When author Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa died in 1957 he was penniless. But one year later his only novel, Il Gattopardo, was published and went on to become a global success with more than 13 million copies sold to this day. In 1963, Luchino Visconti’s film adaptation, starring Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon, received a Palme d’Or in Cannes. However, hidden behind the genesis of Il Gattopardo there is a true love story – which almost outshines the novel: that of the author and his German-Baltic wife, the psychoanalyst Alexandra Wolff-Stomersee.
THE BIRTH OF THE LEOPARD will tell the story of these two people who almost lost everything in Europe’s turbulent changes but, nevertheless, succeeded in reinventing themselves.