and leaves Sicily. During the train journey, something happens that will change his life.