Skip to main content
Scarlet film image, director Pietro Marcello

Scarlet

L’Envol

This event has passed

Canadian Premiere

Using tinted archival footage and shot in lush, saturated colours, Scarlet is a romantic coming-of-age period tale about a young woman who is ostracized by her small French village. Juliette, raised by her war-scarred father, grows up to be a dreamy young woman imbued with an ardent love for poetry and a natural talent for music. Italian director Pietro Marcello (Martin Eden), in his first French-language film, crafts an enchanting, lyrical world of dreams infused with a large dose of post-World War I realism and a touch of magic. Inexpressibly affective and captivating, the film also features original songs: lovely, wistful, and filled with longing. Newcomer Juliette Jouan mesmerizes in her very first role. Based on Alexander Grin’s Russian novella Scarlet Sails and featured in 2022 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

Marcello has a talent for making such material come alive through his inventive direction, whisking us away to a time and place that we experience as if we were actually there.”—Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter

 

Presented by

Consulate General of Italy logo

Director
Cast

Juliette Jouan, Louis Garrel, Noémie Lvovsky, Raphaël Thierry, Yolande Moreau

Credits
Country of Origin

France/Italy/Germany

Year

2022

Language

In French with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
Content Warning

Sexual Violence

18+
100 min
Drama Romance

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

2026 Oscar® Shorts (Live Action)

Dir. Various
119 min

This year's contenders in the Live Action category include comedies, drama, an experimental musical, and a dystopian fantasy; films from the UK and the US, France and Israel.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Turner & Constable

Dir. David Bickerstaff
93 min

Filmed as a supplement to a blockbuster exhibition at Tate Britain happening right now, this doc in the popular Exhibition on Screen series allows us to view these competitive, complementary English landscape artists side by side.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
More info

Sold Out

2026 Oscar® Shorts (Animated)

Dir. Various
83 min

The nominees for Best Animated Short Film include The Girl Who Cried Pearls, a fable from Canadian filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, narrated by Colm Feore.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The President's Cake

Dir. Hasan Hadi
105 min

Nine year old Lamia and her friend Saeed venture into the city to scrounge ingredients for a cake to celebrate Sadaam Hussein's birthday — a quest fraught with real peril in precarious times. Winner, Camera d'Or, Cannes.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Sinners

Dir. Ryan Coogler
137 min

2025's unexpected box office sleeper is that rare beast, a genre movie full of bold invention and surprise. We are in Mississippi in the early 1930s, and the opening of a new blues joint on the edge of town is the signal for all hell to break out.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Montreal, ma belle

Dir. Xiaodan He
118 min

In this Valentine to discovering love later in life, the ever-elegant Joan Chen plays Feng Xia, a 53-year-old Chinese immigrant and mother in Montreal whose world is turned upside down when she meets and falls in love with a young Quebecoise.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Credits

Screenwriter

Pietro Marcello, Maurizio Braucci, Maud Ameline

Cinematography

Marco Graziaplena

Editor

Carole Le Page, Andrea Maguolo

Original Music

Gabriel Yared

Director

VIFF Logo

Pietro Marcello

Pietro Marcello studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. His documentary Il Passaggio della linea (2007) won a Special Mention award at the Venice Film Festival. In 2009, his documentary La bocca del lupo won the Caligari Film Award and the Teddy Bear at the Berlinale, as well as the FIPRESCI Prize at the Torino Film Festival. His first narrative feature, Martin Eden, won numerous awards including Coppa Volpi at the Venice Film Festival, and the Platform Prize at TIFF. His 2021 film Futura was presented at Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight.

Filmography: Bella e Perduta (2015); Martin Eden (2019); Per Lucio (2021); Futura (2021)