‘The Kidnapping of Arabella’ Trailer: ‘Amanda’ Director Carolina Cavalli Returns with Another Winsome (and Venice-Winning) Comedy

Carolina Cavalli, the Italian director behind the critically acclaimed and very funny Gen Z deadpan comedy “Amanda,” returns with another uniquely hilarious movie about youth. But this time, she has Chris Pine in the cast. “The Kidnapping of Arabella” premiered in the Horizons section of the 2025 Venice Film Festival, where Benedetta Porcaroli won the Best Actress prize; she plays a woman who has a fateful encounter with a small child, played by Lucrezia Guglielmino. IndieWire debuts the trailer exclusively below ahead of its July 2026 release.

Here’s the official synopsis courtesy of the distributor: “Holly spends days at her dead-end job fantasizing about holes in the space-time continuum and wondering where her life went wrong. When she meets Arabella, an eight-year-old rebel hoping to run away from her self-absorbed author father, Holly becomes convinced their meeting is a cosmic sign, and that Arabella is, in fact, her past self sent back for a second chance. The two embark on an unconventional road trip between two lost souls who might be exactly what the other needs.”

“The story of ‘Il Rapimento di Arabella’ isn’t really about a kidnapping in the usual sense, despite what the title suggests,” the filmmaker said in a statement. “It’s mostly about a girl finding her own way to fix the past, make peace with regrets, quiet anxiety about the future, and let go of unmet expectations. The main character, Holly, belongs to a group of people — or perhaps a generation — afraid that life is always happening somewhere else. Like when we were children, imagining a thousand possible lives, even though we only live one. But thinking like that as adults devalues reality; it distracts from the world, its meaning, its beauty, its injustices, and our own role in it all. Although ‘Il Rapimento di Arabella’ feels somewhat like a comedy, it began with serious reflections I found on Reddit and other online forums, as well as everyday feelings of my own. That’s why I wrote this story — it seemed like something many people could relate to, or at least recognize.”

Oscilloscope Laboratories opens “The Kidnapping of Arabella” in select theaters starting Friday, July 17.