Venice [Italy], July 17 (ANI): Giovanni Veronesi's directorial 'Dio Ride' will close the 83rd Venice International Film Festival 2026, which will run from September 2 to 12. The film will play in the out-of-competition section, reported Variety.

'Dio Ride' stars Pierfrancesco Favino, Silvio Orlando, Alma Noce, Francesco Gheghi, Maurizio Lombardi, Paolo Rossi and Carlo Cecchi. The English title of the film is 'God Laughs' and it follows a friar in 17th-century Tuscany (Italy) who manages to speak about God while making people laugh. However, his light-hearted approach provokes the hostility of the church.

The festival's director Alberto Barbera said: 'We will close on a high note thanks to Giovanni Veronesi and his magnificent cast, to whom we owe the successful blend of irony and lightness applied to a traditionally serious topic. It is a tone that belongs to the finest tradition of a certain Italian cinema, one that has been overlooked for far too long,' as quoted in Variety.

Set in the mid-1600s and loosely based on true events, the film 'resonates strongly with the present time through a story that centres on freedom, the power of the truth, and the relationship between people and power, with its shadows and contradictions,' the festival director Barbera said.

'With his profound humanity, the friar Frate Leopoldo will change the lives of the people he encounters,' he added, as quoted by Variety.

The script was written by Veronesi, Nicola Baldoni, Gianluca Bernardini and Nicola Deorsola with the collaboration of Paolo Portone and Jean Jacques Llunga.

'Dio Ride' is produced by Vuelta's Indiana Production and Piperfilm, alongside Ogi Film, and in collaboration with Netflix. It is produced by Fabrizio Donvito, Benedetto Habib, Marco Cohen and Daniel Campos Pavoncelli for Indiana Production, and by Massimiliano Orfei, Luisa Borella and Davide Novelli for PiperFilm.

'Dio Ride' will be released in Italian theatres on October 29, distributed by PiperFilm; international sales are handled by Piperplay, reported Variety. (ANI)