Italian state broadcaster Rai’s new world sales arm is gaining traction in Cannes — following its soft launch in Berlin — with four new titles on its slate, including veteran auteur Roberto Andò’s historical drama “The Blunder” starring Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”).
In “The Blunder,” which is currently shooting in Sicily, Servillo plays a Sicilian colonel at the head of a ragtag unit trying to outsmart the enemy during the 1860 battle led by Giuseppe Garibaldi that resulted in the unification of Italy.
“The Blunder,” which also stars popular Sicilian comic duo Salvatore Ficarra and Valentino Picone, is produced by Tramp Limited and Bibi Film with Rai Cinema and Medusa, in collaboration with Netflix.
Other titles added during Cannes on the Rai Cinema International Distribution slate include – as previously announced – “Of Dogs and Men,” the upcoming drama by Israeli director Dani Rosenberg (“The Death of Cinema and My Father Too...
In “The Blunder,” which is currently shooting in Sicily, Servillo plays a Sicilian colonel at the head of a ragtag unit trying to outsmart the enemy during the 1860 battle led by Giuseppe Garibaldi that resulted in the unification of Italy.
“The Blunder,” which also stars popular Sicilian comic duo Salvatore Ficarra and Valentino Picone, is produced by Tramp Limited and Bibi Film with Rai Cinema and Medusa, in collaboration with Netflix.
Other titles added during Cannes on the Rai Cinema International Distribution slate include – as previously announced – “Of Dogs and Men,” the upcoming drama by Israeli director Dani Rosenberg (“The Death of Cinema and My Father Too...
- 5/24/2024
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
While Luca Guadagnino is reigning supreme this summer with “Challengers” and Cannes-premiered “Queer” both opening, Film at Lincoln Center is celebrating all Italian auteurs for the 23rd edition of annual festival “Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.”
This year’s festival takes place from May 30 through June 6 and includes North American, U.S., and New York premieres, with appearances and discussions by several of the filmmakers. Co-presented by Cinecittà, “Open Roads: New Italian Cinema” serves as a showcase of the best in new Italian cinema.
“I think we have an especially strong lineup at this year’s ‘Open Roads,’ which is nothing if not an encouraging sign of things to come as we continue to move forward from the production pauses and shutdowns wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic,” Dan Sullivan, Flc Programmer, said. “A satisfying mix of the familiar and the new, of low- and higher-budget movies, of fresh takes on...
This year’s festival takes place from May 30 through June 6 and includes North American, U.S., and New York premieres, with appearances and discussions by several of the filmmakers. Co-presented by Cinecittà, “Open Roads: New Italian Cinema” serves as a showcase of the best in new Italian cinema.
“I think we have an especially strong lineup at this year’s ‘Open Roads,’ which is nothing if not an encouraging sign of things to come as we continue to move forward from the production pauses and shutdowns wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic,” Dan Sullivan, Flc Programmer, said. “A satisfying mix of the familiar and the new, of low- and higher-budget movies, of fresh takes on...
- 5/22/2024
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Roll up, roll up for Part 2 of our Cannes Film Festival preview, this time with a focus on international, mainly non-English-language fare. If you didn’t catch Andreas’ English-language-focused Part 1, check it out.
As the fest basks in the warm glow of the Oscar wins for 2023 Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall and Grand Jury Prize winner The Zone of Interest, delegate general Thierry Frémaux and his team are furiously tying up the 2024 Official Selection.
With less than four weeks to go until the bulk of the 77th edition (running May 14-25) is revealed at the press conference in Paris on April 11, we’ve rounded up a host of the titles ready and in the running for a splash in either Official Selection or the main parallel sections of Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week.
The registration deadline was March 15, with March 22 the official cut-off for submissions to arrive...
As the fest basks in the warm glow of the Oscar wins for 2023 Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall and Grand Jury Prize winner The Zone of Interest, delegate general Thierry Frémaux and his team are furiously tying up the 2024 Official Selection.
With less than four weeks to go until the bulk of the 77th edition (running May 14-25) is revealed at the press conference in Paris on April 11, we’ve rounded up a host of the titles ready and in the running for a splash in either Official Selection or the main parallel sections of Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week.
The registration deadline was March 15, with March 22 the official cut-off for submissions to arrive...
