L'Ombra di Caravaggio

Production by Rai Cinema

Produced by Goldenart Productions

Directed by Michele Placido

L'Ombra di Caravaggio, a film directed by Michele Placido, is set in 17th-century Italy, the one in which the artist Michelangelo Merisi, aka Caravaggio, was known both for his genius and for his subversive character. A tormented man, transgressive and with a soul stirred by inner disagreements, which have consecrated him over time as a cursed artist. It is a rebel Michelangelo Merisi (Riccardo Scamarcio), who finds himself on the run because of a reckless life or, in other ways, too lived. After being sentenced to death for committing a murder during a fight, the painter escapes, into a clandestine existence to avoid capital punishment. While he tries to go unnoticed in the eyes of those who might recognize him, Caravaggio increasingly feels the terrible shadow of the beheading that belongs to him and it is thus in his works that condemned subjects and a massive presence of severed heads begin to make their way.

The recklessness of a genius, who spent the last years of his life amidst fears and his own demons, becoming a subversive icon that is still relevant today.