Cinecittà Studios are the protagonists of the Finally Dawn trailer (watch the video above), Saverio Costanzo’s film in competition at the 80^th Venice Film Festival, featuring stars such as Lily James, Rebecca Antonaci, Joe Keery, Rachel Sennott, Alba Rohrwacher, Michele Bravi, and Willem Dafoe.

Finally Dawn lands at theaters from February 14 thanks to 01 Distribution, produced by  Wildside with Rai Cinema in collaboration with Fremantle, Cinecittà, and Filmnation Entertainment. At the story’s core, a simple girl, Mimosa, is suddenly tossed into the magic of Cinecittà in the 50s as a young extra. A single night at the ‘Hollywood on the Tiber’ Studios – the protagonist of memorable hours – changes her life forever. At dawn, she will have changed, well aware that courage is not about fulfilling the expectations of others but discovering who we are.

The movie was largely filmed at the Cinecittà studios, both on interior and many newly-built exterior sets, including that of ‘the film within the film’: the magnificent Egyptian peplum shot at ‘Hollywood on the Tiber’ at the time, where Mimosa is surprisingly chosen for a minor role.

“I had fun imagining and reconstructing that iconography linked to the filmmaking of the 50s,” stated Saverio Costanzo during the film presentation in Venice. “Cinecittà is not just a film studio. It has a unique and unmatchable atmosphere. The difference lies in how the light falls and the atmosphere surrounding the History to be inhaled in those soundstages. The difference is us, Cinecittà is us.”

Finally Dawn shooting at Cinecittà