Forty years after his death, this documentary pays tribute to one of the major filmmakers of Italian cinema, an original work that continues to inspire today's cinema.

Make a documentary on Luchino Visconti, is to draw golden thread since his birth in 1906 until his death in 1976. Born to one of the most important families of the Italian aristocracy, he could only be a rich and cultured man, living in luxury and idleness, but Luchino wanted another fate. It is this story that the director Elisabeth Kapnist with Christian Dumais-Lvowski wanted to tell. Count Visconti di Modrone wearing the clothes of a legend that has continued to shape throughout his life. This documentary reconstructs the frame by a brilliant existence, dedicated to the art; theater, opera and cinema. The artistic work is that of a committed man, who was a fellow of the Communist Party and who resisted fascism.

This documentary illuminates the fate of Visconti in terms of transgression that permeates all his work across several themes; family, sexuality, perversions. It reveals a man closer to his sincerity, outside shots, who all his life was a seeker of truth, whether historical, social or just human. To do this, the authors convened speakers who have known Luchino Visconti or worked on his work: Laurence Schifano, film historian, Luchino Gastel, nephew and godson of the filmmaker, Caterina d' Amico, Suso Cecchi d’Amico’s daughter, which was the main writer of the films of Visconti, Elisabeth Roudinesco, historian, and the filmmaker Olivier Assayas.

Brush the portrait of Luchino Visconti is to see his movies; "Obsession" movie founder of Italian neorealism, "The Leopard" epic film that secured him international recognition, "Rocco and His Brothers", "The Damned" exemplary film about the perversion, "Ludwig" hymn to madness and destruction of beauty, or "The Innocent", both study of jealousy and evoking the childhood of the filmmaker.

Shot in Rome, Milan and Venice, "Luchino Visconti - Between truth and passion" combines unpublished testimonies, film clips and archives.