Bertolucci’s final screenplay heads to Venice with Alicia Vikander
Andrea Pallaoro directs The Echo Chamber, adapted from Bernardo Bertolucci’s last screenplay, with Alicia Vikander, Luca Marinelli and Susan Sarandon starring.
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
3 min read
Bernardo Bertolucci’s last screenplay is finally headed for the big screen, with The Echo Chamber set to premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival in September, Deadline reported.
The film arrives nearly eight years after Bertolucci died in Rome in 2018. Andrea Pallaoro, whose previous features include Medeas, Hannah and Monica, directs the project, with Alicia Vikander, Luca Marinelli and Susan Sarandon leading the cast.
According to Deadline, the screenplay was written by Bertolucci with Ilaria Bernardini and Ludovica Rampoldi. Pallaoro worked with both writers while preparing the film, turning the script into what he described in the interview as the shooting blueprint for his version.
Indigo Film, the Rome-based company behind the production, acquired the rights after Bertolucci’s death. The producers are Nicola Giuliano, Francesca Cima, Carlotta Calori and Viola Prestieri.
A love story built on absence
Vikander plays Anne, a low-key physiotherapist, while Marinelli plays Leo, a successful music producer dealing with drug addiction. Their characters enter an unexpected romance, Deadline reported.
Sarandon plays Ava, a celebrated singer who works with Leo on an album and draws him in with stories from her life and loves.
Pallaoro told Deadline that Giuliano first brought him the screenplay and that he took time before agreeing to direct it because of Bertolucci’s place in film history. He said his aim was not to copy Bertolucci’s style, but to approach the material through his own point of view.
The project marks a shift for Pallaoro, who wrote the scripts for his three earlier features. He told Deadline that the Bertolucci script already carried ideas that matched his own interests, including the uneasy line between caring for another person and wanting to control them.
He also pointed to the film’s treatment of physical and emotional pain, and to the push and pull between presence and absence. The title, he said, connects to repeated patterns and memories that continue after their original source is gone.
Pallaoro picked the cast himself
Pallaoro told Deadline the cast was not already attached when he joined the film. He said he chose the actors and crew himself, describing them as artists he had long wanted to work with.
On Sarandon, he called Ava an iconic part and said he had admired the actor for films including Thelma & Louise, Dead Man Walking and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The director said the production did not rely on conventional rehearsals built around running scenes in advance. Instead, he said the team spent time talking through the characters and the film’s themes so the actors could build trust before filming.
Pallaoro also told Deadline that the film’s fractured timeline was already part of the screenplay’s identity. One strand follows Anne as she pursues Leo and enters his apartment, a device Pallaoro said opened up a cinematic way to explore absence.
Venice has been central to Pallaoro’s career. Deadline noted that all of his features so far have screened there, and he said returning with The Echo Chamber was especially meaningful because the festival has been tied to his work from the start.
This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.