La Chimera - Official Site

AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE SEASON NOW SHOWING

Critics' Rating 91%

Utterly captivating. A beguiling fantasy-comedy of lost love: garrulous, uproarious and celebratory in Rohrwacher's absolutely distinctive style. It’s a movie bustling and teeming with life.

Peter Bradshaw

THE GUARDIAN

Transcendent. A work of continuing surprise and ebullience that blurs the boundaries of the ancient and the modern and recalls the greatest artists of Italian cinema. The exquisite sympathy of the final moments is profoundly moving. There is joy in so much of this film. Rohrwacher is indeed an heir of De Sica: she too shares in his wondrous humanity.

Christos Tsiolkas

THE SATURDAY PAPER

Beguiling. Go see it. A magical film, full of ideas, with a quiet, mournful elegance that operates in a poetic register that recalls Fellini and Pasolini. I feel like watching it again.

Jason Di Rosso

ABC RADIO NATIONAL

A joyous, masterful work of magic. Plays like a discovery dug up from the ground where it has been for centuries, just waiting to burst into full bloom before the gaze of living eyes.

Jessica Kiang

SIGHT AND SOUND

Uniquely magical. Alice Rohrwacher makes movies like no one else.

David Rooney

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Astounding. A film of incandescent beauty, both aesthetically and in its thematic liminality. A towering work of art presented with the unassuming invitation of a warming summer morning.

Carlos Aguilar

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Divine. Rohrwacher is a magician.

Mark Ashe

LITTLE WHITE LIES

Enchanting. Has a beguiling, reorienting power... It's a gift of a film, a philosophically stimulating piece of cinema that has the rare capacity to genuinely transform the way we look at the world.

Farah Cheded

THE PLAYLIST

Startling, probing and artful. That rare jewel of a film where watching it once is enough but repeat viewings are ever more rewarding.

Kate Jinx

THE MONTHLY

Pure magic. Sublime, an earthy, spellbinding treasure... This is very much a movie to love.

Jake Coyle

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The perfect kind of film to get lost in.

Stephanie Zacherak

TIME

Director: Alice Rohrwacher

Cast: Josh O'Connor, Isabella Rossellini, Carol Duarte, Alba Rohrwacher, Vincenzo Nemolato

Duration: 132mins

Country of Origin: Italy

Coarse language

Critics' Rating 91%

Utterly captivating. A beguiling fantasy-comedy of lost love: garrulous, uproarious and celebratory in Rohrwacher's absolutely distinctive style. It’s a movie bustling and teeming with life.

Beguiling. Go see it. A magical film, full of ideas, with a quiet, mournful elegance that operates in a poetic register that recalls Fellini and Pasolini. I feel like watching it again.

Jason Di Rosso

ABC RADIO NATIONAL

A joyous, masterful work of magic. Plays like a discovery dug up from the ground where it has been for centuries, just waiting to burst into full bloom before the gaze of living eyes.

Jessica Kiang

SIGHT AND SOUND

Uniquely magical. Alice Rohrwacher makes movies like no one else.

David Rooney

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Astounding. A film of incandescent beauty, both aesthetically and in its thematic liminality. A towering work of art presented with the unassuming invitation of a warming summer morning.

Carlos Aguilar

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Divine. Rohrwacher is a magician.

Mark Ashe

LITTLE WHITE LIES

Enchanting. Has a beguiling, reorienting power... It's a gift of a film, a philosophically stimulating piece of cinema that has the rare capacity to genuinely transform the way we look at the world.

Farah Cheded

THE PLAYLIST

Startling, probing and artful. That rare jewel of a film where watching it once is enough but repeat viewings are ever more rewarding.

Kate Jinx

THE MONTHLY

Pure magic. Sublime, an earthy, spellbinding treasure... This is very much a movie to love.

Jake Coyle

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The perfect kind of film to get lost in.

Stephanie Zacherak

TIME

2024 ITALIAN ACADEMY (David di Donatello) AWARDS NOMINEE x 11 - incl. Best Film, Director, Orig. Screenplay, Actor (O'Connor) & Supp Actress (Rossellini)
OFFICIAL SELECTION – 2023 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL (In Competition)
OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2023 ST ALI ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL (Special Event)
OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2023 MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (Headliners)
OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2023 NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2023 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (Special Presentation)
OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2023 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2023 TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL

An enchanting romantic adventure, an ethereal spiritual journey and a ripping heist movie like no other, the captivating new fable of lost love from Alice Rohrwacher (Happy As Lazzaro, The Wonders) – the best received of her career to date - follows a young British archaeologist who gets caught up in an international network dealing in stolen Italian artefacts.

Tuscany, early 1980s. Arthur (a revelatory Josh O’Connor, The Crown, Challengers) has just been released from a short stint in prison. During his earlier studies in the region, he fell in love with Beniamina, the daughter of a local aristocrat Flora (Isabella Rossellini), but now she’s gone. Arthur has fallen in with the Tombaroli, a rowdy crew of twenty-somethings who pretend to make their living as farmers and entertainers, but instead pilfer the area’s ancient Etruscan tombs for earthenware and ornaments to sell on the black market, hoping to one day strike it rich…

Meanwhile Flora’s live-in maid and tone-deaf music student, Italia (Carol Duarte), catches Arthur’s eye but she has her own secrets.

Premiering to major success at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Rohrwacher’s rule-breaking, magical film uncovers a world of wonders just below the surface. LA CHIMERA is a mesmerising ode to the fragility of the beautiful things in life, and a cautionary tale about how easily they can be lost.