Dio ride by Giovanni Veronesi is the closing film of the Biennale Cinema 2026

Dio ride, written and directed by Giovanni Veronesi (The King's Musketeers, Manual of Love, For Love, Only for Love), is the out-of-competition, closing film of the 83^rd Venice International Film Festival of the Biennale di Venezia, directed by Alberto Barbera (September 2 – 12, 2026).

Dio ride will have its world premiere screening on Saturday, September 12, in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido di Venezia, after the awards ceremony.

The film’s Director Giovanni Veronesi stated: «I struggle to express my emotions well; I find it difficult to admit when I'm thrilled or happy. However, this time, the invitation to the Venice Film Festival left me surprised and honored. I am happy—there, I’ve said it».

The Festivals’s Director Alberto Barbera stated: «We will close on a high note thanks to Giovanni Veronesi and his magnificent cast, to whom we owe the successful blend of irony and lightness applied to a traditionally serious topic. It is a tone that belongs to the finest tradition of a certain Italian cinema, one that has been overlooked for far too long».

Set in the mid-1600s and loosely based on true events, the movie resonates strongly with the present time through a story that centers on freedom, the power of the truth, and the relationship between people and power, with its shadows and contradictions. With his profound humanity, the friar Frate Leopoldo will change the lives of the people he encounters.

Dio Ride is a film by Giovanni Veronesi starring Pierfrancesco Favino, Silvio Orlando, Alma Noce, Francesco Gheghi, Maurizio Lombardi, Paolo Rossi, and Carlo Cecchi in the role of Pope Innocent X.

Dio ride is a production of Indiana Production - a VUELTA company, Piperfilm, and Ogi Film in collaboration with Netflix; it is produced by Fabrizio Donvito, Benedetto Habib, Marco Cohen, and Daniel Campos Pavoncelli for Indiana Production; by Massimiliano Orfei, Luisa Borella, and Davide Novelli for PiperFilm.

The script was written by Giovanni Veronesi, Nicola Baldoni, Gianluca Bernardini, and Nicola Deorsola with the collaboration of Paolo Portone and Jean Jacques Llunga.

During the mid-1600s, there is a man who talks of God in a way that no one has ever done before: Frate Leopoldo da Casamacchia. While the Church preaches in Latin, Fra Leopoldo recounts the Gospel with contagious joy, bringing comfort and hope to those who listen to him. He speaks of a God who is close to the people and is even able to laugh with them. His message spreads from village to village, winning the hearts of thousands of people who begin to follow him everywhere, as the churches empty out. The clamor reaches Rome and the echo of that voice sounds dangerous to those who, by then, govern through fear. The Pope decides to entrust the case to Cardinal Maculani, the most authoritative inquisitor of his era. What begins as a trial, turns into an unexpected confrontation that is destined to challenge seemingly unshakable convictions. While Leopoldo’s destiny seems foreordained, the destinies of Maculani and those who, like him, are overcome by doubt take unexpected directions. Because you can silence a voice but not what that voice has left in others.

Dio ride will be released in Italian cinemas on October 29, distributed by PiperFilm; international sales are handled by Piperplay.

Director and screenwriter Giovanni Veronesi is a key figure in the revival of Italian cinema in the 1990s and one of the creators who helped establish the so-called "Tuscan cinema." After making his debut as a screenwriter alongside Francesco Nuti—marking the start of a long-standing artistic partnership—he made his directorial debut with Maramao. He later won the David di Donatello award for Best Screenplay for his film For Love, Only for Love (Per amore, solo per amore) and began a long collaboration with Leonardo Pieraccioni, co-writing The Cyclone (Il ciclone), one of the highest-grossing films in Italian cinema history. In parallel, he continued his work as a director, making highly successful films such as What Will Become of Us (Che ne sarà di noi), the Manual of Love trilogy (Manuale d’amore), The King’s Musketeers (I moschettieri del Re), and The Fifth Wheel (L’ultima ruota del carro). Throughout his career, he has directed and collaborated with some of Italy's most prominent actors as well as international stars like Harvey Keitel, David Bowie, and Robert De Niro. In 2025, he received the Nastro d’Argento award for the documentary La Valanga Azzurra, dedicated to the legendary feats of the Italian alpine ski team of the 1970s. His latest film is Dio ride.