- 3/18/2024
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Over the past few years Italian cinema has been making strides in the global arena and 2024 looks likely to bolster its international standing. New works by top auteurs Paolo Sorrentino and Luca Guadagnino will be launching from the festival circuit just as a fresh crop of directors comes to fore, starting with Margherita Vicario, whose first film “Gloria!” scored a Berlin competition slot.
Below is a compendium of new Italian movies set to hit this year’s fest circuit.
“Another End” – Gael García Bernal and Renate Reinsve (“The Worse Person in the World”) star as lovers caught in an unusual bind in Italian director Piero Messina’s sci-fi film “Another End” which is competing in Berlin. This second feature by Messina – whose first feature, “The Wait,” launched with a splash in the 2015 Venice competition – is set in a near-future when a new technology exists that can put the consciousness of...
Below is a compendium of new Italian movies set to hit this year’s fest circuit.
“Another End” – Gael García Bernal and Renate Reinsve (“The Worse Person in the World”) star as lovers caught in an unusual bind in Italian director Piero Messina’s sci-fi film “Another End” which is competing in Berlin. This second feature by Messina – whose first feature, “The Wait,” launched with a splash in the 2015 Venice competition – is set in a near-future when a new technology exists that can put the consciousness of...
- 2/17/2024
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
The great Martin Scorsese returned to the Eternal City, accompanied by the star of the moment, Lily Gladstone, as the guests of honor of a gala dinner at the Hotel Hassler by the Spanish steps Wednesday night. The event, honoring Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and hosted by co-chief of Leone Film Group, Raffaella Leone, daughter of great Italian film director Sergio Leone, and Paolo Del Brocco, head of Rai Cinema, the Italian distributor of Killers. Hot off the film’s 10 Oscar nominations, including a record-setting 10th best director nod for Scorsese and the historic best actress nod for Gladstone as the first Native American nominated in the category, the event was a must-attend for the Italian film scene.
The Hollywood Reporter Roma was the only media outlet admitted to the event, and we were a fly on the wall for the parade of A-list industry guests, which...
The Hollywood Reporter Roma was the only media outlet admitted to the event, and we were a fly on the wall for the parade of A-list industry guests, which...
- 2/1/2024
- by Manuela Santacatterina
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Toni Servillo, who played Roman socialite Jep Gambardella in Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning “The Great Beauty,” will star in a drama about Cosa Nostra boss Matteo Messina Denaro, dubbed “the last godfather” directed by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza (“Sicilian Ghost Story”).
Also starring in the hotly-anticipated drama titled “Iddu” – which means “Him” in Sicilian dialect – is Italian A-list actor Elio Germano, winner of a Cannes best actor prize for Daniele Luchetti’s “Our Life” in 2010 and more recently of Italy’s 2021 David di Donatello Award for Giorgio Diritti’s “Hidden Away.”
The roles respectively being played by Servillo and Elio Germano are being kept under wraps.
After being on the run for three decades, Messina Denaro was arrested in mid-January 2023 outside an upscale medical facility in Palermo, where he had been undergoing cancer treatment for a year under false identity. The top mafioso, convicted of masterminding some of Italy...
Also starring in the hotly-anticipated drama titled “Iddu” – which means “Him” in Sicilian dialect – is Italian A-list actor Elio Germano, winner of a Cannes best actor prize for Daniele Luchetti’s “Our Life” in 2010 and more recently of Italy’s 2021 David di Donatello Award for Giorgio Diritti’s “Hidden Away.”
The roles respectively being played by Servillo and Elio Germano are being kept under wraps.
After being on the run for three decades, Messina Denaro was arrested in mid-January 2023 outside an upscale medical facility in Palermo, where he had been undergoing cancer treatment for a year under false identity. The top mafioso, convicted of masterminding some of Italy...
- 1/18/2024
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Ridley Scott’s Napoleon and Michael Mann’s Ferrari are facing allegations — surprising for two films focused on straight white male protagonists — of cultural appropriation.
French and Italian critics have taken offense at the directors’ decisions to cast American actors to play national icons — Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon Bonaparte, the general who became French emperor, and Adam Driver as visionary Italian carmaker Enzo Ferrari — and, adding insult to injury, having them speak in English.
