‘Gomorrah’ Prequel Film First Trailer Brings Back Ciro the Immortal (Exclusive)

The following contains spoilers from the TV series Gomorrah.

After the season four finale of Gomorrah aired last night on Sky Italia, the closing credits revealed the first trailer for the highly anticipated prequel film L’Immortale (The Immortal), directed by and starring Marco D’Amore.

The film, which will be released in Italy next Christmas by Vision Distribution, is not a stand-alone prequel film, but will actually connect the story to the upcoming season five of the TV series. Gomorrah has previously been creative in its platform storytelling, introducing a VR storyline in-between seasons, but this is the first time a feature film is being used as a segment of the TV series storyline.

The trailer opens right where season three left off. After being shot, Ciro the Immortal (D’Amore) is slowly sinking to his death, to the bottom of the dark waters of the Gulf of Naples.

Ciro’s memories emerge as he sinks further. It’s 1980, his birth year. There are sounds of muffled screams, buildings falling from a terrible earthquake. A baby cries from the ruins. Ciro is the only one from his family to survive.

Ten years later, he has grown into a young boy who has learned to survive the streets of Naples on his own, taught by the criminal underworld. He becomes Ciro Di Marzio, the Immortal.

While many in Gomorrah’s huge global fan base wouldn’t accept Ciro’s death in season three, the new trailer reopens the question of his fate. Bubbles rise from his sinking body. At the end of the trailer, his lifeless body jerks as if to swim upwards. Is it the normal movement of a dead body, or could it be something else? Gomorrah fans will have to wait to find out.

As to whether D’Amore thinks the film will satisfy fans of the series upset by his character’s death, he told The Hollywood Reporter that everyone is working hard not to disappoint fan expectations. “Our job does not make sense if we do not aim to reach out to people, provide food for thought, make people’s hearts beat and stir debates,” D’Amore said. “Our film is also the result of a popular request that the audience keeps prompting more than a year after Ciro’s death in the series — that is to return to follow again the vicissitudes of this bloodthirsty man struggling with his ambitions and demons.”

“Ciro Di Marzio is pure evil,” D’Amore said of the character he played for three seasons. “He is the personification of the heinous, unjustifiable act of violence. But he is also the sudden tenderness of a caress, compassion for other people’s pain, heroic acts of sacrifice. Ciro is an insurmountable peak and a bottomless abyss. Observing him is like staring into the void at the edge of a precipice: It depends on your point of view. As a character, he is unmitigated, conflictual, three-dimensional. I believe he can be compared to the greatest stage roles:  Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Iago or Camus’ Caligula.

“I have never stopped thinking about him, never ceased seeking him like he were a dark oracle. He comes alive in my dreams and in my nightmares. This obsession has led me to conceive of endless narratives that could expand his story,” said D’Amore. “Eventually one took hold and turned into a compelling desire to translate it into a movie.”

The movie will kick off filming in Rome on May 17, then follow with locations in Naples and Riga, Latvia, for a seven-week shoot. L’immortale is produced by Cattleya, part of ITV Studios, and Vision Distribution, in collaboration with Beta Film. The story and screenplay were written by Leonardo Fasoli, Maddalena Ravagli, Marco D’Amore and Francesco Ghiaccio. Beta Film is also handling international sales.

“L’Immortale is the first Italian cross-media project. Right from the beginning, we had the idea of bridging two seasons of Gomorrah with Ciro’s own personal story,” said Riccardo Tozzi, Cattleya’s founder and co-CEO. “Ciro Di Marzio’s life and his rise to crime began with a major earthquake which left a void that a new type of criminality could fill. This movie is that bridge: a stand-alone story but also a crucial part of the storyline between seasons four and five.”

Nicola Maccanico, executive vp programming Sky Italia and CEO of Vision Distribution, said, “As a project, L’Immortale is the best representation of how the world of Sky is capable of putting unique narratives at the disposal of its stories and characters.”

Continued Maccanico: “Thanks to Vision, Cattleya and a team whose artistic talent has made history, we will have, for the first time, narrative continuity between serialization and its cinematographic relative. The storyline of L’Immortale will bridge seasons four and five of Gomorrah in a round trip between theaters and the small screen as we have never witnessed before. We are proud and prepared to face the challenge of innovating audio-visual narrative. L’Immortale will be a great film, which will confirm the production value of this property and its large and devoted following.”

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