Witness a season opening at La Scala in Milan. Verdi’s opera “The Force of Destiny” and all the behind-the-scenes preparations as filmed by Anissa Bonnefont in theaters in Quebec on August 7, 2026.
AZ Films is pleased to announce the release in Quebec, on August 7, of the documentary La force du destin (in the original Italian version with French and English subtitles), directed and co-written by Anissa Bonnefont. Produced in association with the famous La Scala Theater in Milan, the film benefits from the participation of great artists such as Riccardo Chailly, musical director of La Scala, Anna Netrebko (Donna Leonora), Brian Jagde (Don Alvaro), Ludovic Tézier (Don Carlo di Vargas), Fabrizio Beggi (Il Marchese di Calatrava), Vasilisa Berzhanskaya (Preziosilla), Alexander Vinogradov (Padre Guardiano), Marco Filippo Romano (Fra Melitone), Marcela Rahal (Curra), Huanhong Li (an Alcade) and Carlo Bosi (Mastro Trabuco).
December 7 marks the opening of the Milan opera season at La Scala with Verdi’s La Forza del Destino. Since 1951, La Prima has been a major cultural event, attracting opera enthusiasts from all over the world. Director Leo Muscato, costume designer Silvia Aymonino and production designer Federica Parolini imagine the arena of La Forza del Destino as a war zone crossing the ages, transforming Verdi’s opera into a contemporary performance, which vibrates with current issues. Everything is led by the brilliant and charismatic conductor Riccardo Chailly…
Anissa Bonnefont is a director and screenwriter. She became known in 2019 with Wonder Boy, her first long-format documentary film which follows the journey of Olivier Rousteing, artistic director of Balmain, abandoned at birth. The film met with great critical and public success and received a nomination in the best documentary category at the César Awards in 2020 and the special prize at the Tribeca Festival the same year. Anissa then directed Nadia, a film dedicated to Nadia Nadim, an Afghan-Danish footballer who had to flee Afghanistan after the assassination of her father by the Taliban. The documentary, released in October 2021, a few weeks after the fall of Kabul into the hands of the Taliban, was selected in around thirty festivals around the world, was nominated for the 2022 International Emmy Awards and won the 42nd Paladino d’Oro Award at the Palermo Sport Film Festival as Best Football Film. Also released in theaters at the end of 2022, La Maison, the first fiction feature film by Anissa Bonnefont in which the actresses Ana Girardot, Rossy de Palma and Aure Atika share the bill. Anissa is currently developing One Night in Rome, her second fiction film which will take place between France and Italy.
The Force of Destiny is distributed by AZ Films and will be released in Quebec on August 7, 2026.