The case of Melania Rea has left a deep imprint on Italian news coverage and legal history, opening an increasingly urgent public reflection on gender-based violence, on control, and on the dynamics of domination within relationships. Years later, her story reaches the screen with Melania Rea, the new HBO Original series unveiled in preview at the Festa del Cinema di Roma in the Freestyle section and coming exclusively to HBO Max from Friday, November 6, 2026, with a new episode each week. On this occasion, we spoke with Maria Esposito who portrays Melania Rea, Daniele Rienzo who gives life to Salvatore Parolisi, and director Stefano Mordini to discuss a project that chooses to confront a painful yet necessary event, with respect, delicacy, and a focus on the person, before the chronicle itself. Watch below our exclusive video interview in which the two leads reveal what they understood about what love is, and, more importantly, what it is not, helped by this story.
Melania Rea: the plot and the cast of the HBO Max series
On April 20, 2011, the body of Melania Rea, a twenty-nine-year-old mother of a daughter barely eighteen months old, was found in a forest in Ripe di Civitella, within the Abruzzo National Park. The young woman lived with her husband, the army’s Corporal Salvatore Parolisi, and their daughter Vittoria. The discovery sparked one of the most media-saturated and controversial investigations in recent Italian history, culminating in the judicial reconstruction of Parolisi’s responsibilities. Interweaving past and present, the series moves away from mere reportage to tell Melania’s life, her desires and aspirations, focusing on a relationship that, behind an outward normality, reveals dynamics of possession, control, and domination. The result is a four-episode crime drama that adopts the pace of a psychological thriller to explore the roots and consequences of gender-based violence, returning centrality to the woman behind the judicial case.
In the cast, alongside Maria Esposito (Mare Fuori) and Daniele Rienzo (Parthenope), we find Michela Cescon in the role of Prosecutor Gabriella Rocci, Carmen Pommella as Vittoria Rea, Antonio Buonanno in the part of Gennaro Rea, Francesco Rungi as Michele Rea, Giulia Ercolini as Nunzia, Alessandro Giallocosta as Captain D’Alberti, Andrea Genovese as Maresciallo Capasso, Beatrice Bartoni as Flaminia, and Zoe De Santis as the young Vittoria. Melania Rea is an HBO Max Original production, produced by Simona Ercolani and Teresa Carducci for Stand By Me. Created by Doriana Leondeff and Bianca Rondolino, it is written by Doriana Leondeff, Mariano Di Nardo, Gloria Mottarelli and Bianca Rondolino and directed by Stefano Mordini.
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