A Quinte West family and their recent film is receiving international attention.
Natalia and Adriano Gallucci, along with their twin children Vincenzo and Alyssa are behind “Eden’s Choice.”
The film follows a 13-year-old girl navigating abuse, poverty, and a crumbling family. Eden decides to carry an unplanned pregnancy to term, setting off a journey over several years of sacrifice, hope, and redemption.
Sophia Shannon plays Eden who finds out she is pregnant at an early age.
“Eden: Have you ever even considered how I feel? I’m the one that’s pregnant, not you! This is my body and my choice, okay?
Mom: Baby, but that’s just it, you have a choice! You have options. We can look into adoption.
Eden: Okay, you’re not listening to me! How, Mom? How? I would love for you to tell me how I’m supposed to explain this to the other kids at school!”
There is a face in the movie that many will recognize as Kevin Sorbo. Sorbo is best known for portraying Hercules in the 1990s television series, along with Captain Dylan Hunt in the sci-fi series Andromeda.
He has millions of social media followers and is known for weighing in on social issues, faith, and politics.
Six people in the photograph. If I had taken Marcus in after his father died, everything, including everything with Eden, would have been different. It’s just that Eden was so close, you know? Without Katrina, the family would have been ripped apart. I mean, it would have broke me.”
That is a clip from Eden’s Choice, where Sorbo, who plays a police officer supporting the family, battles a life crisis.
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Quint News spoke to the Gallucci family to get an understanding of how the movie came to be.
Mother Natalia tells us the idea came from family tragedy, regret, and heartbreak in their own life in 2010.
“I remember being in the ultrasound and them being like, “There’s a heartbeat.” Oh my god, honey, there’s a heartbeat, there’s two heartbeats, there’s three heartbeats. Okay, you can stop counting.”
“The doctors were like, ‘Well, you’re 110 pounds, you’re not going to survive having triplets. One of you, if not you, or your children are not going to survive. So you have to make a decision.’ We talked about it, and we decided, we reduced from triplets to twins. It was the hardest day of our lives. It’s vivid. I remember it like a nightmare every day. We as a couple live with that every day.”
“So we know what it’s like to go through that and think, ‘Hey, we’re doing the right thing.’ To know that 15 years later, you look at your kids and you’re like, there’s one missing. You feel it. You feel it every day, every minute of every day, there’s one missing.”
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A still from the movie Eden’s Choice
All four members of the family have had hands in the movie from writing, to production, to promotion.
Adriano on morality in the arts: “We bear responsibility to create the change that we want to see in the world, especially when it comes to the movie business.”
Natalia on bringing the film to life: “I think we really enjoyed creating something out of nothing. Taking an idea and making it come to life in the physical form of a script, and now seeing that script come to life with people and their emotions is an amazing feeling.”
Alyssa on relating to Eden: “As a young girl growing up in this society, imagine the life a child could have growing up and all the people they could meet, and then just imagine taking that away. That could change everything.”
Vincenzo on the script writing process: “My dad will state an idea, my mom will state a note or suggestion, and then my sister and I will pitch in our own suggestions so we can mingle, talk about it, and start writing the script together.”
Adriano Gallucci says they are currently in talks with studios and platforms to pick up the movie.
Natalia says they have several other projects in the works, at different stages of completion.
The full movie and a song (written by Adrian and Alyssa Galucci/ artwork by Vince) can be watched/heard below.
