La Befana vien di notte II - Le origini (2021)

In the mid-18th century, in a small town in central Italy, Baron Gian Rodolfo De Michelis aspires to become Minister of Police of the Papal States and has a visceral hatred of witches, whom he believes were responsible for the death of his fiancée, Bettina, who died years earlier. Bishop Monsignor Bastoni, however, considers him unfit for the position and writes a letter to the pope recommending that he refuse to approve the appointment. The baron learns of this and visits him in the middle of the night. When the prelate refuses to hand over the letter, the baron orders his henchmen to kill the monsignor. Paola Diotallevi, a young petty thief, had also broken into the house to steal. The baron discovers her, accuses her of being a witch and of killing the monsignor, and sentences her to death at the stake. However, at the moment of the execution, the good witch Dolores intervenes, saving the girl by throwing into the fire a powder that produces a cloud of blue smoke and takes her to her home deep in the forest, where other orphaned children also live, whose mothers were accused of witchcraft. At Dolores’s house, Paola is made to do the housework and attend Dolores’s lessons along with the other orphans, neither of which she likes. Instead, she takes an interest in Dolores’s magical powders and potions as a way to pull off more robberies. In particular, she plans to steal the Madonna of the Three Bells, a golden statue kept in the cathedral. To do so, she turns Dolores’s children into pigs—believing she has used a sedative potion—after they catch her in the lair with her accomplice, Chicco, and she incapacitates the guards so she can carry out the theft. The baron, who has learned where she is from another witch, surprises her, but she manages to escape. Dolores later catches up with her and disapproves of her behavior; nevertheless, recognizing her as the keeper of an ancient prophecy, she strikes her with a magical whirlwind to awaken her hidden powers. The baron, who must recover the statue at all costs to regain the pope’s favor, tries some of the powders in the vials Paola dropped on his henchmen: one explodes, another jumps out of a window, believing himself to be a little bird, and the last gains a Herculean body and a thick head of hair, before De Michelis has him thrown into the dungeons. The baron then uses the last powder on himself, acquiring a Herculean physique and a thick head of hair in place of his comb-over. Paola, Chicco, and Pallina rescue the children who have been turned into pigs and whom a butcher had taken possession of. As they prepare the antidote at home, Dolores, who was hit by a bullet fired by the baron, begins raving in French about a son who was taken from her. At that moment the baron bursts in. After taking the statue, which concealed the bishop’s letter inside it, he locks the house with its occupants inside and then sets it on fire. Dolores summons all her strength to teleport the children outside and then vanishes. Paola has a vision of Dolores handing her a flying broom; when she wakes, she finds two of the orphans, who tell her that the others have been taken by the police and brought to the dungeons. The baron intends to drown them by flooding the underground chambers, exterminating what he believes to be a brood of witches. To save them, Paola disguises herself as a young noblewoman and attends the reception the baron is holding at his palace. There, she happens to dance with the host, who has no idea of the girl’s real identity. She is subsequently discovered, but manages to give Pope Benedict XIV the letter the monsignor had written earlier. The pope has come to the palace to formally appoint the baron. Not only does he revoke the appointment, but he also orders the arrest of the baron and his parents, the Marquis and Marquise De Michelis, who had killed their son’s beloved years earlier because they considered her to be of far too low a rank. Blinded by rage, the baron attacks his parents and the pope, puts the pope’s mitre on his own head, and proclaims himself an antipope. Paola, now in full possession of her powers, subdues the baron and frees the orphans from prison. Finally, she leads a liberating dance in which everyone present takes part. The fireworks she has set off turn into candies when they touch the ground near the children, and into coal when they land on the baron, who has returned to his original appearance. Paola finally takes flight on her broom: the Befana is born.