Scarlet Sails: Last News

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentNeapolitan director Pietro Marcello, who made the transition from high-profile docs to fiction with his Naples-set 2019 adaptation of Jack London’s Martin Eden – that made a splash on the international art-house scene – has now tackled a France-set tale inspired by a Russian novel in his new film “Scarlet” (see review) that mixes fable, musical, historical and magical realism elements.The pic’s central character is Juliette, played by promising newcomer Juliette Jouan, an orphan girl raised by a community of women and by her father Raphaël, a burly soldier who returned from the First World War to find that his adored wife after giving birth had passed away. Marcello spoke to Variety about what he calls his first ‘feminine’ film. Excerpts.I’ve always made films that are quite masculine.

Italian director Pietro Marcello (Martin Eden) shifts his focus to France in Scarlet (L’Envol), a period drama in Directors’ Fortnight. Set in the rural north after the First World War, it’s a decade-spanning story of family, small town politics and — ultimately — romance.