Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2019: #65. Martin Eden – Pietro Marcello

Martin Eden

Italian director Pietro Marcello tackles Jack London’s 1909 novel Martin Eden for his second narrative feature. Although various television versions have been made, the last cinematic venture of the novel was Sidney Salkow’s 1942 adaptation (London, famed for The Sea Wolf and White Fang seems to be making a resurgence, as one of his short stories also informed the latest Coen Bros. film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs). Starring Luca Marinelli, Marco Leonardi, Vincenzo Nemolato, Rinat Khismatouline, and Pietro Ragusa the project is and Italian-French co-production through Avventurosa and Shellac Sud, produced by Thomas Ordonneau and Francisco Paolillo, with Viola Fugen and Michael Weber serving as co-producers (both of whom also worked on Cemetery of Splendor and Foxtrot). Marcello’s 2007 documentary Crossing the Line screened in Venice’s Horizons sidebar, and he won the Teddy in Berlin for 2009’s The Mouth of the Wolf. Marcello competed in Locarno with his narrative debut Lost and Beautiful in 2015, winning Special Mention from the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.

Gist: Co-written by his regular scribe Maurizio Braucci, Martin Eden concerns a middle class sailor who struggles to break into the literary world, falling in love with a woman from a higher class.

Release Date/Prediction: Shot in May in Germany and Caserta, Martin Eden should be ready in time for Berlin, where Marcello could potentially compete for the first time. Otherwise, we expect a potential return to Locarno.