RAI Cinema Takes World Rights to De Angelis' 'The Fire Within You' Ahead of Venice Competition Bow
RAI Cinema International Distribution has acquired world rights to The Fire Within You, the new film from Neapolitan director Edoardo De Angelis, ahead of its competition premiere at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival (Variety).
The film — a dark tragicomedy running 94 minutes — will screen in the Venezia 83 Competition, a slate of up to 21 features presented as world premieres. Venice runs 2–12 September 2026 (La Biennale). In Italy, 01 Distribution will handle the theatrical release (Cineuropa).
The Fire Within You centres on Antonio, a man who left Naples years ago and built a successful career and family in Milan, only to find that his mother Angela — the toxic force he fled — still exerts a gravitational pull on him and his siblings. The screenplay adapts Il fuoco che ti porti dentro, a prizewinning autobiographical book by Italian author and editor Antonio Franchini (Variety).
De Angelis has said the project began at a dinner in Naples, when Franchini described the book he was writing about his mother. The director recognised echoes of his own grandmother and other women he had known, and the adaptation took shape from there (Variety).
For De Angelis, Venice is familiar ground. He broke out on the Lido in 2016 with Indivisible, a Naples-set drama about conjoined twins. In 2023, he opened the entire festival with Comandante, an anti-war epic. That same year, he directed Netflix's Elena Ferrante adaptation The Lying Life of Adults (Variety).
The cast is led by Vanessa Scalera, with Lino Musella, Elena Radonicich, Ivana Lotito, Nicole Malaj, Samuele Mazza, and Tony Laudadio (La Biennale). Picomedia — an Asacha Media Group company within the Fremantle group — produced the Italian-language film with RAI Cinema. Producers are Roberto Sessa and Chiara Grassi (Variety; La Biennale).
For De Angelis, the Venice return puts him back in a competition he knows well. For RAI Cinema, the world-rights deal means the Italian sales arm will be the one introducing the film to international buyers — the distributors and festival programmers who decide which films travel beyond their home country. That work begins in earnest on the Lido next week.
