Martin Eden, the sweeping romantic epic based on Jack London’s classic novel, directed by Pietro Marcello opens Friday, October 16 in virtual cinemas and select physical cinemas. The film starring Luca Marinelli currently starring in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Old Guard on Netflix, won the Platform Award at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.

Adapted from a 1909 novel by Jack London yet set in a provocatively unspecified moment in Italy’s history, Martin Eden is a passionate and enthralling narrative fresco in the tradition of the great Italian classics. Martin (played by the marvelously committed Luca Marinelli) is a self-taught proletarian with artistic aspirations who hopes that his dreams of becoming a writer will help him rise above his station and marry a wealthy young university student (Jessica Cressy). The dissatisfactions of working-class toil and bourgeois success lead to political awakening and destructive anxiety in this enveloping, superbly mounted bildungsroman.