01/04/2025 - Based on Marco Franzoso’s novel, the Italian director’s new movie reunites Stefano Accorsi and Matilda De Angelis nine years on from the success of Italian Race

Director Stefano Mordini and actors Stefano Accorsi and Matilda De Angelis on the set of La lezione (© Camilla Cattabriga)

Stefano Accorsi and Matilda De Angelis - who played the race car driver siblings in Italian Race [+see also:
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film profile] (one of Matteo Rovere’s most successful films) almost ten years ago - have reunited for Stefano Mordini’s new movie La lezione, on which filming has just wrapped.

Following her debut with Rovere, which won her the Italian critics’ Biraghi Prize for Best Newcomer at the Nastri d’Argento Awards, 2018 European Shooting Star Matilda De Angelis embarked on a brilliant artistic career (winning the 2021 David di Donatello for Best Supporting Actress via Rose Island [+see also:
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film profile]. Accorsi and De Angelis are joined in the cast by Marlon Joubert (The Hand of God [+see also:
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Mordini is back on set following his Italian-British co-production Race for Glory [+see also:
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film profile]. His previous films have been selected in the Berlinale (his first fiction film Smalltown Italy screening in competition), in Venice (Steel [+see also:
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interview: Stefano Mordini
film profile] in the Giornate degli Autori line-up and Lasciami andare and The Catholic School [+see also:
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interview: Stefano Mordini
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interview: Stefano Mordini
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Based on Marco Franzoso’s homonymous novel, La lezione sees Mordini adapting a literary work for the second time, following on from The Catholic School, and signing his name to another screenplay with Luca Infascelli. The film follows a brilliant, young lawyer from Trieste who’s contacted by a charismatic university professor, whom she previously successfully defended against an accusation of sexual violence, to sue his university which has reinstated him but relegated him to a marginal role. Meanwhile, her past comes back to haunt her: strange signs, a fleeting sense of a presence and an ongoing threatening feeling lead her to believe that her ex-partner - who was abusive and obsessive over her, to the point of being convicted of stalking – is once again harassing her. As the line between reality and imagination blurs, Elisabetta decides to uncover the truth, in a crescendo of tension which ends with her being alone and calling everything she thought she knew into question.

Shot between Trieste and Rome, La lezione was produced by Roberto Sessa on behalf of Picomedia and Vision Distribution, in collaboration with Sky, with backing from the Film and Audiovisual Investment Development Fund managed by the Italian Ministry for Culture’s Film and Audiovisual Department and from the FVG Film Commission – PromoTurismoFVG. Vision Distribution will handle world sales and distribution in Italy.

(Translated from Italian)