Minerva Pictures is bringing Alex Infascelli’s 75-minute centenary documentary Ducati – 100 Years of a Legend to Rome’s MIA, where it will be presented as part of the Italians Doc It Better showcase on October 21. Narrated by Stefano Accorsi and featuring Keanu Reeves and leading MotoGP riders, the film looks beyond the motorcycles to the people who made them possible. Now in the final editing stage, the feature is seeking additional international broadcast and distribution partners, with its producers keen to reach audiences beyond the motorcycle world.
Ducati’s 100th anniversary is the obvious occasion for the project, but the doc is not being pitched as a conventional corporate retrospective. Instead, Infascelli sets out to investigate the people, instincts and obsessions behind the Bologna-based manufacturer’s enduring appeal, treating motorcycles as the products of human imagination rather than simply technical accomplishments.
The film travels from the Borgo Panigale factory to Ducati Corse and the racetrack, interweaving contemporary access with archive footage and personal testimony. “The ambition of this film is to reveal, even to those like me who know little or nothing about motorcycles, the magic behind Ducati’s records and sales figures,” Infascelli tells BDE. He locates that magic “not in an algorithm or a strategy, nor even solely in its undeniable engineering genius, but rather in an almost shamanic vision that has remained fundamentally unchanged for a hundred years.”
That perspective informs the choice of Infascelli as director. He has previously explored the people behind the myths in documentaries that include S is for Stanley, about Stanley Kubrick’s long-time driver and assistant Emilio D’Alessandro, and Mi chiamo Francesco Totti, about the legendary Italian footballer. Both won David di Donatello awards for Best Documentary. Production company Minerva says it wanted a filmmaker capable of resisting the conventions of branded storytelling and finding a more intimate register within a globally recognisable industrial story.
The helmer’s approach reportedly alternates between two scales: the spectacle of high-performance racing and close observation of hands, machinery, faces and repeated gestures. Factory workers, engineers and designers are seen at work, while the racing sequences focus not only on competition but on the preparations and split-second decisions that precede it. Sound is a central storytelling element, too: engines, tools, footsteps and breathing inside a rider’s helmet are intended to convey both the intensity of the sport and the discipline of those who make it possible.
The production secured privileged access to Ducati’s headquarters at Borgo Panigale, including the racing department, which is normally closed to the public, as well as the team’s activities during a contemporary race weekend. The historical material combines Ducati’s own collection with footage from Cinecittà and Istituto Luce. Rather than digitally smoothing away the marks of age, Infascelli preserves the grain and imperfections of the archives, using editing to establish connections between different periods of the company’s history.
One particularly tangible link between those periods is the rediscovery, in 2024, of the original foundation stone laid by the Ducati brothers at Borgo Panigale in 1935. The episode offers an illustration of the film’s approach to industrial memory: not simply a chronology of models and victories, but a history embedded in places, objects and the people who shaped them.
Narrated by Italian actor Stefano Accorsi, the film brings together contributors from inside and outside the Ducati universe. They include Hollywood actor and motorcycle enthusiast Keanu Reeves, chef Massimo Bottura and champion riders Casey Stoner, Francesco “Pecco” Bagnaia and Marc Márquez, alongside executives, engineers, technicians and factory employees. The story also revisits the motorcycles and racing categories that helped define the company, from the Monster and Multistrada to Superbike and MotoGP.
“What makes this documentary unique is the human element, which surprised me by how consistently it remains at the heart of every twist and turn — or perhaps we should say, every corner,” Infascelli adds. “And so, one gets the feeling that it is the machine itself that wants to tell the story of its creator.”
The film is produced by Gianluca Curti, Santo Versace and Andrea Curti, with Minerva Pictures, Filmclub Distribuzione and Cinecittà Istituto Luce behind the production, and support from the Emilia-Romagna Film Commission. Infascelli co-wrote the documentary with Giovanni Mauriello. Tommaso Marchesi and Federica Forcesi are credited as editors. The budget has not been disclosed.
At MIA 2026, the producers are targeting distributors, broadcasters and streaming platforms, while also exploring further partnerships that could broaden the pic’s reach across territories. Their ambition is to position Ducati – 100 Years of a Legend within the premium documentary market, drawing on the global recognition of the brand without limiting its appeal to existing fans. No premiere date or detailed release timetable has yet been made public.
For Minerva, the immediate task is to turn a centenary project with an instantly recognisable subject into a documentary that stands on its own: a story about the imagination, craft and human choices behind the machines.
