Across the River and Into the Trees directed by Paula Ortiz and based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway, will be distributed in Italian theatres from July 3 by PFA Films in collaboration with L’Altro Film. This was the last novel published during Hemingway’s lifetime (The Old Man and the Sea was later published posthumously, unfinished).
"Let us cross the river and rest in the shade of the trees". These words, which inspired the novel's title, were uttered by Confederate General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson on his deathbed during the American Civil War.
Written while in Italy and set in the places where the film was shot, Across the River and Into the Trees was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1950, after first being serialized in Cosmopolitan magazine earlier that year. It reached in Italy in 1965.
The film captures a fleeting moment of immortality in a timeless suspension. The story takes place towards the end of World War II. Knowing that he is terminally ill, Colonel Richard Cantwell (Liev Schreiber) decides to spend a solitary weekend, commissioning a military driver to take him on what will likely be his last duck hunting trip and a visit to his old haunts in Venice. His real plans are somewhat different, but the chance encounter with a young countess (Matilda De Angelis) ignites the hope of renewal.
Leading actors, Liev Schreiber and Matilda De Angelis, are joined by an international and Italian cast that includes Josh Hutcherson, Laura Morante, Danny Huston, Massimo Popolizio, Enzo Cilenti, Giulio Berruti, Maurizio Lombardi, Sabrina Impacciatore.
The film, directed by Paula Ortiz and produced by Tribune Picture, was shot almost entirely in and around Venice. It received support from the Veneto Film Commission and a €1.3 million contribution from the Regione Veneto.
The film "is a beautiful stroll through the post-war Venetian night: an anti-war story about the path of death, life, and beauty, seen as a cinematic experience—and very necessary today," noted the director.
From his base at the Gritti Palace, the Colonel experiences the Grand Canal, the Rialto bridge, Santa Maria della Salute, the canals that branch out like arteries into the Venice lagoon, the city and its streets as a unique vision, and agrees to be guided through this place of wonder by Renata Contarini, with whom a brief but strong, melancholic love blooms.
Piazza San Marco emerges ineluctably at night in all its beauty, with the unmistakable outline of the city’s iconic Basilica, the bell tower, and the Doge's Palace.
Scenes were also shot in and around Treviso, at the Abbey of Sant'Eustachio in Nervesa della Battaglia. In Villa Kechler De Asarta in Friuli, Hemingway stayed for a time at the latter in the late 1940s, and it served as the location for the post-WWII headquarters of the Anglo-American forces in Trieste.
• See the complete location list for Across the River and Into the Trees.
Across the River and Into the Trees is filled with biographical references. Veneto was very dear to Hemingway: a volunteer ambulance driver for the Italian army during WWI, he ended up on the Piave front, in Fossalta, where he gained experience in the trenches. In 1918, he was seriously wounded.
After the war, he frequently stayed in Veneto and Friuli, and was a regular guest at the Gritti Hotel in Venice. During his stays in Venice, he dated a noblewoman, Adriana Ivancich, with whom he became infatuated and who inspired the female character in the novel.