The story of the Stucky Family, the ‘last doges of Venice’ is like a novel. Swiss millers became the richest of the Venetians, the Stucky were indeed actors of a typical success story from the nineteenth century. This exceptional industrial epic follows the history of the City of the Doges whose Stucky were fervent defenders. But this saga, marked by death and fall, is in some ways the most Shakespearian tragedy.
The story of the Stucky is also historical document. Successively craftsmen, small country notables and great fortunes of Venice, the Stucky crossed all the social boundaries of the century. Their saga is a prism through which moves part of the history of the nineteenth and twentieth century.
During the shooting we have reinvested Venice today to recreate this incredible atmosphere. We have relied on exceptional archives: hundreds of photographs but also and especially 15mm amateur films shot, from 1900, by Giancarlo Stucky using a Pocket Chrono, the very first public camera of Gaumont!

Emiland Guillerme and François Rabaté