IFF23 Caravaggio's Shadow

Synopsis

Riccardo Scamarcio (The Shadow of the Day IFF22, Three Floors IFF21), Isabelle Huppert and Louis Garrel star in writer/director Michele Placido's (Crime Novel) fourteenth feature, an eagerly anticipated new historical drama depicting the struggles of the notorious Renaissance painter as he's investigated by the Vatican.

Italy 1610. Michelangelo Merisi (Scarmarcio), better known as Caravaggio, is one of the brilliant painters of his time and a rebel who ignores Catholic Church rulings that dictate how religious subjects are to be represented. Having been informed that he depicts prostitutes, thieves and vagabonds in his work, Pope Paul V orders the Vatican secret service to investigate. They must decide whether to grant clemency to Caravaggio who has petitioned his death sentence for the murder of a love rival.

While Caravaggio seeks refuge in Naples under the protection of the powerful Marquise Costanza Colonna (Huppert), the investigator (Garrel), known as The Shadow, begins the inquiry that will lead him to discover the conflicting vices and virtues of the artist whose life, or death, lies in his hands.