Bold and dazzling, acclaimed writer/director Pietro Marcellos multi award-winning drama MARTIN EDEN provocatively transposes Jack Londons 1909 novel about a self-taught and outspoken writer out of the American West and into a pivotal moment in Italys pre-war history. Thirty-something sailor Martin Eden (remarkable newcomer Luca Marinelli) is inspired to remake himself as a novelist, following a chance encounter with the sophisticated, wealthy Elena (the luminous Jessica Cressy). She immediately becomes not only the object of his passionate affections, but also the symbol of the status Martin aspires to achieve. Pursuing his newfound social and literary obsessions, Martin abandons his friends and working-class roots without hesitation, but eventually undergoes a political awakening that triggers yet another change. A passionate and enthralling cinematic achievement in the tradition of Rossellini and Visconti, Pietro Marcellos enveloping and superbly-mounted fable interweaves historical footage with an extraordinary production design of his own. The films ideas are universal and timeless: the hypocrisy of class, the disillusionment of ideologies, the limits of romanticism and realism, and the question of what it means, ultimately, to be an individual.