Vincere

"If you care about movies, I'm telling you to carve out time for Vincere, a strange and powerful blend of historical fact and dreamlike imagination that captures both the charisma and the murderous madness of the young Benito Mussolini."—Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

"The movie, a near-masterpiece, is a monument to intoxication: of sexual conquest, of military conquest, and, most of all, of cinema."—David Edelstein, New York Magazine

As a prelude to the Wexner Center's upcoming series A Summer Abroad: Cinema italiano, we’re pleased to present this exclusive one-week-only engagement of one of the most acclaimed contemporary films from Italy. A cinematic tour-de-force, Vincere is Italian master Marco Bellocchio's (Fists in the Pocket) portrait of Benito Mussolini (Filippo Timi), and the fiery woman who was his secret wife and the mother of his abandoned child (Giovanna Mezzogiorno). The film was a standout selection of the 2009 Cannes, Telluride, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals, and received awards for Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Actor at the Chicago International Film Festival.

The closely guarded story of Ida Dalser, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's secret lover, and their son unfolds in fittingly operatic scale in Vincere. Thunderstruck by the young Mussolini's charisma, Ida Dalser gives up everything to help champion his revolutionary ideas. After he disappears during World War I and then resurfaces with a new wife, the scorned Dalser and her son are locked away in separate asylums for more than a decade. But Ida will not disappear without a fight... (128 mins., 35mm)