With Agata Christian – Delitto sulle nevi, Eros Puglielli returns behind the camera and reunites part of the cast of Cortina Express to tackle different ground: that of the so-called whodunit, the deductive mystery in the style of Agatha Christie filtered through the most physical and irreverent Italian comedy. The result is a film that weaves together mystery and farce, relying more on the energy of its performers than on pure puzzle construction, and hinting at the ambition of a possible saga.
At the centre of the story is Christian Agata, a famous criminologist with razor-sharp sarcasm and infallible intuition. Misanthropic, cruel in his judgements and incapable of compromising with others, Agata unmasks murderers on live television but systematically fails in human relationships. Left alone, he reluctantly agrees to become the face of the relaunch of Crime Castle, the historic board game of the Gulmar family, tycoons of the gaming industry. The invitation leads him to an isolated castle in the snowy mountains of the Aosta Valley, where a promotional weekend quickly turns into a murder case.
From 12.02.2026 the film will be in cinemas in Switzerland too
Alongside Agata moves Brigadier Vanni Cuozzo, played by Lillo Petrolo: a naive policeman driven by unshakeable zeal, a great admirer of the criminologist and determined to prove his worth. Cuozzo becomes the comic detonator of the film, a body unsuited to the role of the irreproachable servant of the State and the target of a series of gags that see him grappling with animals of every kind and with his own clumsy determination.
Christian De Sica shapes Agata as a hybrid of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, but filtered through a cutting, sulphurous Roman attitude. Around him move Paolo Calabresi and Marco Marzocca, already accomplices of Puglielli, together with Maccio Capatonda, here playing a slimy, insecure daddy’s boy. The play of accents, puns and excessive characterisations feeds a comedy that often veers towards slapstick and the repetition of the gag.
Puglielli looks openly to the parodic tradition of Invito a cena con delitto (Murder by Death), mixing references ranging from Frankenstein Junior (Young Frankenstein) to Febbre da cavallo, and inserting nods to the world of board games such as Cluedo and Brivido. However, more than the solution of the enigma, it is the comic dynamic that matters: the mystery is not immediately transparent, but remains functional to the staging of the interactions between larger-than-life characters.
In a landscape of Italian comedy often stuck in predictable formulas, Agata Christian tries a different path, recovering the pleasure of popular storytelling and the playful dimension of genre cinema. Not everything is calibrated with the same precision, and some digressions feel laboured, but the operation maintains a vitality that sets it apart in the current context.
From 12.02.2026 the film will be in cinemas in Switzerland too, ready to bring to our mountains a high-altitude crime that plays with the codes of the whodunit and bends them into openly family-friendly entertainment.
Visit the official website www.morandinifilm.com/film/agata-christian
Here is the list of all the cinemas where AGATA CHRISTIAN – DELITTO SULLE NEVI will be screened:
