Italian-Turkish filmmaker Ferzan Özpetek pays tribute to the majesty of the movie costumes in Diamonds (Diamanti), a dazzling drama film that centers on a director who gathers his favorite actresses to make a film about women.
Led by Luisa Ranieri and Jasmine Trinca, the ensemble cast includes, in alphabetical order Stefano Accorsi, Luca Barbarossa, Sara Bosi, Loredana Cannata, Geppi Cucciari, Anna Ferzetti, Aurora Giovinazzo, Nicole Grimaudo, Milena Mancini, Vinicio Marchioni, Paola Minaccioni, Edoardo Purgatori, Carmine Recano, Elena Sofia Ricci, Lunetta Savino, Vanessa Scalera, Carla Signoris, Kasia Smutniak, Mara Venier, Giselda Volodi, Milena Vukotic and with Lorenzo Franzin, Antonio Iorio, Antonio Adil Morelli, Valerio Morigi, Dario Samac, Edoardo Stefanelli, Erik Tonelli.
Winner of the David degli Spettatori (Audience Award) at the 2025 Donatello Awards, the film made its US festival premiere at Film at Lincoln Center’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.
It will now be released in U.S. theaters beginning Friday, May 15, in New York City, Buffalo, Miami, and San Francisco, followed by Los Angeles on May 22.
Diamonds stars Luisa Ranieri and Jasmine Trinca as two sisters who preside over a Roman fashion house during the 1970s. We follow their relationship and the virtuoso dressmakers they employ, as they try to fulfill a challenging order from an Oscar-winning costume designer client. This scenario sets the stage for a myriad of dramas, both within and outside the atelier.
Özpetek has created a “mise en abyme effect, in order to use the same actresses in two very different eras: A film director gathers his favorite actresses, who he has worked with or admired, as he attempts to make a film about modern women by observing them and taking their cues, and then using imagination to place them into a past era—one in which the whirling of sewing machines fills a workplace run by women. In that world, the film unfolds from a different point of view: the elegant design and immersive world of costuming. Reality and fiction permeate the lives of both the actresses and their characters in both visible and invisible ways.
Ferzan Özpetek said in a statement, “Diamonds is a work that goes back to a period of my youth, there is nostalgia for that world that has now disappeared, clothes like that are no longer made. This film delves into the memory of the 1980s, as an assistant director, I frequented film and theater tailor shops – Tirelli among the most renowned – where I met the great costume designers and, of course, important directors, actresses, actors.”
Writing for The Guardian, critic Leslie Felperin described the film as “irresistible.” He noted, “The film runs for 135 minutes, but the script is so breathless it never feels draggy and Özpetek gets excellent results with his stacked cast.”
Watch the trailer for Diamonds (Diamanti) above.
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