It all happened on the Summer solstice, June 21^st 1375, in the Montebello Castle, in the province of Rimini, Emilia Romagna. Daughter of Ugolinuccio di Montebello, Guendalina was an albino girl. At that time, albinos were considered offspring of the Devil and were burnt at the stake. In order to prevent that, her mother used to dye her hair with a natural black colour that with time would discolour and leave a light blue hue (“azzurro”, in Italian).

That is why family would call her Azzurrina. On June 21^st 1375, while she was playing with a rag ball, while two soldiers were watching over her. Azzurrina followed the ball down the stairs of the basement, which had no way out. The two soldiers thought then to wait for her on the top of the stairs, but the girl never came upstairs and neither her body nor her ball were ever found.

The legend says that every five years on June 21^st the girl comes back, but many mysterious occurrences have happened much more often than that. Visitors report they hear a girl singing or calling to her mother and many experts have recorded a girl’s voice in the Castle at night.

Giacomo Giacosa, an Italian movie director, took Azzurrina’s story to heart, so much so, that he thought to write and produce a movie about her that will be soon be released. The story brings the legend to a contemporary setting, recounting the vacation of two tourists, Richard (Paolo Stella) and Lara (Tatiana Luter). While visiting the Castle guided by an albino guide, Maria (Laura Rosi). As closing time approaches, they decide to run away from her and hide in the Castle for the night. The other protagonists involve Jenny (Matilda Lutz) and Leonard (Gianfranco Terrin), another couple who has the same idea of Lara and Richard on the same night. They are both unaware of the others. 

The film was shot on location in the Castle itself over 15 consecutives nights, and the filming – right now going through post-production – saw many weird happenings. Among them: an accident to Terrin, who without clear explanation ran into a column and hurt his eyebrow, and before that an inexplicable nose bleed for Giacosa and on the same day a girl’s singing was heard on the walkie-talkies (owned by the staff to communicate internally) frequencies. Other episodes of a very young female voice singing were recorded – as everything occurring during the shooting, on and off-set, is almost constantly filmed.

It’s not difficult to see why this legend has drawn so much attention: many recording can be found on you tube, too, and you quickly get affectionate to this young girl running lost in the Castle…

Intrigued? Let’s wait for the movie’s release…

Written by Elisa della Barba