Corona Cork Film Festival

A stylish thriller set in Rome 1948. The film centres on actor/director genius Orson Welles. He is on the set of his film ‘Cagliostro’/’Black Magic’ - a year after ‘The Third Man’. He has just divorced from Rita Hayworth and has fled from America to recover from his marriage disaster.

His intentions are to have a sort of ‘Roman holiday’ but his plan is doomed to failure. He falls in love with Lea, an actress in his studio. During the shoot, Dellar, an actor who is also Lea’s stepfather, is murdered and dies in Orson’s arms. Welles feels that there is more to the man’s death than the Italian police is willing to find out.

Orson’s love of mystery gets the better of him, and with the help of his driver, an ex-cop called Tommaso, turns amateur sleuth. After the duo discovers Orson’s name on the hit-list, it quickly becomes clear that this is a conspiracy that goes right to the top. Old vendettas never die and with the first democratic elections imminent,
there are some very dangerous people in town.