Filming on Tom Ford's highly anticipated new film, Cry to Heaven, based on the 1982 novel by Anne Rice, began in Italy on 19 January. The film is set in the opera world of 18th-century Italy, largely dominated at the time by castrati, young boys surgically emasculated before their voices were affected by puberty to preserve their youthful power and range.
The screenplay was written by Anne Rice and Tom Ford together.
The crew of 180 is expected to film in Rome for nine weeks and in Caserta for one. The star-studded cast includes singer Adele in her acting debut, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Colin Firth, Owen Cooper, Daryl McCormack, Thandiwe Newton, George MacKay, Ciarán Hinds, Hunter Schafer, Paul Bettany, Mark Strong, Théodore Pellerin, Lux Pascal, Cassian Bilton, Josephine Thiesen, Hauk Hellestveit Hannemann, and Daniel Quinn Toye.
Cry to Heaven explores the themes of betrayal, identity, and personal redemption through the story of Tonio, a Venetian noble whose life is violently altered when he is castrated by his half-brother. Tonio transforms his trauma into skill, becoming a renowned soprano under the tutelage of opera star Guido. The latter, peasant-born, lost his voice to illness at the age of eighteen and went from opera star to maestro in the same Naples Conservatory where he had studied, forever renouncing the fame he was about to achieve as a soprano. Their encounter sparks a mutual possibility of redemption, transforming a cruel, mocking fate into opportunity.