A trip to Italy in a film almost always means romance or eroticism, whether in the old days of a Roman Holiday in the city or the sundrenched countryside of Call Me By Your Name. Even the site of mass death like Pompeii can be the site of sexual discovery, as the trailer for La Gradiva makes clear. The film, the feature debut from director Marine Atlan, follows a group of high school students and their teacher as they explore the ruins of Vesuvius on a class trip. “The trip becomes a rare moment when the force of youth meets a world frozen in time,” reads an official synopsis. “Their desires start to surface with unexpected intensity, leading them toward an irreversible fracture.”
La Gradiva has been well-received since its premiere at Cannes earlier this year. It screened as part of the Critics’ Week section, where it won the Grand Prize and was nominated for the Queer Palm. If you’re in New York, you may be able to catch the film at the New York Film Festival this coming weekend. For everyone else, La Gradiva starts rolling into theaters on December 18.
