Alice Rohrwacher to Direct Feature Film Adaptation of Italo Calvino Classic ‘The Baron in the Trees’

Italian auteur Alice Rohrwacher, known for her magical realist works “The Wonders,” “Happy as Lazzaro” and “La Chimera” —  all of which competed at Cannes Film Festival — is set to direct a feature film adaptation of Italo Calvino’s coming-of-age fable “The Baron in the Trees.”

One of the most celebrated books in 20th century Italian literature, “The Baron in the Trees” was published in 1957 and revolves around a 12-year-old baron named Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, who after a dispute with his father, climbs up a tree and remains there for the rest of his life. It is the late Calvino’s bestselling work of fiction alongside his 1979 novel “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.”

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Rohrwacher’s “Baron in the Trees” adaptation is being produced by Rome-based Our Films, the Mediawan-owned shingle operated by producers Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Mieli. They lead-produced Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Fatherland,” which just won the best director award in Cannes in a tie with Spanish helmers Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi for their “La Bola Negra.” Mubi will be releasing “Fatherland” in U.S. theaters this fall.

In 2022, Mieli secured the rights to the Italo Calvino classic from The Wylie Agency after years of pursuit.

“The image I am most tied to with this story is not so much the boy in the tree; but the adult man who spends his entire life living in a tree,” Mieli told Variety at the time. “The man who kept his promise; his rigor in being disobedient.”

Rohrwacher is currently shooting an adaptation of U.S. author Audrey Niffenegger’s novel “Three Incestuous Sisters” with a stellar cast comprising Dakota Johnson, Josh O’Connor, Saoirse Ronan, Jessie Buckley and Isabella Rossellini, plus Mick Jagger in a cameo role. The buzzy film is based on Niffenegger’s illustrated gothic novel about three sisters living in isolation whose relationship is disrupted by the arrival of a lighthouse keeper’s son. The film is believed to be mostly, if not entirely, silent.

Rohrwacher is not expected to start shooting “Baron in the Trees” until the second half of 2027.

Our Films and Mubi — which have a co-production, financing and distribution pact in place — will next be launching Felix Van Groeningen’s romantic drama “Let Love In,” which sees the prominent Belgian auteur re-team with Italian actor Luca Marinelli (“The Eight Mountains”). The Italian-Belgian co-production is tipped to bow at the upcoming Venice Film Festival.

Deadline was first to report the news that Rohrwacher will direct “The Baron in the Trees”