Life, Rewritten: Filmmaker Charlotte Fantelli’s Second Act Is Her Boldest Yet Alongside Model-Surgeon Lorenzo Bernaudo
- Matheus Hooks/ Editor-In-Chief
- 19 hours ago
- 4 min read
'USA' COVER EDITION - MAY 2025 ISSUE
When the Daily Mail reported Charlotte Fantelli had put her £1.7 million New Forest estate up for sale, rumours began as to why the 41-year-old Film Producer and Director was leaving the hard-earned mansion that doubled as her film studios. The rumours were right, it wasn’t just a house she was leaving behind—it was a chapter. A long one and with it twenty years of marriage. A life written in permanence. Or so she thought.
You might’ve expected a hiatus. A quiet chapter. Maybe even a fade to black. But instead of a slow fade to silence, Charlotte hit record both on and off-screen.
The acclaimed British filmmaker, Owner of Branded Studios, known for gritty documentaries and cinematic ventures with the likes of Sir Patrick Stewart and the Stallone family, is now co-writing the story of her life’s most unexpected plot twist—alongside a man who looks like he stepped straight off a Milan runway. Enter: Lorenzo Bernaudo—an Italian-born Doctor, model-gorgeous, and yes, an actual surgeon! A man with the kind of magnetic presence that seems designed for cinema, and together, the pair have a chemistry that feels unstoppable.
Their meeting was unexpected. “When my marriage ended, it was exceptionally painful,” Charlotte tells Hooks. “But with a huge respect for the twenty-years I shared with the father of my son, I felt that among the devastation, lay a chance to start again as the woman I was now, in my 40s. After picking up the pieces, there was a sense that life wasn’t over—it had a chance to begin again.”
That beginning is what inspired ‘The Retreat’, her newest film and perhaps her most personal yet. It follows Emma, what we can only imagine is Fantelli’s character, a woman rebooting her life post-divorce at a tech-free hideaway on the banks of the stunning Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, with eight strangers and one particularly captivating Italian for company. Sound familiar? Fantelli swears it’s fiction—“with deep, heart-wrenching twists that I am very glad don’t apply to Lorenzo and I”—but the parallels are undeniable and she admits to Hooks “Of course meeting Lorenzo in my personal life was the inspiration behind the premise of the movie, literally the week we met I had signed my divorce papers and headed off to a Mind, Body Reset retreat in the New Forest. I was inspired by this bridge of chapters and the notion of living truly in the present. After losing something I thought would last forever, I had to stop, reframe, and measure life in blissful moments of real presence, after all that is all we have. This is what the film, and life is all about”.
“It’s about the second act that is rarely talked about but incredibly common. Women over 40 reinventing themselves after a split, divorce, kids leaving home and the like - not simply fading away when life’s changes knock them, but emerging brighter than ever.”
If you’ve followed Fantelli’s trajectory—from a child abuse-survivor turned Marie Claire Empowering Woman award-winner, to indie film powerhouse and self-made Millionaire —you know she doesn’t do anything halfway. Reinvention is practically her brand and this chapter she stands alongside a man who appears very at home beside her.
“This story at its core is personal, but also one that so many can relate to” Fantelli says, her voice equal parts calm and conviction. A notion that film Producers and Financiers DAL Productions embraced with both hands. Lynn and David Coleman of DAL say
“We are really excited to be working with Branded Studios on this film, the script is so authentic and deeply moving. Our connections with Switzerland through the twinning with Bournemouth, mean we are excited for what this film means for our 40-year strong association, and the towns provide the perfect dramatic backdrop for this passionate romance.”
It’s rare for a love story to unfold so organically, so off-script, and yet be mirrored so closely in art. Fantelli’s romance with Bernaudo began quietly, without press releases or staged appearances. But slowly, subtly, the world is taking notice. A reel of the pair in Maranello, Italy—Ferrari’s spiritual home, and where Fantelli famously premiered her TV series ‘Car and Country Quest’—sparked early whispers. Then came the publicity stills for The Retreat: showing the chemistry between them is impossible to ignore. Now, she’s no longer whispering, admitting to Hooks “It’s not often you get to live out the plot of a movie while writing it with your partner both on and off-screen. I am very blessed to write this film and chapter of my life with Lorenzo.”
Because The Retreat isn’t just a film—it’s a manifesto. A love letter to second chances. To women over 40 rewriting the scripts of their lives with passion, power, and presence. To the idea that the end of something isn’t always a tragedy. Sometimes, it’s the start of something unimaginably beautiful.
Will they appear on screen together? She won’t confirm and audiences will have to wait til late 2026 to find out. But what is for certain their fingerprints are all over the project. You feel them in every frame. The emotional depth. The magnetic pull. The heartbeat of something raw, lived to the full, and deeply human.
“It’s not just about telling stories anymore,” Fantelli says. “It’s about living them. Fully. Authentically. With no apologies.”
Charlotte Fantelli isn’t just filming her second act. She’s living it. And in this chapter, the womanknown for making documentaries about other people’s grit has found her own power within the vulnerability—and is creating it hand-in-hand with her muse.
Love, in the end, may not follow a script. But if The Retreat is any indication, Fantelli is proving that sometimes, the most beautiful stories are the ones written from the ashes of what came before.
And we’re already queuing up for the cinema tickets.
