Vermiglio , also known as The Mountain Bride, is a 2024 drama film written, co-produced and directed by Maura Delpero. The film premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize. It was selected as the Italian entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. It received 14 nominations at the 70th David di Donatello, and won 7 awards, including Best Film.
In 1944, two Italian men, Attilio and Pietro, have deserted their army posts in Germany, and come to Attilio's home, the remote Trentino mountain village of Vermiglio, to seek refuge.
The village has a one room school, run by a stern teacher, Cesare, Attilio's uncle. Cesare and his wife Adele have just had their 9th child, but the baby boy dies in infancy (as had a previous child).
Lucia â their eldest daughter â falls in love with Pietro, who is of Sicilian origin. Lucia, becomes pregnant by Pietro and he agrees to marry her. Her aunt sees that Lucia is already pregnant prior to the wedding.
Various subplots revolve around the school, Catholic traditions, Lucia's siblings and the difficulties Adele faces trying to raise and feed a large family with little money or support from the patriarch Cesare.
Once news of the end of the war arrives, Pietro returns to Sicily with the aim of letting his loved ones know he has survived, promising Lucia he will write and return soon. However, after some time goes by with no word from Pietro, the family learns from the newspaper that Pietro was already married to a Sicilian woman and has been killed by her.
Meanwhile, Lucia gives birth to Antonia, the baby she was expecting with Pietro. Pietro's death devastates Lucia, who falls into despair and rejects the child, contemplating suicide, from which her brother Dino saves her. During her gradual recovery, Lucia travels to Sicily to seek closure, where she has a close encounter with Pietro's first wife and visits her husband's grave. Meanwhile, she has entrusted the child to an orphanage, where her younger sister Ada, who has become a nun, now works. Finally, Lucia decides to go to the city to work for a wealthy family, promising herself she will return later for her child.
Principal photography started on 28 August 2023, and shooting wrapped in December. The film was shot between the Vermiglio, Carciato and Comasine towns in the Trentino-Alto Adige region. It is produced by Cinedora (Italy), Charades (France), and Versus (Belgium). Delpero decided to make the film after her father's death as a way to help ensure that the traditions in which she had grown up were not lost, including conducting many interviews with local people during pre-production.
The film world-premiered in competition at the 81st Venice International Film Festival. It made its North American premiere at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival.
It was featured in the Limelight section of the 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam to be screened in February 2025.
The film received general positive reviews by critics.
Jessica Kiang of Variety affirmed that "economy" is the watchword of "deceptively formalist" film, that results from "deceptively formalist" direction, editing, musical compositions to costumes, contributing "to a fascinating narrative remove, which is belied by the close-up clarity of the imagery". Kiang wrote that although the plot is set in the past, it "operates like a future family secret playing out in the present tense" through " the spirit of the mothers and the sisters and the daughters who came before and after, and who trusted the imperious mountains to keep their secrets".
The film received favorable reviews from Italian film critics. Mattia Pasquini of Ciak wrote that like the previous film Maternal the screenplay is about the mother-child relationship set on an "extremely refined framework, both linguistically, stylistically and narratively coherent and homogeneous". Federico Pontiggia of Cinematografo stated that the film draws on "[Delpero's] prior documentary experience with greater ambition, free will and calmness," observing that "the direction of actors is excellent, the anti-spectacle concept is cohesive and confident, the poetry of war and peace is marvelous. Here we have a consummate auteur: Maura Delpero."