The Silver Book

At once a queer love story and a noirish thriller, set in the dream factory of cinema, The Silver Book is a fictional account of real things, and an investigation into the difficult relationship between artifice and truth, illusion and reality, love and power. It is September 1974 and two men meet by chance in Venice. One is a young English artist in panicked flight from London. The other is Danilo Donati, the magician of Italian cinema, the designer responsible for realising the spectacular visions of Fellini and Pasolini. Donati is in Venice to produce sketches for Fellinis Casanova, and a youthful - and beautiful - apprentice is just what he needs. He sweeps Nicholas to Rome, into the looking-glass world of Cinecitt , the studio where Casanovas Venice will be ingeniously assembled. Then in the spring, the lovers move together to the set of Sal, Pasolinis horrifying fable of fascism. But Nicholas has a secret and in this world of constant illusion, his real nature passes unseen. Amidst the rising political tensions of Italy's 'Years of Lead', he acts as an accelerant, setting in motion a tragedy he didnt intend.