“It’s original sin,” wrote a Ferrari reviewer for Italy’s Movieplayer magazine on the casting of Driver, alongside Spanish actor Penélope Cruz as Ferrari’s wife, Laura, and American Shailene Woodley as his mistress. “Not just to have them speak English, but with a dodgy Italian accent.”
“Deeply clumsy, unnatural and unintentionally funny” was French GQ’s assessment of the very French characters of Napoleon and his lover Josephine (played by Brit Vanessa Kirby) speaking en anglais.
French and Italian critics have taken offense at the directors’ decisions to cast American actors to play national icons — Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon Bonaparte, the general who became French emperor, and Adam Driver as visionary Italian carmaker Enzo Ferrari — and, adding insult to injury, having them speak in English.
“It’s original sin,” wrote a Ferrari reviewer for Italy’s Movieplayer magazine on the casting of Driver, alongside Spanish actor Penélope Cruz as Ferrari’s wife, Laura, and American Shailene Woodley as his mistress. “Not just to have them speak English, but with a dodgy Italian accent.”
“Deeply clumsy, unnatural and unintentionally funny” was French GQ’s assessment of the very French characters of Napoleon and his lover Josephine (played by Brit Vanessa Kirby) speaking en anglais.
- 12/12/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Updated with latest: The Venice Film Festival began August 30 with opening-night movie Comandante, an Italian World War II drama, kicking off a lineup for the venerable fest’s 80th edition that includes world premieres of Michael Mann’s Ferrari, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, David Fincher’s The Killer, Ava DuVernay’s Origins, and new films from lightning-rod directors Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Luc Besson.
Deadline is on the ground to watch all the key films. Below is a compilation of our reviews from the fest, which last year awarded Laura Poitras’ documentary All The Beauty and the Bloodshed its Golden Lion for best film.
Click on the film titles below to read the reviews in full, and keep checking back as we add more movies throughout the fest, which runs through September 9.
Adagio
Section: Competition
Director: Stefano Sollima
Cast: Pierfrancesco Favino,...
Deadline is on the ground to watch all the key films. Below is a compilation of our reviews from the fest, which last year awarded Laura Poitras’ documentary All The Beauty and the Bloodshed its Golden Lion for best film.
Click on the film titles below to read the reviews in full, and keep checking back as we add more movies throughout the fest, which runs through September 9.
Adagio
Section: Competition
Director: Stefano Sollima
Cast: Pierfrancesco Favino,...
- 9/10/2023
- by Damon Wise, Pete Hammond, Stephanie Bunbury and Todd McCarthy
- Deadline Film + TV
Italian genre specialist Stefano Sollima – who is known in Hollywood for “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” “Without Remorse” and the TV series “Gomorrah” – is in the Venice competition for the first time with Rome-set crime drama “Adagio.”
This beautifully shot picture features an ensemble cast of Italian A-listers comprising Pierfrancesco Favino (“Nostalgia”), Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”), Valerio Mastandrea (“Perfect Strangers”) and Adriano Giannini (“The Ties”). It’s the tale of three old – and once mighty – mobsters searching for redemption in a cutthroat contemporary Rome that is literally burning. They find it in the form of a 16 year old named Manuel who is being blackmailed after venturing too deep in a rotting Roman underworld world that he doesn’t understand.
You often work from books such as “Gomorrah” but this is your original idea. How did it germinate?
“Adagio” – this is no secret – is a gift that I made to myself.
This beautifully shot picture features an ensemble cast of Italian A-listers comprising Pierfrancesco Favino (“Nostalgia”), Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”), Valerio Mastandrea (“Perfect Strangers”) and Adriano Giannini (“The Ties”). It’s the tale of three old – and once mighty – mobsters searching for redemption in a cutthroat contemporary Rome that is literally burning. They find it in the form of a 16 year old named Manuel who is being blackmailed after venturing too deep in a rotting Roman underworld world that he doesn’t understand.
You often work from books such as “Gomorrah” but this is your original idea. How did it germinate?
“Adagio” – this is no secret – is a gift that I made to myself.
