Where it was filmed 'Tale of Tales'

The timeless settings of Matteo Garrone's Tale of Tales were filmed in real and often little-known places, spread between Central and Southern Italy and Sicily.

The queen of Longtrellis, played by Salma Hayek, resides in Donnafugata Castle, a neo-Gothic 2,500 m² building in the area surrounding Ragusa. Purchased by the Municipality of Ragusa in 1982 to renovate and open it up to the public, it was once home to a noble family and, more specifically, the Arezzo De Spuches family. It was here, in this maze of dry stone walls arranged in a trapezoidal shape, like English palace Hampton Court, that the scene in which the queen, wearing a heavy brocade dress, playfully chases her beloved son Elias, was filmed. The scene wouldn’t have been possible if the King of Longtrellis hadn’t, to fulfil his wife’s desire to be a mother, laid his life down by plunging into the icy waters of Alcantara gorge, a canyon created by lava nearby Taormina, ripping out the heart of the sea dragon living there and giving it to his wife to eat, after having it cooked by a virgin. The interiors of the residence of the king and queen of Longtrellis belong to Sammezzano Castle, a rare example of Moorish architecture that can be found in Regello, in the province of Florence. The cliff of Statte, meanwhile, in the vicinity of Taranto, provides the setting for the scene in which Elias saves his twin brother Jonah, the son of the virgin who cooked the dragon’s heart, from a winged monster.

It was in the enchanting atmosphere of Sasseto forest, near Acquapendente in Upper Lazio, with its centuries-old trees and twisted branches, that some of the scenes from the chapter The Two Old Women were filmed, a chapter in which a spell is cast on old lady Dora to make her young again so that she can marry the king of Strongcliff, Vincent Cassel. Their home is the Medieval Castle of Roccascalegna, which was built by the Lombards to defend themselves from Byzantine attacks, and sits on a rocky outcrop in the province of Chieti. The interiors of the castle were instead shot at Chigi Palace in Ariccia.

In the chapter The Flea, the king of Highhills, played by Toby Jones, lives at Castel del Monte, an octagonal construction and the only one of its kind (a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996), which was built on the orders of Frederick II in 1294. It is located on a hill 540 metres above sea level in Andria. The interior shots were however filmed in another castle in Apulia, the Norman-Swabian Castle of Gioia del Colle. This is where the throne room was set up, where the ogre who wins the hand of the princess makes his entrance, to then take her to the rocky village of Gravina di Petruscio (Mottola) where he lives. This town is a series of trails and steps that weave, across a distance of approximately 4km, through caves, churches and tombs. Nonetheless, the princess of Highhills manages to escape with the help of a tightrope, and is chased by the ogre through the vie Cave in Sorano (Grosseto), an Etruscan road network that weaves between walls of tuff 20 metres tall.