Ahora! Film is bringing the story of Queen Margherita of Savoy to the big screen. The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana is contributing to the screenplay to ensure historical authenticity. Filming begins in spring 2027, in Naples and Piedmont.
From the story of a queen to the birth of an Italian culinary icon known around the world. Ahora! Film is working on Margherita and The Pizza, a new film project directed by Marco Pollini, who also wrote the screenplay with the support of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana.
The film weaves together history, romance and food culture, reconstructing the historical and human context from which the legend of Pizza Margherita was born. At the heart of the story is Margherita of Savoy, Italy’s first queen, and her meeting in 1889 with Raffaele Esposito, a Neapolitan pizza maker whose life was far from easy. From that encounter came the pizza that bears the queen’s name, today a symbol of Italian gastronomy worldwide.
Filming is scheduled for spring 2027 in Naples and Piedmont, two regions that will help recreate the atmosphere and settings of the story. Through the language of cinema, the production aims to celebrate the link between historical memory, Italian identity and culinary heritage, bringing a story that deserves to be rediscovered to an international audience.
“I have always been passionate about historical figures,” says Marco Pollini, “and while reading books about Queen Margherita, I discovered a unique and extraordinary personality: a woman of vision, close to the people and to the most vulnerable, who in some ways could be called a true influencer of the nineteenth century. The idea of bringing this story to the screen also came from conversations with foreign friends, great pizza lovers, who asked me how the Margherita was born. When I told them the story of the queen, they pointed out how little known it was and how much it deserved to be told on the big screen.”
AVPN’s contribution is a central element in the development of the project. “We are proud to stand alongside the production in this film project,” says Antonio Pace, President of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, “because Pizza Margherita is not only an absolute masterpiece of our culinary tradition, but a symbol of Neapolitan identity and culture. Contributing to the writing of the film allows us to protect its historical authenticity and to convey the values our Association has defended for forty years. We believe this film is an extraordinary opportunity to show the wider international public the passion, the origins and the magic behind the art of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo.”
