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There is a secret in the life of Mussolini: a wife and a son, Benito Albino, who was born, acknowledged and then denied. The secret bears a name: Ida Dalser. It is a dark page in history, one ignored in the official biography of the Duce.
When Ida meets Mussolini in Milan, he is the editor of Avanti! and an ardent Socialist who intends to guide the masses towards an anti-clerical, anti-monarchical, socially emancipated future. Ida already had a fleeting encounter with him in Trento and remained thunderstruck. Ida truly believes in him and his ideas. In order to finance Il Popolo d'Italia, a newspaper he has founded and the nucleus of the forthcoming Fascist Party, Ida sells everything she has.
When the First World War erupts, Benito Mussolini enrolls in the Army and disappears. When Ida finds him again in a military hospital, he is tended to by Rachele whom he has just married. Ida lashes out at her rival furiously, demanding her rights as Mussolini's true wife and the mother of his first-born son. She is led away by force.
For more than eleven years, she is locked away in an insane asylum (and her son in an institute) where she is put under physical restraint and tortured, never to see her son again. But Ida will not give up without a fight.
Original Release
05/19/2009
US Release
03/19/2010
Links
Cast
Name | Character |
---|
Giovanna Mezzogiorno | Ida Dalser |
Filippo Timi | Benito Albino adulto / Benito Mussolini |
Fausto Russo Alesi | Riccardo Paicher |
Michela Cescon | Rachele Mussolini / Rachele Guidi |
Pier Giorgio Bellocchio | Pietro Fedele |
Corrado Invernizzi | Dottor Cappelletti |
Paolo Pierobon | Giulio Bernardi |
Bruno Cariello | Giudice |
Francesca Picozza | Adelina Dalser |
Simona Nobili | Madre Superiora |
Directors
Writers
Marco Bellocchio, Daniela Ceselli
Cast
Name | Character |
---|
Giovanna Mezzogiorno | Ida Dalser |
Filippo Timi | Benito Albino adulto / Benito Mussolini |
Fausto Russo Alesi | Riccardo Paicher |
Michela Cescon | Rachele Mussolini / Rachele Guidi |
Pier Giorgio Bellocchio | Pietro Fedele |
Corrado Invernizzi | Dottor Cappelletti |
Paolo Pierobon | Giulio Bernardi |
Bruno Cariello | Giudice |
Francesca Picozza | Adelina Dalser |
Simona Nobili | Madre Superiora |
Vanessa Scalera | Suora Misericordiosa |
Giovanna Mori | Tedesca |
Patrizia Bettini | Cantante |
Silvia Ferretti | Scarpette rosse |
Corinne Castelli | Lacrime |
Giovanni Vettorazzo | Poliziotto di guardia |
Giorgio Santomaso | Secondo poliziotto di guardia |
Fabrizio Costella | Il piccolo Benito Albino / Benito Albino Mussolini da bambino |
Anna Bianchi | Suora San Clemente |
Alberto Cracco | Questore Montanari |
Producers
Name | Role |
---|
Olivia Sleiter | Executive Producer |
Christian Baute | Producer |
Mario Gianani | Producer |
Hengameh Panahi | Producer |