John Malkovich stars as Seneca in Robert Schwentke's splatter film

John Malkovich portrays the Roman philosopher Seneca in Robert Schwentke's film 'Seneca – On the Creation of Earthquakes', presented at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival. The film features extensive dialogue, drawing from Seneca's original texts and historical sources like Tacitus. Malkovich, who has previously played Casanova, the Duke of Wellington, and Gustav Klimt, described the script as intelligent and dialogue-rich, noting his theater background helped him handle the verbal demands. Schwentke cited Italian director Roberto Rossellini's 'Socrates' as an influence, though his approach is more realistic. Set in Rome in 65 AD, the plot follows Emperor Nero, frustrated by his intellectual inferiority to his mentor Seneca, ordering him to commit suicide. Seneca's prolonged bloody suicide is depicted with splatter and sarcasm, raising political allegories about the complicity of the educated elite under tyranny. The film is released in Germany on March 23 by Weltkino.