Il Mare di Gabriele

An immersive short but intense experience in the multifaceted universe of the Vate, with its labyrinths and contradictions. On one hand, the brash aviator, on the other, the extreme and passionate lover, with the reconstruction of events and characters offered by scholars like Tobia Jodice and Paola Sorge, authors of acclaimed books on the poet from Pescara. In the rhythm of the narration, beyond the playful evocation of the Vate’s mock Flight over Vienna a hundred years later, the director’s intent is to focus the film on the tormented love affair with Barbara Leoni. A love documented by a vibrant correspondence that also unfolded against the backdrop of the Dannunziano Hermitage in San Vito Chietino. Here, among the fishing platforms and a still wild Abruzzo, the Vate wrote one of his most famous novels: ‘Triumph of Death’. Published in 1894, it narrates the self-destructive love between Giorgio Aurispa and Ippolita Sanzio, with clear biographical references up to the fictional climax that leads to the suicide of the two lovers by throwing themselves off the cliff of the Hermitage. In the rich screenplay by Stefano Pomilia and Francisco J. Fernandez, atmospheres, emotions, and whispered dialogues between the sea and olive groves come back to life, along with Barbara Leoni’s memories of that love, now distant in time, perhaps the most important of the Poet’s.