‘La Dolce Villa’ Netflix Movie Starring Scott Foley and Violante Placido Sets Valentine’s Day 2025 Release

Netflix is already building up its slate of romance movies for Valentine’s Day 2025, and they’ve just unveiled that La Dolce Villa will be streaming on the service globally starting February 13th, 2025. 

Netflix’s La Dolce Villa, first announced publicly back in April 2024, is directed by Mark Waters, whose credits include Mean Girls, Vampire Academy, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, and more. This marks Waters’s third major movie for Netflix, having first teamed with the streamer on He’s All That, released in August 2021, and the upcoming Brookes Shileld rom-com called Mother of the Bride, due out in May 2024.

The script was written by Elizabeth Hackett & Hilary Galanoy (A Perfect Pairing, Falling Inn Love). Producers for La Dolce Villa are Robyn Snyder, Deborah Evans, and Nicola Rosada. Hackett & Galanoy are serving as executive producers. Front Row Films and Dae Light Media are behind the feature film.

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What’s the plot of La Dolce Villa?

Here’s the full synopsis for La Dolce Villa:

“La Dolce Villa follows successful businessman Eric as he travels to Italy to stop his daydreaming daughter Olivia from blowing her life savings on restoring a crumbling villa she purchased for €1. Italy, however, has different plans for him as it delivers on its legendary promise of beauty, magic, and romance.”

The film’s plot is very reminiscent of the 2020 film Made in Italy starring Liam Neeson, which also sees them moving to Italy, albeit under very different circumstances. At the time of writing, that movie is currently streaming in the US.

The film carries a TV-PG rating with a runtime of 1 hour and 39 minutes. 

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Who is cast in La Dolce Villa?

It has been announced that Netflix’s La Dolce Villa will star Scott Foley (Scandal, Scrubs) as Eric, the aforementioned businessman and father. Maia Reficco (Do Revenge) will play Olivia, his daughter. They are joined by Violante Placido (The American) and Giuseppe Futia (Still Out of My League) as Eric’s and Olivia’s love interests, respectively.

Other cast members include Nunzia Schiano, Jenny De Nucci, and Madior Fall.

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What’s the production status of La Dolce Villa?

Filming for Netflix’s La Dolce Villa started on March 11, 2024, in Italy. Production is taking place in Rome and Tuscany.

Waters teased the movie back in January 2024 before the official announcement in an Instagram post where he was scouting for locations in Tuscany. In the post released on January 23rd, 2024, he writes:

“Scouting for my next movie, saw Tuscany for the first time, completely the wrong way – freezing cold, rushing through in a van, hopping out to dismiss beautiful jewels of cities. “Too big” “Too small” “Don’t like the pavement.” Here’s hoping the shoot will be more luxurious…”

Filming of the movie began in early March 2024, and it is expected to have all wrapped by early May 2024, with the movie reportedly having a budget of less than $10M. The film is primarily filmed throughout the region of Tuscany (such as eastern Lazio). The interiors of the movie in a custom villa were built inside Cinecittá Studios in Rome (the same filming location as The Decameron).

Before we leave you, here are a few more of the first-look pictures from Netflix: