Underrated Italian beauty Giovanna Mezzogiorno will be playing 1940s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s mistress, a beautician named Ida Dalser, in the drama VINCERE. Under director Marco Bellocchio, the story centers on Mussolini’s relationship with Dalser, the result of which spawned a child. Both Dalser and her child were kept hidden by Mussolini in asylums where they both died before Mussolini’s execution in 1945. The ruthless dictator himself will be played by Filippo Timi. Mezzogiorno was most recently driving Javier Bardem to hump women like it was going out of style in the drama LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA and can next be seen in Wim Wenders’ drama THE PALERMO SHOOTING.