Isabel Coixet to Direct Drama ‘Tre Ciotole,’ Starring Italy’s Alba Rohrwacher and Elio Germano (EXCLUSIVE)

Prolific Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet (“The Secret Life of Words”) will next direct “Tre Ciotole,” a drama starring Italian A-listers Alba Rohrwacher and Elio Germano. The film is based on the bestselling book of the same name by late great Italian writer Michela Murgia.

Cameras are set to roll March 3 in Rome on Coixet’s new film, which is lead-produced by Italy’s ITV-owned Cattleya. Seven weeks of shooting are planned. Vision Distribution is launching pre-sales at the EFM.

Coixet is known for prizewinning films that explore the inner lives of women such as “My Life Without Me” and “The Secret Life of Words,” both starring Sarah Polley, and “The Bookshop” with Emily Mortimer.

Murgia’s partly autobiographical novel “Tre Ciotole” (“Three Bowls”) follows a couple, Marta and Antonio, who split up after what seems like a trivial argument. Marta, played by Rohrwacher – who recently starred in Pablo Larrain’s “Maria” – reacts to the breakup by withdrawing into herself. The only symptom she cannot ignore is her sudden lack of appetite. Antonio, a rising chef, played by Germano – who won top acting honors in Cannes with Daniele Luchetti’s “Our Life” – immerses himself in his work. But despite being the one who ended things with Marta, he can’t seem to forget her.

“When Marta discovers that her loss of appetite has more to do with her own health than the pain of separation, everything changes: the taste of food, the music, the desire, the certainty of the choices that were made,” says the film’s synopsis. Murgia, who was a campaigner for LGBTQ+ rights, died of kidney cancer in 2023 after having made her illness public when “Tre Ciotole” was being published.

“’Tre Ciotole’ is my personal landscape,” Coixet said in her directors’ statement. Marta is “a woman facing two things at the same time: she’s in the midst of a painful breakup, and she’s confronting the inevitable,” Coixet added. “But she is not begging or bargaining; she simply bows, as one does to the setting sun, knowing it will rise again somewhere beyond her sight.”

The director continued: “I want to depict her journey in today’s Rome with tenderness and emotion, because Marta shows us that even in goodbye, there is grace, and even in sorrow, there is space for joy.”

Cattleya chief Riccardo Tozzi praised Coixet for her “extraordinary ability to depict love in all its forms with deep intensity,” noting that “my collaboration with Isabel has been seamless. She had a clear vision from the very start, beginning with the choice of Alba Rohrwacher and Elio Germano as the leads.”

The cast also includes Spanish actor Francesco Carril (“Un Amor”). The film is written by Enrico Audenino and Coixet.

“Tre Ciotole” is an Italian-Spanish production, teaming Cattleya with Ruvido Produzioni and Bartlebyfilm, plus Buenapinta Media, Bteam Prods, Colosé Producciones and Perdición Films, Vision Distribution and Sky with the participation of Max in Spain. The film will be distributed in Spain by BTeam Pictures and in Italy and the rest of the world by Vision.