All The Stars Electric Bright

A stylish literary drama of love and divided loyalties, with echoes of The Great Gatsby and Lampedusa's The Leopard, set against the dark background of Fascist Italy.

Spring 1930: the world reels in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash, but in Italy the fascist regime is at the height of its popularity. At his luxurious lakeside villa, Maurizio Berardi, industrialist and art patron, is hosting an evening's entertainment. The guest of honour will be FT Marinetti, the 'Father of Futurism', and the evening promises to be extraordinary, featuring a performance of experimental music and dance followed by a dinner intended to revolutionise Italian cuisine. Mingling with the guests are the socialite photographer Nina Della Torre, her lover Arturo Gallo, a cynical and acerbic painter, and their idealistic friend Emilio Calvi; for each of them, the evening holds both temptation and threat, but the loves and loyalties that bind them will soon be tested. As evening descends into night the villa becomes charged with social and sexual tensions, intersecting ambitions and ambiguous intrigues. In the claustrophobic atmosphere of the fascist dictatorship, where artificiality is a virtue and insincerity a necessity, the dreams of a modernist future collide with the realities of life under a repressive regime, and the party beside the lake heads inexorably towards violent confrontation.