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Louis Garrel is set to play John Elkann — heir to Italy’s Agnelli family, behind car giant Fiat — in Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio’s “Falcon.” The biopic centers on charismatic auto industry executive Sergio Marchionne,
played by Pierfrancesco Favino, who saved Fiat from the brink of bankruptcy.
The high-end production is currently shooting in Toronto. Additional “Falcon” cast members include Benedetta Cimatti, Barbara Ronchi and a cameo by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.
Marchionne, who was Italian and Canadian, died in 2018 at 66. He was hired by Italy’s Agnelli family to run Fiat in 2004 when, due to previous mismanagement and the recession, few in the auto industry believed it could be saved.
“Ruthless and visionary, he axes the top management, teaches John Elkann (Garrel), the young heir suddenly burdened with the family’s legacy, the art of command, and conquers the American market by fighting General Motors and Chrysler, saving FIAT from bankruptcy,” the film’s synopsis says.
Then, in 2009, when Chrysler was guided into a U.S. government-led bankruptcy, Marchionne offered to take control of the company essentially for free. With no other option, the U.S. Treasury Department accepted his offer. By merging the two failing car companies, Marchionne created the seventh-largest vehicle manufacturer in the world, increasing Fiat’s value more than tenfold.
“Marchionne became very important and famous overseas,” promotional materials note. “But the miracle exacted a devastating price. Blending the razor-sharp tension of a financial thriller with deep psychological insight, ‘Falcon’ explores the heights of capitalism and the fatal, profound isolation of a tragic victor swallowed by the very machine he saved.”
The project is written by Bellocchio with Ludovica Rampoldi, Andrea di Stefano, Stefano Rulli and the collaboration of Oliviero Del Papa. “Falcon” is being produced by Simone Gattoni for Kavac Film, Mattia Mor for Emotion Network and RAI Cinema and in collaboration with Stla Europe.
The prolific – and still very active – Bellocchio, who is 86, is considered the greatest living Italian director of the country’s old guard that came of age during the 1960s. His recent works comprise “The Traitor” — starring Favino — about the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence, which was released in the U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics in 2020. In 2023, he shot “Kidnapped,” which reconstructs the true tale of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy who was kidnapped and forcibly raised as a Christian in 19th-century Italy. His six-episode “Portobello” TV series, which reconstructs one of Italy’s most clamorous travesties of justice, was the first HBO Original Italian production to launch on the HBO Max streaming platform where it dropped to positive response in 2026.
“Falcon” reunites Bellocchio with longtime creative collaborators, including production designer Andrea Castorina, costume designer Daria Calvelli and editor Francesca Calvelli. The director is joined for the first time by Berlin-based Italian cinematographer Matteo Cocco, winner of Italy’s David di Donatello prize for lensing Giorgio Diritti’s “Hidden Away.”
