Does anyone know if any of this movie is based on fact? I see it is based on a novel. Is it just the writer-director's imagination then?
The uncle's name is Wilhelm Einstein, but I cannot find any information about such a person.
Blaine in Seattle
[deleted]
The movie is based on a novel (Il cielo cade) written by Lorenza Mazzeti, who narrates her childhood in Tuscany under Mussolini's fascist regime and later WW2. She is represented in the movie by the character of Penny.
Now the movie is an adaptation of the novel, and the novel itself is a dramatization of the real facts. But the main events are true: Lorenza Mazzeti's uncle (Robert Einstein), her aunt and her two cousins were executed by Nazi troops.
They are buried in a cemetery near Florence.
So the core of the story is true but the facts have been dramatized for cinematic purposes. I.e. Robert Einstein commited suicide albeit not the same night his wife and daughters were murdered, but the next year.