When Martin Eden, a bastard with modest origins, meets Elena, the daughter of a wealthy family of industrialists, it is love at first sight. Sophisticated and well-educated, Elena soon becomes an obsession for Martin, who hopes that his dream of becoming a writer will help him overcome his condition and marry the woman he loves. With determination and great efforts, Martin aims to have an education that the social class he belongs to did not have. Finding support in the person of Russ Brissenden, an old friend and left-wing intellectual, Martin soon reaches socialist circles, leading his fellow men to political awakening and destructive anxiety, and creating a conflict with the bourgeois world of which Elena is a part.

Martin Eden, a modern adaptation of Jack London’s novel of the same name, was part of the selection for the 2019 Venice Film Festival, where Luca Marinelli won the Fox Cup for Best Actor.