Oscars 2025: Italy selects ‘Vermiglio’ as Best International Feature Film entry
Italy has selected “Vermiglio” as the country’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. The movie written and directed by Maura Delpero won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 Venice Film Festival and will make its stateside debut at the Hamptons International Film Festival on October 10.
“Vermiglio” is set in 1944, in Vermiglio, a high mountain village of the Italian Alps where war looms as a distant but constant threat. The arrival of Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), a refugee soldier, disrupts the dynamics of the local teacher’s family, changing them forever. During the four seasons marking the end of World War II, Pietro and Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), the eldest daughter of the teacher, instantly drawn to each other, led to marriage and an unexpected fate. As the world emerges from its tragedy, the family will face its own.
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Italy has won Best International Feature Film at the Oscars 14 times, more than any other country. A total of 33 Italian films have been nominated, second only to France with 41. Italy’s winning films were “Shoe-Shine” (1947), “Bicycle Thieves” (1949), “The Walls of Malapaga” (1950), “La Strada” (1956), “Nights of Cabiria”(1957), “8 1/2” (1963), “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” (1964), “Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion” (1970), “The Garden of the Finzi Continis” (1971), “Amarcord” (1974), “Cinema Paradiso” (1989), “Mediterraneo” (1991), “Life is Beautiful” (1998) and “The Great Beauty” (2013).
The jury for the 81st edition of the Venice Film festival that awarded “Vermiglio” its grand jury prize was chaired by Isabelle Huppert and composed of members James Gray, Andrew Haigh, Agnieszka Holland, Kleber Mendon?a Filho, Abderrahmane Sissako, Giuseppe Tornatore, Julia von Heinz, and Zhang Ziyi. The film also screened in the Special Presentation section of the Toronto International Film Festival.
Sideshow and Janus Films acquired the film out of Venice and are planning a theatrical release this year. The companies previously released the Oscar winning “Drive My Car” and the Oscar nominees “EO” and “All That Breathes.” Janus Films also distributed the Oscar winning film “The Great Beauty.”
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