Veteran director Krzysztof Zanussi leaves his homeland Poland behind for the Italian, Sicily-based drama Il sole nero (Black Sun), an adaptation of the play by Rocco Familiari, which in turn was based on a true story that happened some twenty years ago. Starring Valeria Golino in a role that promises to be at least as delirious as her star-making turn in Emanuele Crialese’s Respiro, Il sole nero tells the story of Agata (Golino), a beautiful woman who lives an intense love story with her younger but equally beautiful husband Manfredi (Lorenzo Balducci). When the latter is suddenly assassinated and his wife finds out who the killer is and what he wants from her, Agata finds herself at a crossroads between forgiveness and vendetta.

In Zanussi’s previous film, the diplomat drama Persona non grata, the director filmed a major part of the film on location in South America, but the project was still a Polish production talking about Polish themes (including what it means to be Polish abroad). Persona non grata premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2005, a festival where he won the top prize, the Golden Lion for Rok spokojnego slonca (A Year of the Quiet Sun) in 1984. In the past, Zanussi has directed productions in German, English and French, but Italian -- despite his strong ties to Venice -- was still missing from that list.

The director, who speaks fluent Italian, chose to adapt Familiari’s play for his new film, which is at the same time strongly rooted in the physical space of the city of Catania in Sicily (where the actual story happened and the play is set as well) and in the classical tradition of drama, with the city’s elderly functioning as the choir in a Greek tragedy. The film was shot on location in Sicily, with interiors shot in the Umbria region, in the studios at Terni, where some of the shots of the two exteriors of the houses used by the protagonists where reconstructed and filmed for continuity reasons (the two houses in Catania are in different neighbourhoods, whereas in the film they are opposite one another).

Zanussi sketches his film very clearly in terms of a battle between good and evil, and in this sense the happy marriage between Golino and her Balducci at the beginning of the film is shown as the apex of absolute bliss and innocence. In the film’s press notes, the director explains: "Agata and Manfredi are like angels, and angels don’t follow the latest fashion when getting dressed. In fact, it is not even necessary to be dressed at all when what we are talking about is an innocence that is not of this world. Agata and Manfredi are very beautiful, very much in love and… very naked.

"During the rehearsals on the day before shooting began I explained to [Valeria Golino and Lorenzo Balducci] my personal understanding of the concept of ‘innocence’," the director explains. "[They] only discovered they were required to act in the nude on the first day of shooting."

The presence of a naked Valeria Golino will certainly not hurt box office prospects, though it seems that her young co-star Lorenzo Balducci will be the one who will benefit most from his exposure. He was the only actor already fixed in Zanussi’s mind when casting for Il sole nero began, thanks to his presence at the premiere of Luciano Melchionna’s movie Gas, in which he impressed the Polish director. During filming on the Zanussi film, another European directing giant, Carlos Saura, contacted Zanussi to hear more about this young Italian star.

The Spanish director was looking for a young and charismatic lead for his musical biopic Io, Don Giovanni, about the Italian librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, who wrote, amongst others, the book for Mozart’s celebrated opera Don Giovanni. Zanussi recommended Balducci, who auditioned for Saura and got the coveted role. Filming on the musical period piece set between Vienna and Venice is currently underway.

The cast of Il sole nero also includes Kaspar Capparoni, Toni Bertorelli, Victoria Zinny and Remo Girone. The film started playing in Italian cinemas on Friday and is currently scheduled for an autumn release in France, which co-produced the film.