
DP Italo Petriccione has been a part of more than 50 feature films since 1986. Over the years, he often joined forces with director Gabriele Salvatores on set and beyond. I started working with him on Marrakech Express' in 1988 and since then our collaboration has never stopped, says Petriccione. If we add that our friendship has now exceeded half a century, there is no need to emphasize our professional understanding. For a long time, I've been trying to get Gabriele to use black and white. As a young man I was passionate about photography and I used to shoot and print strictly in black and white. With Il ritorno di Casanova ( The Return of Casanova ), Petriccione finally succeeded in convincing director Salvatores to implement this special color design. The new film, starring Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Toni Servillo, and Sara Serraiocco, features a story in two different time periods-one captured in color, the other one in black and white.
Copyright Indiana Production S.p.A
The Return of Casanova features a story with two different time periods and color designs
The Return of Casanova is set in two time periods. How did you manage the visual style?
The film tells the story of Oscar-winning director Leo (Toni Servillo), who, having finished shooting his last film, is in the grip of anxiety, frightened by the return to his complicated daily life. Age and fears are the same as those of the protagonist of his new film, a mature Casanova (Fabrizio Bentivoglio), who also suffers from his life declining due to the passing of time. As old age approaches, his capacity for seduction vanishes, just as the aging director's hold on the public vanishes; audiences are now attracted to a young director who is popular with critics. They are two mirror characters with the same anxieties, who see the youth of others as a constant threat to their status. Although separated by almost three centuries, the two are very close emotionally. Gabriele and I discussed for a long time about how to interpret the different time periods. In the end, we decided to use color for the costume scenes and black and white for the modern-day scenes.
Copyright Italo Petriccione
DP Italo Petriccione and director Gabriele Salvatores have worked together on projects for more than 30 years
Were you given any particular references?
For the color part, with its candlelit atmospheres, the sumptuousness of the locations and costumes and a density of the image inspired by film, we had Barry Lyndon in mind, but not only. For the contemporary part, characterized by a dry, etched black and white, with strong contrasts and declared compositional symmetries that revive the discomfort of everyday life, we drew inspiration from the black-and-white cinema of Gordon Willis with Woody Allen or that of Martin Scorsese. Another reference were the beautiful images of great Italian DPs of the 1950s and 60s, such as Leonida Barboni, G.R. Aldo, Peppino Rotunno, and many others of that fantastic era of our cinema.
Copyright Indiana Production S.p.A
Captured in color: The costume parts of The Return of Casanova
How many weeks of shooting did you do for The Return of Casanova ? Which locations did you choose?
With a budget of seven million euros, we shot five weeks in the Veneto region, between the provinces of Verona and Venice, and four in Milan. An important set for environments and days of shooting was Villa Dionisi in Cerea, a beautiful eighteenth-century mansion with a large park where we set many interiors and exteriors of the costume part.
Copyright Italo Petriccione
DP Italo Petriccione had nine weeks of shooting for The Return of Casanova at different locations in Italy
Were there any particular practical difficulties in filming at certain locations?
There is a scene in which Casanova returns to Venice at dawn in a gondola, and one in which the director is visiting the Venice Film Festival. Shooting in Venice is complicated in itself but having a whole scene at dawn, and, whats more, with an eighteenth-century setting, made everything even more difficult. We only had about 40 minutes to shoot before we would be invaded by tourists and boat traffic. We had to follow Casanova who, in a gondola, admired his Venice after years of exile. In the end, we finished shooting just in time, using a support boat on which a modular crane was mounted and a second camera on land to film the passage of the gondola from the bridges and between the streets. Once the last take was over, all hell broke loose among the tourists, vaporettos, and cruise ships! We then filmed the finale of the modern part on the red carpet of the Venice Film Festival. There, in addition to a strict protocol with cameramen and assistants in suits and ties and a meticulous police check, we had to adapt to the situation. A part of the shoot was rebuilt after midnight when the screenings were over. I had a Chroma Key put in the big screen that showed the film trailers and I had the collaboration of the festival's lighting manager, who allowed me to turn off or adjust the existing system, to which I made small additions.
Copyright Indiana Production S.p.A
In one scene of the film, Casanova returns to Venice at dawn in a gondola
What lenses did you use?
For the contemporary shots I used ARRI Signature Primes on large format, while for the costume parts I used a series of vintage Cooke Pancro on Super 35 format. To differentiate the two eras with color and black and white, using sensor formats and lenses with such different optical designs seemed the right approach to me. I was familiar with the Cooke Pancro, since I had shot my first three films with it. The Signature Primes struck me for their refined optical quality and the wonderful bokeh they create in the focal planes. The black-and-white part gave us great satisfaction. Th
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...