17/05/2024 - The Italian director’s new movie is based on Rosella Postorino’s international bestseller, inspired by the testimony of Adolf Hitler’s last food taster

Director Silvio Soldini and the film's casting during the rehearsals of Le assaggiatrici

Today, 17 May, will see filming begin on Silvio Soldini’s new movie, The Tasters, in the province of Bolzano in the South Tyrol. The film is based upon Rosella Postorino’s novel of the same name - an international bestseller published in 46 countries, with over a million copies sold throughout the world - which is inspired by the testimony of Adolf Hitler’s last food taster. The screenplay is penned by Cristina Comencini, Ilaria Macchia, Giulia Calenda, Doriana Leondeff and Soldini himself, while the cast is yet to be revealed.

The film follows in the wake of young Rosa who flees bomb-stricken Berlin in the autumn of 1943 and heads to a small, isolated village near the eastern border. This is where her in-laws live and where her husband, who’s deployed on the front, has advised she take shelter until the war ends and he returns. Rosa soon discovers that this seemingly sleepy village conceals a secret: in the forest bordering the hamlet is Hitler’s headquarters, the Wolf’s Lair.

The Führer sees enemies everywhere and is obsessed with the thought of being poisoned. One morning, at dawn, Rosa is taken away, alongside several other young women in the village, to taste the food that’s made for Hitler. Torn between their fear of death and the hunger that consumes them, these “tasters” forge alliances, friendships and agree secret pacts with one another. The “Berliner” struggles to gain acceptance. But when she finally wins their trust, something happens which makes her feel like a traitor: an SS officer turns up who, against all reason and in spite of herself, reawakens loving feelings in her, or maybe the simple need to feel alive, in spite of it all.

The Milan-born director was selected to compete in Venice in 1993 by way of Un'anima divisa in due and in Berlin in 2002 with Burning in the Wind [+see also:
trailer
film profile], as well as in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in 2000 thanks to Bread and Tulips. 3/19 [+see also:
film review
film profile] and Emma [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which was selected out of competition in Venice, are her most recent fiction films.

The Tasters is an Italian-Belgian-Swiss co-production, courtesy of Lumière & Co., Tarantula and Tellfilm, backed by the Italian Ministry of Culture, the IDM Film Commission Südtirol and the Lazio Region - Lazio Cinema International. Distribution in Italy and worldwide is entrusted to Vision Distribution.

(Translated from Italian)