THE GRACE” BY PAOLO SORRENTINO INAUGURATES THE 82ND VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

THE GRACE

A highly anticipated film, presented on the Lido as the first real showdown of this edition. The curtain rises: the 82nd Venice Film Festival kicks off with La Grazia, the new film by Paolo Sorrentino. A title that had fueled curiosity and calculated silences for weeks, until the synopsis was released to the press just hours before the screening in the Sala Grande. A President grappling with doubt. The protagonist is Mariano De Santis, played by Toni Servillo.

A fictional President of the Republic, a widower, a Catholic, accompanied by his daughter Dorotea (Anna Ferzetti), also a jurist. It’s the end of his term, and amid the monotony of the passing days, the most arduous task arises: adjudicating two requests for pardons. These are delicate decisions that end up touching on intimate chords in his private life. A hall of mirrors. The parallels with current events are striking: De Santis and Sergio Mattarella share sobering biographical traits. But Sorrentino himself wanted to curb any speculation: “He’s not Mattarella,” he declared, almost as if to confuse the issue. Perhaps to protect the film from reductive interpretations, perhaps to let viewers make their own connections.

As always in his cinema, the line between reality and fiction remains deliberately blurred. The director’s intentions: For Sorrentino, La Grazia is above all “a film about love, that inexhaustible engine that fuels doubt, jealousy, tenderness, emotion, understanding the things of life, responsibility.” A portrait of power seen not from the perspective of authority, but from that of man confronting his own fragility. The world premiere is scheduled for this evening, Wednesday, August 27, in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema.

The film will then travel to the public, with the Italian release scheduled for January 15, 2026, distributed by Piper Films.

DISCLAIMER: This text is intended to offer a cultural and interpretative analysis of Paolo Sorrentino’s film La Grazia. Any reference to real people is purely suggestive, without any factual basis.

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