Italian writer Alice Rohrwacher, known for her magical realist works “The Wonders,” “Happy as Lazarus,” and “La Chimera,” which were screened at the Cannes Film Festival, has been chosen to direct a feature film adaptation of Italo Calvino’s coming-of-age fable “The Baron in the Trees.”
One of the most famous books in 20th century Italian literature, The Baron in the Trees was published in 1957 and revolves around a 12-year-old baron named Cosimo Pivasco di Rondo. After an argument with his father, the Baron climbs a tree and remains there for the rest of his life. This work is one of the late Calvino’s best-selling novels, along with his 1979 novel “A Traveler on a Winter Night.”
The adaptation of director Rohrwacher’s The Baron in the Trees is being produced by Rome-based Our Films. Our Films is a shingle film company owned by Media One and run by producers Mario Gianni and Lorenzo Mieli. They produced Pawel Pawlikowski’s Fatherland, which just won the Cannes Director’s Award along with Spanish directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s La Bola Negra. Mubi plans to release “Fatherland” in U.S. theaters this fall.
In 2022, after years of pursuit, Mieri secured the rights to Italo Calvino Classic from the Wiley Agency.
“The image that I associate most with this story is not so much the boy in the tree, but the adult man who spends his life in the tree,” Mieli told Variety at the time. “A man who kept his word, the harshness of being disobedient.”
Director Rohrwacher is currently filming an adaptation of American author Audrey Niffenegger’s novel “The Incest Sisters,” which features an all-star cast including Dakota Johnson, Josh O’Connor, Saoirse Ronan, Jesse Buckley, Isabella Rossellini, and a cameo from Mick Jagger. The much-talked-about film, based on Niffenegger’s illustrated Gothic novel, tells the story of three isolated sisters whose relationship is disrupted by the arrival of a lighthouse keeper’s son. The film is considered to be mostly, if not entirely, silent.
Director Rohrwacher does not plan to begin filming The Baron in the Trees until late 2027.
Our Films and Mubi, which has a co-production, financing and distribution agreement, will next launch Felix van Groningen’s romantic drama Let Love In, which will reunite the celebrated Belgian auteur with Italian actor Luca Marinelli (The Eight Mountains). The Italian-Belgian co-production is likely to take its bow at the upcoming Venice Film Festival.
Deadline first reported the news that Rohrwacher would be directing The Baron in the Trees
