Screen Daily has published a first-look image for Dario Argento's first directed feature in a decade, Dark Glasses. The film, set in Rome, will be a thriller in the vein of the veteran Italian director's signature giallos, such as Suspiria, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage and Deep Red.
Italian actress Ilenia Pastorelli is set to lead Dark Glasses, and is joined in the cast by young debutant Andrea Zhang. Keeping things well and truly in the family, Asia Argento - best known for her Hollywood success in the early 2000s, with starring roles in Marie Antoinette, XXX and Land of the Dead - will enjoy a supporting role. It was reported last year, too, that French electronic music duo Daft Punk are set to compose an original score for the film, but the film's producers denied it in a statement.
Per Screen, Pastorelli stars as a "prostitute blinded by a serial killer in a botched attack who takes in a young Chinese boy, whose life has also been abruptly altered forever by the maniac's actions. He will become her ally in a terrifying struggle to see off the serial killer forever". The provocative still, in very Argentoian fashion, centre Pastorelli's protagonist putting on a black lace bra in a chic hotel room. A man in the background also replaces his shirt: a client, we presume?
In a director's note, Argento writes the following of Dark Glasses:
"She's an adult and blind, he's too young to get by on his own. In addition, two different cultures: she is Italian, the child is Chinese. This combination is the engine of Dark Glasses. The film represents my desire to explore two worlds: hers, we know it; his is more mysterious, and it will let us enter the neighbourhoods, houses and customs of the Chinese community in Rome, where they created a real 'Chinatown'."
Cannes audiences recently saw Argento in a rare appearance in front of the camera, starring in Gaspar Noé's split-screen dementia drama Vortex.