The City of the Living

DramaThriller

In cinemas 2w later · Theatrical Oct 1, 2026 (IT)

Programme: Centrepiece
Year: 2026
Runtime: 103 min
Country: Italy
Language: Italian
Premiere: International Premiere
In cinemas: Oct 1, 2026 (IT)

Luca is twenty-three years old. He lives with an adoptive family who loves him. He moves between the suburbs and the city center with his friends and has a girlfriend with whom he shares a love that is young, yet significant for them both. Luca is searching for his path at an age when everything still feels possible and, at the same time, already lost; in this pursuit, he leads a double life. One night, after a seemingly chance encounter, the trajectory of Luca’s life is shattered, colliding with blind and senseless violence.

From the TIFF programme

The City of the Living is Edoardo Gabbriellini’s (Holiday, TIFF ’23) gripping yet respectful anti-true crime film based on Nicola Lagioia’s bestselling literary chronicle about the senseless 2016 murder of a young man that rocked Rome.

Known for millennia as the Eternal City, Italy’s capital includes neighbourhoods — and underbellies — rarely seen by flocking tourists. In one such locale, La Storta, a 23-year-old car mechanic of modest means named Luca Varani (depicted by the talented Emanuele Di Stefano) made his way through the world with the support of loving parents (eloquently portrayed by Simona Senzacqua and Valerio Mastandrea, last at the Festival with 2014’s Pasolini) and his high school sweetheart, Marta (played with grace by newcomer Gaia Merlonghi).

At an age when everything feels possible yet also somehow lost, Luca led a double life. One night, after a seemingly chance encounter, Luca’s trajectory was set on a path of senseless violence. His young life, most of which would still have been on the horizon, ended in March 2016 at the hands of two privileged men who, on this drug-fuelled occasion, were fixated on murder.

The City of the Living is an anti-true crime film based on Nicola Lagioia’s bestselling literary chronicle of the same name. Director Edoardo Gabbriellini takes great care to honour Varani, whose life began in the besieged city of Sarajevo.

Skilfully shot by Amine Messadi (who also lensed Gabbriellini’s Holiday, which screened at TIFF ’23), the film delicately explores the social, cultural, and emotional dynamics behind the tragic true events. In doing so, it exposes the fractures in contemporary Roman life — reflecting the historical weight and rhetorical artifice of Italian politics — and serves as a mirror to society as a whole.

DOROTA LECH

Content advisory: mature themes, strobing effects