‘Primo Viaggio,’ Presented Last Year at Locarno’s Alliance 4 Development, Has Wrapped and Heading for Venice Gap-Financing Market (EXCLUSIVE)
Nanni Moretti's Rome-based Sacher Film and Andrea Marcelli's Paris-based Halley Production have wrapped filming on "Primo Viaggio", a Franco-Italian co-production that emerged from a chance meeting at Locarno Film Festival's Alliance 4 Development platform less than a year ago. The film, directed by Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman, is now heading to the Venice Film Festival's Gap-Financing Market, where producers hope to secure sales agents, festival programmers and investors, marking the project out as a notable success story for Locarno's co-development initiative.
Written and directed by the pair behind acclaimed films "Californie" and "Vittoria" (winner of Venice's best Italian film prize in 2024), "Primo Viaggio" shot on location in Naples, Málaga and Marseille between June and July 2026. The story follows Carlo, a 20-year-old from Naples who agrees to smuggle drugs from Spain to Italy, only for encounters abroad to reshape his outlook on life. Producers Benedetta Barroero and Marcelli, who first connected at Locarno in 2025, credit their shared Italian heritage and the directors' realist filmmaking style for the smooth Franco-Italian collaboration.
- "Primo Viaggio" has wrapped filming, born from a Locarno festival meeting
- Franco-Italian co-production heads to Venice's Gap-Financing Market next
- Drama follows a young Neapolitan drug courier's life-changing journey to Spain
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"Primo Viaggio" is a French-Italian film that began as a chance connection at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival, where a co-development platform called Alliance 4 Development pairs up producers and projects with international partners. It is a joint venture between Nanni Moretti's Rome-based company Sacher Film and Andrea Marcelli's Paris-based Halley Production, directed by the duo Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman, who previously made the acclaimed films "Californie" and "Vittoria". Filming has now taken place across Naples, Málaga and Marseille, following a young Neapolitan man drawn into drug smuggling between Spain and Italy.
The Venice Film Festival, one of the world's oldest and most prestigious film events, runs a Gap-Financing Market where unfinished or newly wrapped films are pitched to sales agents, festival programmers and potential investors to help secure distribution and funding. For "Primo Viaggio", appearing there represents a next step after production, and is being viewed within the industry as evidence that Locarno's co-development scheme can successfully move projects from early pitch to completed film within a short timeframe.