- 9/7/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
'Ferrari' producer Andrea Iervolino has hit back at criticism of the decision to cast Adam Driver in the lead role.The 35-year-old producer claimed that Italian cinema has not produced enough high-profile stars to play the part of Enzo Ferrari – the founder of the legendary car company - and rubbished suggestions of "cultural appropriation" by film star Pierfrancesco Favino.Speaking at the Venice Film Festival, Iervolino – who is Italian-Canadian – said: "Italian cinema needs to look beyond Italy and come up with synergies with the international film industry, which wants to invest in Italian icons. Films like 'Ferrari', which will be distributed in 150 countries, promote Italy and Italian genius."The producer called on Italy's film industry to "make films based on stories that speak to the whole world, with international stars who work side by side with our own talent".Favino had questioned why acclaimed actors such as Toni Servillo...
- 9/5/2023
- by Joe Graber
- Bang Showbiz
Rome, Smoking City: Sollima Languorous Thriller Tiresomely Tests Narrative Cliches
The most apropos element of Stefano Sollima’s Adagio is the title itself, as it’s two-hour-plus running time certainly glides slowly over its intersecting elements in Rome’s underbelly of crooked cops and aging gangsters, desperately converging as wildfires ravage the metropolis. While pacing in a crime thriller doesn’t necessitate high octane frequency, it can be a burden when the narrative is structured on nonsensical motivations and poor character development. Sollima, who is returning to Italy after the meaty sequel Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018) and the clunky Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse (2021), snags two of his country’s most prolific contemporary players for his latest, Pierfrancisco Favino and Toni Servillo, both of whom feel underutilized as plot devices in this toothless thriller.…...
The most apropos element of Stefano Sollima’s Adagio is the title itself, as it’s two-hour-plus running time certainly glides slowly over its intersecting elements in Rome’s underbelly of crooked cops and aging gangsters, desperately converging as wildfires ravage the metropolis. While pacing in a crime thriller doesn’t necessitate high octane frequency, it can be a burden when the narrative is structured on nonsensical motivations and poor character development. Sollima, who is returning to Italy after the meaty sequel Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018) and the clunky Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse (2021), snags two of his country’s most prolific contemporary players for his latest, Pierfrancisco Favino and Toni Servillo, both of whom feel underutilized as plot devices in this toothless thriller.…...
- 9/2/2023
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Despite its soft-sounding title, Stefano Sollima’s crime drama is a gripping call-back to the heyday of poliziotteschi movies, a peculiarly Italian genre that dealt with inter-gang wars in a country where the police were often more venal than the bad guys. Adagio, though, takes a unique tack, borrowing from Martin Scorsese’s fatalistic masterpiece The Irishman to portray to tell a story in which a trio of gangsters — one blind, one suffering early-onset dementia, and another with terminal cancer — are forced to reunite against a team of bent cops involved in an elaborate blackmail plan.
There are shades of Elio Petri’s classic Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, too, although it takes a while for this to become obvious. Indeed, for some 45 minutes, Sollima keeps us guessing as to which side the villains are actually on, starting with a long sequence in which a young man named Manuel...
There are shades of Elio Petri’s classic Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, too, although it takes a while for this to become obvious. Indeed, for some 45 minutes, Sollima keeps us guessing as to which side the villains are actually on, starting with a long sequence in which a young man named Manuel...
- 9/2/2023
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
Adagio, as many musicians know, means “slowly” in Italian. That seems to be one of the guiding principles in this epic slow-burn crime thriller from director Stefano Sollima, who’s known for helming the lauded TV series Gomorrah and ZeroZeroZero, as well as taking on Hollywood jobs like the actioners Without Remorse and Sicario: Day of the Soldado.
He certainly has style to boot, and this very Heat-like story, which takes place in parts of Rome rarely seen in mainstream movies, is loaded with ambience, as well as brawny performances by a triumvirate of Italy’s best working actors: Pierfrancesco Favino, Toni Servillo and Valerio Mastandrea. What it lacks, however, is a gripping and original plot, as well as enough dazzling set pieces to make all the late exposition worthwhile.
Premiering in competition in Venice, Adagio will likely be a local hit, with Sollima delivering the kind of Michael Mann...
He certainly has style to boot, and this very Heat-like story, which takes place in parts of Rome rarely seen in mainstream movies, is loaded with ambience, as well as brawny performances by a triumvirate of Italy’s best working actors: Pierfrancesco Favino, Toni Servillo and Valerio Mastandrea. What it lacks, however, is a gripping and original plot, as well as enough dazzling set pieces to make all the late exposition worthwhile.
