A week ahead of the start of the 80th Venice Film Festival, Italian director Edoardo De Angelis has released the first trailer for his movie Comandante, which will open the festival. The film, sees veteran Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino play WW2 submarine commander Salvatore Todaro, who famously saved Belgian men after sinking their submarine in the Atlantic in 1940. De Angelis claims,

[Giovanni] Pettorino, at a time when Italian ports were being closed to shipwreck survivors, and defenceless women, children and men were drowning at sea, needed to tell his sailors how to behave. 

He chose the road of the parable and told the extraordinary story of Salvatore Todaro, the Italian submariner who sank enemy ships during the war but saved men. This is what the law of the sea demands, this is how it has always been done, this is how it will always be done.

Zendaya’s tennis film Challengers was originally meant to be in the opening slot, but it was pulled due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Favino, who won the prize for Best Actor in 2020 for his role in Padrenostro, was a shoo-in for the replacement.

The film will be released in Italy later this year through 01 Distribution and internationally through True Colors.