''Martin Eden'' is a 2019 Italian-French

historical romance Historical romance is a broad category of mass-market fiction focusing on romantic relationships in historical periods, which Walter Scott helped popularize in the early 19th century. Varieties Viking These books feature Vikings during the D ...

drama film 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 ...

directed by

Pietro Marcello Pietro Marcello (born 2 July 1976) is an Italian film director. He has directed more than eight documentary films since 2004. In 2015 he directed his first fiction film, ''Lost and Beautiful''. Several of his films have been presented at internati ...

. It was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the

76th Venice International Film Festival The 76th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 28 August to 7 September 2019. Film director Lucrecia Martel was appointed as the President of the Jury. '' The Truth'', directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, was selected to open the f ...

, where

Luca Marinelli Luca Marinelli (born 22 October 1984) is an Italian actor. He is best known for the roles of Guido in '' Every Blessed Day'' (2012), Andrea in ''The Great Beauty'' (2013), Cesare in '' Don't Be Bad'' (2015), The Gipsy in '' They Call Me Jeeg'' ( ...

won the

Volpi Cup for Best Actor The Volpi Cup for Best Actor ( it, Coppa Volpi per la migliore interpretazione maschile) is the principal award given to actors at the Venice Film Festival and is named in honor of Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, the founder of the Venice Film ...

. The film is loosely based on the 1909 novel of the same name by

Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...

and follows a sailor trying to remake himself as a writer in a timeless 20th century Italy.

Cast

Production

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...

for the film began in May 2018 in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, Italy.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the

Venice International Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...

on 2 September 2019. It was screened at the

2019 Toronto International Film Festival The 44th annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 5 to 15 September 2019. The opening gala was the documentary film '' Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band'', directed by Daniel Roher, and the festival closed with a ...

in the

Platform Prize The Platform Prize is an annual film award, presented by the Toronto International Film Festival to films of "high artistic merit that also demonstrate a strong directorial vision."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 ...

on 4 September 2019. It was released in France by Shellac Distribution on 16 October 2019.

Response

Box office

''Martin Eden'' grossed $0 in North America due to the ongoing

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

Kino Lorber Kino Lorber is an international film distribution company based in New York City. Founded in 1977, it was originally known as Kino International until it was acquired by and merged into Lorber HT Digital in 2009. It specializes in art house films, ...

opted for a VOD release, and $3 million in other territories.

Critical reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . According to the website's critical consensus: "''Martin Eden'' uses one man's quest for fulfillment as fuel for an ambitious—and often rewarding—look at a complex array of social and personal themes." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film holds a rating of 75 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally positive reviews".

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Martin Eden 2019 films 2010s historical romance films 2019 romantic drama films 2010s Italian-language films French romantic drama films French historical romance films Italian romantic drama films Italian historical romance films Films about interclass romance Films about social class Films about writers Films based on works by Jack London Films set in the 1900s Films set in Naples Films shot in Naples Films based on American novels Films directed by Pietro Marcello 2010s French films