Italian physicist Fabiola Gianotti, who helped lead one of the two experiments behind the discovery of the Higgs boson — the particle popularly nicknamed the "God particle" — is to be the subject of a feature biopic titled "The Mysterious Particle". The film will be directed by Stefano Mordini, known for "The Invisible Witness", and is being developed for the international market. Gianotti is currently the first female director general of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, home to the world's most powerful particle accelerator.

The biopic is being produced by Picomedia — an Asacha Media Group company that is part of Fremantle — together with Cinemaundici, with Picomedia headed by veteran producer Roberto Sessa. The story will trace Gianotti's personal and professional journey, from childhood dreams of becoming a prima ballerina or classical pianist to earning a physics Ph.D. at the University of Milan and joining CERN in 1994. Much of the film is set at CERN in Geneva and the surrounding area, home to the $10 billion ATLAS detector housed in a tunnel beneath a Swiss village. The writing team includes novelist Paolo Giordano, who has a physics background and won Italy's Premio Strega for "The Solitude of Prime Numbers", alongside Luca Infascelli and Mordini.