It is 2030 and Italy has lost most of its democratic freedoms: the cathedral in Milan appears half-destroyed by a bombing, city streets are staked out by policemen in war gear, and the premier is considering liberalizing the use of guns as in America.
Thus begins Citadel: Diana, the Italian spin-off of the ambitious serial project created by brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, debuting Oct. 10 in its world premiere on Prime Video for 6 episodes. The project, we recall, kicked off last year with the first installment, Citadel, which starred Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden, and in the network’s intentions will create an international anthology set in different countries with independent stories intended to support each other and intertwine. The third spin-off, Citadel: Honey Bunny, set in India, arrives as early as Nov. 7.
The common trait they all share is a dystopian spy story pitting two international organizations against each other, the legendary independent agency Citadel, whose purpose is to defend world security regardless of the policies of various governments (in a word: the good guys) and its adversary Manticore, founded by the world’s most powerful families to gain global control and operate a kind of “Great Reset” (the bad guys).
Citadel: Diana stars Matilda De Angelis, a Citadel agent infiltrating the Italian section of Manticore, which is controlled by a powerful family of arms manufacturers vying with France and Germany for supremacy in Europe. Taking advantage of a disparity of views between father and son who represent its top leadership (they are Maurizio Lombardi and Lorenzo Cervasio) Diana/De Angelis is trying to carry out a dangerous double (or rather, triple) game whose goal seems to be to slip out of her false identity and disappear. Everything, however, will become unpredictably complicated, and a love affair will also intervene to make matters worse.
The cast includes co-stars Filippo Nigro as the Citadel agent who enlists Diana and Giordana Faggiano as the clueless sister. De Angelis, whom we will see engaged in various 007 actions, told of training for several months: “Between parkour and learning how to handle weapons, I didn’t think it would be so hard, but I wanted to be as believable as possible. Spy stories generally never have female protagonists; perhaps Diana will initiate a new kind of heroine. However, I also want to say that picking up a gun is not at all pleasant: it has a very strong physical and emotional weight, the first few times, literally, I was sweating.”
Milan, producer Gina Gardini and screenwriter Alessandro Fabbri explained, was chosen as the setting “because it was a city that was less obvious and further from the ‘Italian’ cliché, with futuristic architecture that fit the story well. The starting image of the destroyed Duomo is a kind of magnet that tells us that no place is really safe.”
Citadel: Diana is directed by Arnaldo Catinari and produced by Cattleya with Amazon MGM Studios and with the support of the Ministry of Culture – General Directorate for Cinema and Audiovisual.
The article The Citadel Series: Diana debuts worldwide on Prime Video comes from TheNewyorker.
