2023 Venice: Challengers Out, Comandante In as Venice Film Festival Opener

While there are plenty of fall film festival subtractions behind the scenes, just this hour we learned that we have our first public casualty with the Venice Film Festival having to find a opening film replacement after Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers has been field goal kicked into 2024 (an April release date by the MGM folks means Berlinale might be looking to nab it). Edoardo De Angelis‘ Comandante now has the spotlight spot. Considered a raising auteur, this features Pierfrancesco Favino front and center as the heroic Sicilian World War II naval officer.

At the start of WWII, Salvatore Todaro commands the Italian Royal Navy submarine Cappellini. One dark night in October 1940, while navigating in the Atlantic, he comes upon an armed merchant ship sailing with lights out. He shoots his cannons at the ship and sinks it. At that moment, the Commander makes a decision that was destined to go down in history: he saves the 26 shipwrecked Belgians who otherwise would have drowned in the middle of the ocean and disembarks them at the nearest safe harbor, as prescribed by the law of the sea. To make room for them on board his submarine, he is forced to navigate on the surface of the water for three days, visible to the enemy forces and endangering his life and that of his men.