Luca Guadagnino may perhaps be best known on these shores as the director of lush scripted films like Call Me by Your Name, Suspiria and this year’s Bones and All. But since the start of his career, he’s also directed documentaries (Bertolucci on Bertolucci; Cuoco contadino, about one of Italy’s most inventive chefs; among others), which he calls the “very highest and noble art form of cinema.”

His latest is Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams, about the rise of master shoe craftsman Salvatore Ferragamo, which opened in theaters Nov. 4. With a name that has long been emblazoned on storefronts on high-end fashion streets worldwide, Ferragamo began his career as the footwear-obsessed child of poor Italian farmers who started training for the field at the age of 9. Salvatore follows Ferragamo from these humble origins to Santa Barbara, California, where he crafted shoes (especially boots for Westerns) for an incipient film industry, and later Hollywood itself, where clients included Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. His work also appeared in films like The Ten Commandments and The Thief of Bagdad. Eventually, Ferragamo returned to Italy, where he patented a modern wedge-heel shoe and invented a steel shank that would support a shoe’s arch, prioritizing comfort even as he continued to craft looks for glamour icons like Sophia Loren and Audrey Hepburn.

Guadagnino’s portrait of Ferragamo’s journey to the height of his profession draws from…