''Comandante'' is a 2023 Italian

war drama In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-gen ...

film co-written and directed by

Edoardo De Angelis Edoardo De Angelis (born 31 August 1978) is an Italian film director and screenwriter. Biography In 2006 he graduated in directing at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. In 2011, he made his debut feature film ''Mozzarella Stories''. Ser ...

and starring

Pierfrancesco Favino Pierfrancesco Favino (; August 24, 1969) is an Italian actor, voice actor and producer. He has appeared in more than fifty European and American movies and television series since the early 1990s, including '' The Prince of Homburg'' (1997), '' T ...

. The film opened the 80th Venice Film Festival on 30 August 2023.

Plot

The film tells an episode of the Battle of the Atlantic, when the Italian submarine Comandante Cappellini sunk the Belgian ship Kabalo, and Cappellini's commander Salvatore Todaro decided to disobey orders and to rescue the Kabalo's crew, being forced to navigate on the surface for three days, making the ship an easy target for enemies.

Cast

as Salvatore Todaro *

Johan Heldenbergh Johan Heldenbergh (born 9 February 1967) is a Belgian actor, playwright, screenwriter, theatre director and film director. He gained international fame by starring in films, including ''A Day in a Life'' (2007), '' Moscow, Belgium'' (2008), '' T ...

as Georges Vogels * Johannes Wirix-speetjens as Jacques Reclercq * Silvia D'Amico as Rina Todaro * Paolo Bonacelli as Betti * as Vittorio Marcon

Production

Filming began on 5 September 2022 in

Taranto Taranto (, also ; ; nap, label= Tarantino, Tarde; Latin: Tarentum; Old Italian: ''Tarento''; Ancient Greek: Τάρᾱς) is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto, serving as an important com ...

Release

The film was selected as the opening film at the

80th Venice International Film Festival 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...

on 30 August 2023, replacing originally announced '' Challengers'' due to the ongoing

2023 SAG-AFTRA strike From July 14 to November 9, 2023, the American actors' union SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) was on strike over a labor dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producer ...

. It was theatrically released in Italy on 1st November 2023 by

01 Distribution RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many terr ...

(or 31 October as written in the promotional poster above).

Reception

Box office

''Comandante'' grossed $3.8 million in Italy.

Critical response

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Comandante (2023 film) 2023 films 2023 drama films 2020s Italian films 2020s Italian-language films Films directed by Edoardo De Angelis Films shot in Apulia Films shot in Italy Italian war drama films Anti-war films Italian World War II films