Italian with English subtitles
Country of Origin: Italy
Director: Alberto Mattea
Producer: Chiara Maria Pezzati
At the end of a brilliant career across the most prominent courts of late medieval Italy, legendary master at arms, Fiore dei Liberi, reminisces about some key episodes of his action packed life and teaches a skeptical young scribe a valuable lesson on survival while supervising the creation of his renowned “Fior di Battaglia” (The Flower of Battle) treatise on combat, which is studied worldwide today.
Director Biography – Alberto Mattea
Born in 1992, Alberto comes from a musical background, graduating in classical oboe from the Conservatory “G. Verdi” of Turin in 2014. During his formative years it became apparent that his call for visual storytelling was as strong as the one for music composition and performance.
Alberto co-founded the “La Traccia nel Tempo” cultural association dedicated to showcasing local heritage through filmmaking, and directed two micro budget historical feature films highlighting folklore with a particular focus on historical research and accuracy.
In addition to acting in his own films, he was cast as a minor role in the 2016 production of Luisa Spagnoli, directed by Ludovico Gasparini, in which he shared the screen with Italian actress Luisa Ranieri. He is also an active film composer, scoring both his own films and those of others.
He is naturally drawn towards historical topics, fantasy and science fiction.
As a history enthusiast, I embraced this project as a response to the largely unanswered but growing plea for more historical accuracy in films representing the Middle Ages.
My highest priority was to recreate a realistic slice of life in the 14th century, as well as to open a window into the widely studied practice of “Historical European Martial Arts” (HEMA). As soon as we announced the pre-production of the project, many experts volunteered their knowledge and skills, including some that had prior experience in the film industry.
Sure enough, strictly adhering to the true fashion and designs of the time has already drawn the attention and praise of leading HEMA experts and medieval history scholars.
For the sake of visual quality and world-building, I went far beyond my role as director, writer, actor and composer, spending many late nights engineering ways to create low budget DIY props and furniture so that the sets could be filled with life and authenticity without depleting our small budget.
My team was a small but tightly-knit group, passionate about the subject matter, flexible and willing to do whatever it took to get the job done. It was also very special to be able to collaborate with my wife, a talented cinematographer who has been by my side on set for over 8 years. I am extremely grateful to the entire team for collaborating on yet another of my ambitious adventures.
