During the Middle Ages, a traveling executioner hires an apprentice to learn the finer points of torture and execution, and a young girl is given by her parents to a Catholic convent.

Shunned by his church, a seminary student takes refuge with an excommunicated priest who teaches him wizardry and black magic.

The annual film festival in Venice is, of course, an ideal place to make a film (how come no-one has thought of it before). Everything is there in Pupi Avati's Festival: the famous hotels Des Bain and Excelsior on the Lido, the shimmering sandy beach which captivated Visconti. The film was made last spring and exploits the presence of passing film stars such as Jack Nicholson. We see the hysterical press conferences, where journalists and experts ask intelligent questions-without listening to the answers.