Pierfrancesco Favino to Play Humanitarian World War II Hero in ‘Comandante,’ Production Builds 70-Ton Submarine Replica – Watch (EXCLUSIVE)
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Italian A-list actor Pierfrancesco Favino, who just scored a European Film Award nomination for his role in “Nostalgia,” is set to play heroic Sicilian World War II naval officer Salvatore Todaro in “Comandante.” Directed by rising auteur Edoardo De Angelis, the film is an ambitious anti-war epic that has required the construction of a life-size steel submarine.
Belgian multihyphenate Johan Heldenbergh, who wrote and starred in “The Broken Circle Breakdown,” plays the captain of an enemy ship.
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Cameras have started rolling in the southern port city of Taranto on this meticulous reconstruction of an act of wartime humanitarianism that has gone down in naval history annals. It took place in the Atlantic Ocean on Oct. 15, 1940, when Todaro as commander of the submarine Cappellini sank a Belgian merchant ship called Kabalo that was carrying aircraft parts and operating under British rule.
He then surfaced, disobeying orders from his own command, to rescue the Kabalo’s 26 crew members, initially by towing their lifeboat and later, when it started sinking, taking them on board at great risk to his own life and the lives of his crew.
As legend has it, when the captain of the Kabalo, played by Heldenbergh, upon landing in a bay in the Azores islands, asked Todaro why he exposed himself to such risk, he replied: “Because we are Italian.”
“A defenseless enemy is no longer an enemy, he’s just another human being,” De Angelis said in his director’s statement, adding: “Salvatore knows the eternal laws that rule the sky and the sea.”
De Angelis after making an international splash with the 2016 drama “Indivisible,” about Neapolitan teenage conjoined-twin sisters with beautiful voices, more recently helmed Netflix’s upcoming six-episode Elena Ferrante adaptation “The Lying Lives of Adults.”
The “Comandante” screenplay is penned by De Angelis with prizewinning Italian writer Sandro Veronesi (“The Hummingbird”) who has also written a novelization of the film that will be out via Italian publisher Bompiani in January 2023.
“Comandante” is being produced by Indigo Film (“The Great Beauty”) with RAI Cinema and by De Angelis with his regular producers Attilio De Razza and Pierpaolo Verga via their Tramp Limited and O’Groove shingles. RAI Cinema’s 01 Distribuzione will release the film in Italy.
The film’s impressive below-the-line crew comprises Oscar winner David Stump (“Batman Forever”) as workflow supervisor; costumes by Oscar nominee Massimo Cantini Parrini (“Cyrano”); and visual effects handled by Kevin Tod Haug (“Twilight,” “Panic Room”).
A life-size replica of the Cappellini submarine has been built for the film in a dockyard in Taranto, based on its original design, in collaboration with Italy’s Cinecittà Studios. The steel vessel is 73 meters long, weighs 70 tons, and involved more than 100 professionals including engineers, builders and craftsmen. (Watch a teaser above.)
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