Louis Garrel to Play Fiat Heir John Elkann in Bellocchio's 'Falcon'

Louis Garrel will play John Elkann, heir to Italy's Agnelli family, in Marco Bellocchio's "Falcon," a biopic of Fiat chief Sergio Marchionne starring Pierfrancesco Favino. The production is currently shooting in Toronto, and RAI Cinema has boarded the project to handle international sales.

The 86-year-old Bellocchio, widely considered the greatest living Italian director of the generation that came of age in the 1960s, reunites with Favino after "The Traitor" (2019), the Sony Pictures Classics release about the first high-ranking Cosa Nostra member to break the Sicilian Mafia's oath of silence.

What is 'Falcon' about?

The film centers on Marchionne, the Italian-Canadian executive who died in 2018 at 66. The Agnelli family hired him to run Fiat in 2004, when — after years of mismanagement and a recession — few in the auto industry believed the company could be saved.

"Ruthless and visionary, he axes the top management, teaches John Elkann (Garrel), the young heir suddenly burdened with the family's legacy, the art of command, and conquers the American market by fighting General Motors and Chrysler, saving FIAT from bankruptcy," the film's synopsis states.

In 2009, when Chrysler entered a U.S. government-led bankruptcy, Marchionne offered to take control of the company essentially for free. The U.S. Treasury Department, with no alternative, accepted. By merging the two failing automakers, Marchionne created the seventh-largest vehicle manufacturer in the world and increased Fiat's value more than tenfold.

Promotional materials frame the cost of that triumph: "But the miracle exacted a devastating price." They describe "Falcon" as blending "the razor-sharp tension of a financial thriller with deep psychological insight," exploring "the heights of capitalism and the fatal, profound isolation of a tragic victor swallowed by the very machine he saved."

Who is in the cast and crew?

Benedetta Cimatti, Barbara Ronchi and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi — in a cameo — round out the cast alongside Garrel and Favino.

Bellocchio wrote the screenplay with Ludovica Rampoldi, Andrea di Stefano and Stefano Rulli, with the collaboration of Oliviero Del Papa. Simone Gattoni produces for Kavac Film, Mattia Mor for Emotion Network, alongside RAI Cinema and in collaboration with Stla Europe.

The film marks Bellocchio's first collaboration with Berlin-based Italian cinematographer Matteo Cocco, who won Italy's David di Donatello prize for lensing Giorgio Diritti's "Hidden Away." Longtime creative collaborators returning include:

• Production designer Andrea Castorina
• Costume designer Daria Calvelli
• Editor Francesca Calvelli

Why does this film matter for Bellocchio's late career?

Bellocchio remains prolific at 86. His 2023 film "Kidnapped" reconstructed the true story of Edgardo Mortara, the Jewish boy kidnapped and forcibly raised as a Christian in 19th-century Italy.

His six-episode series "Portobello," about one of Italy's most clamorous travesties of justice, became the first HBO Original Italian production to launch on the HBO Max streaming platform, where it dropped to positive response in 2026.

"Falcon" continues a late-career run in which Bellocchio has paired industrial-scale Italian histories with intimate psychological portraits — this time through the figure of an executive whose rescue of Fiat made him famous overseas and, in the film's telling, destroyed him. With Favino leading an international cast and RAI Cinema pushing sales abroad, the Marchionne biopic positions itself as one of the most commercially ambitious films of Bellocchio's six-decade career.