di Ginevra Barbetti. Cover image by Isabella Inceayan.
Inside Duse’s Hyperreal World: The Designer Behind the Sets
The set design of Duse is a challenge to authenticity: a canvas of close brushstrokes where colors merge and come alive through light,” says Italian production designer Gaspare De Pascali, describing his work — a dialogue between painting, matter, and luminous sensitivity. Fresh from the success of Pietro Marcello’s film, which has already reached cinemas after its launch at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, De Pascali stands out as one of the most interesting voices of a new generation of set designers, for whom sustainability, originality, and a sculptural use of light are now nonnegotiable priorities. With Duse, he embraces what he calls a “hyperreal” approach: one that welcomes imbalance and imperfection in pursuit of truth, using recycled materials, local artisans, and lowimpact production processes to build worlds that feel both tactile and emotionally resonant. Here, light becomes language, and space turns into metaphor. Inspired by Monet and Tarkovsky, Vermeer and Visconti, he constructs a cinema oscillating between realism and impressionism, minimalism and baroque, transforming the invisible into image.
Gaspare De Pascali: The Journey of a Top Italian Production Designer
Born in Lecce and raised in Ravenna, De Pascali trained between Italy and Australia and has worked across Europe, Mexico, and the Middle East, carrying with him a visual vocabulary shaped by different architectures and landscapes. From his debut to international projects like Concordia, and through his Venetian successes with Iddu and Primavera, he has created crafted environments where texture, light, and space become narrative tools — a case study in what it means to be a toptier production designer today, balancing ecological responsibility, artistic risk, and emotional precision.
How Travel Shapes the Eye of a Top Film Production Designer
Travel, he says, has been fundamental in shaping his eye. “Beyond my studies, which are the foundation and always evolving, it’s been travel that has molded me. Like the painters of the past who journeyed in search of new landscapes to find inspiration and test new techniques, moving and discovering different cultures has been essential — not only culturally, but also architecturally and environmentally. Changing latitude means changing light — and by light I mean the way matter itself transforms. Crossing meridians and parallels means confronting different perceptions. All this has deeply influenced my gaze.”
The “hyperreal” approach that defines Duse is, for De Pascali, a rejection of cinematic classicism. “It means adhering to life in all its asymmetries and imperfections,” he explains. “Pietro comes from documentary filmmaking and has transformed that language into a virtue. We always work in contact with what’s authentic. Every detail was carefully chosen: military tents recovered from museums, period objects, materials reconstructed with precision — even the grains and flours for the bread were prepared as they were back then. It’s not about reduction or abstraction, as in minimalism, but about layering marks and flaws until they become alive and tangible.”
Crafting Film Sets with Light and Color Inspired by Monet, Vermeer, Renoir
Painting remains his grammar of light and form. “Monet guides me in atmospheric vibration, Vermeer in filtered geometry, Renoir in the tactile quality of fabrics. And then Courbet, Fattori, Borrani, Morandi. Tarkovsky taught me to treat time as matter, Visconti the rigor of historical accuracy, Losey and Truffaut the tension between realism and poetry. I translate these references into shared palettes — with Pietro, of course, but also with the cinematographer Marco Graziaplena and costume designer Ursula Patzak — through moodboards, layered textures, and above all by working with diegetic light that reflects and changes depending on materials, seeking to evoke the sensation of nature through color.”
Balancing realism, impressionism, and baroque flourishes, De Pascali builds each frame as an interplay of fine, transparent strokes. “Every shot is composed like an interweaving of small brushstrokes that express emotion, blending realism and impressionism. I placed anchors of truth — motivated light sources, everyday objects, coherence of materials — around which I allowed more painterly, at times baroque, gestures. Poetry is born from this equilibrium.”
Mastering Craftsmanship and Symbolism in Hyperreal Film Sets
Craftsmanship, for him, remains central even in a digital age. “For some views we built small-scale miniatures, deliberately painterly, then recreated them full-scale. This allowed us to test light and proportion while maintaining tactile truth for both actors and camera. At the same time, set extension helped us expand depth and horizons. Craftsmanship isn’t nostalgia: it’s living matter, which digital technology completes and amplifies.”
The symbolic depth of his work is equally deliberate. “The film is layered and open to multiple readings. Each viewer stops at different details — a color, a shape, a symbol. I like leaving traces that act on a subconscious level. In the canopy bed scene, for example, which evokes a theater proscenium, Eleonora’s grandchildren witness, for a brief moment, her greatness. These are signs that expand the poetic dimension without imposing it.”
Across projects from The Bad Guy to Concordia and Iddu, his relationship with space has evolved, but the principle remains. “My approach has always been the same: research. Every project brings themes to explore, whether historical or contemporary. Over time, your eye sharpens; larger productions require different solutions — sometimes broader, sometimes supported by visual effects. But whether international or not, space is always a creative opportunity, not just a technical one.”
From Summertime to Duse: How De Pascali Crafts a Signature Style Across Film and Series
From serialized television (Summertime, The Bad Guy) to auteur cinema (Duse), maintaining identity is a constant challenge. “Identity is always central in our profession, because each film or series has its own language, both written and visual. In series, timing is tighter: sets often need to be modular and replicable. But to preserve a stylistic identity, I always try to define a visual grammar that remains recognizable. Efficiency is necessary, but style survives through the coherence of details.”
Gaspare De Pascali on Light, Craft, and Sustainability in Film Set Design
Light, above all, is truth. “In scenography, light is a flow that refracts through shapes and colors. It doesn’t just illuminate — it reveals characters and emotions, like in painting. I work on practical sources, on temperature, on surfaces that absorb or reflect. It’s a way of painting in space.”
Looking ahead, De Pascali envisions three key paths for contemporary set design: “Sustainability — reuse, living archives of sets; hybridization between craftsmanship and digital; and shared training. I’m currently working on an international film and next year on two projects that will require deep historical research. What I love is not stopping at the surface, but reaching the everyday details of an era.”
His collaboration with director Pietro Marcello on Duse was, he says, one of shared curiosity and craft. “It was a joint journey, nourished by mutual curiosity and the craftsmanship of the past. We both love to surprise each other by discovering forgotten objects, sources, and techniques. This made the work natural and stimulating — and I believe that this complicity is visible on screen.”
