There's a new movie in the works about Benito Mussolini costarring Giovanna Mezzogiorno. She'll portray Il Duce's mistress in "Vincere" dealing with an illegitimate child fathered by the Fascist dictator.

Ms. Mezzogiorno was recently in the endless, weepy melodrama "Love in the Time of Cholera," and here she portrays a beautician who was the future dictator's lover before he rose to power. The child, named Benito, was kept hidden away in asylums with his mother where they died before Mussolin's execution, along with his subsequent mistress in 1945.

“Vincere” looks to be a profound drama filling in some gaps in history and begins shooting next month in Venice and elsewhere in northern Italy for a modest $13 million.