Premiering in competition in Venice, Adagio will likely be a local hit, with Sollima delivering the kind of Michael Mann...
- 9/2/2023
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Gary Oldman has joined the cast of Paolo Sorrentino’s new film that is currently shooting in Naples.
Details about Oldman’s role in the still-untitled Italian-language drama are being kept under wraps.
Sorrentino’s 10th feature is about a woman named Partenope “who bears the name of her city but is neither siren nor myth,” as the auteur – who won an international Oscar in 2013 for “The Great Beauty” –put it in a statement to Variety in June, when the shoot started.
In Greek mythology, Parthenope, as she is known in English, is the name of a siren who having failed to entice Odysseus with her songs, cast herself into the sea and drowned. Her body washed up on a symbolic foundational rock where Naples lies. Neapolitans in Italy are also known as “Parthenopeans.”
“Her long life embodies the full repertoire of human existence: youth’s lightheartedness and its demise,...
Details about Oldman’s role in the still-untitled Italian-language drama are being kept under wraps.
Sorrentino’s 10th feature is about a woman named Partenope “who bears the name of her city but is neither siren nor myth,” as the auteur – who won an international Oscar in 2013 for “The Great Beauty” –put it in a statement to Variety in June, when the shoot started.
In Greek mythology, Parthenope, as she is known in English, is the name of a siren who having failed to entice Odysseus with her songs, cast herself into the sea and drowned. Her body washed up on a symbolic foundational rock where Naples lies. Neapolitans in Italy are also known as “Parthenopeans.”
“Her long life embodies the full repertoire of human existence: youth’s lightheartedness and its demise,...
- 8/30/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Being an independent producer was never easy. But these days, it’s near impossible. Even before the dual writers and actors strikes, changes in the international film and TV market had made life tough for the indies. Old models of art house moviemaking have been ravaged by a combination of decline in the specialty box office, the collapse of ancillary revenue for home entertainment and TV licensing, and the more recent pullback by streaming companies, who have begun to back fewer, and more mainstream, movies.
But one indie production company has gone from making just a handful of movies a year to dozens, finding a way to turn the turbulent new reality into a business model for making cutting-edge art house cinema that, shockingly, can actually turn a profit. It’s the company behind five of the most hotly anticipated titles at the Venice Film Festival this year: Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things,...
But one indie production company has gone from making just a handful of movies a year to dozens, finding a way to turn the turbulent new reality into a business model for making cutting-edge art house cinema that, shockingly, can actually turn a profit. It’s the company behind five of the most hotly anticipated titles at the Venice Film Festival this year: Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things,...
- 8/25/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Hollywood Reporter has picked Fremantle as the winner of the inaugural International Producer of the Year award.
The award will be presented annually to an independent producer from outside the U.S. that THR judges to be the most exciting and innovative company of the year.
THR will present the 2023 Producer of the Year award to Andrea Scrosati, Group COO and CEO of Continental Europe, and Christian Vesper, CEO of Global Drama, at a gala event at the Venice Film Festival on September 3.
With a global network of nearly 50 companies — ranging from German giant UFA (Deutschland ’83) and Italian TV group Lux Vide (Netflix’s Medici) to Israel’s Abot Hameiri (Shtisel) and Richard Brown’s Passenger (True Detective) — and revenues of more than $2.5 billion (€2.3 billion) last year, Fremantle is clearly one of the biggest international indies out there.
But what put it over the top as International Producer of...
The award will be presented annually to an independent producer from outside the U.S. that THR judges to be the most exciting and innovative company of the year.
THR will present the 2023 Producer of the Year award to Andrea Scrosati, Group COO and CEO of Continental Europe, and Christian Vesper, CEO of Global Drama, at a gala event at the Venice Film Festival on September 3.
With a global network of nearly 50 companies — ranging from German giant UFA (Deutschland ’83) and Italian TV group Lux Vide (Netflix’s Medici) to Israel’s Abot Hameiri (Shtisel) and Richard Brown’s Passenger (True Detective) — and revenues of more than $2.5 billion (€2.3 billion) last year, Fremantle is clearly one of the biggest international indies out there.
But what put it over the top as International Producer of...
- 8/23/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Roughly two years after his return to Naples for “The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino is heading back to his hometown for another movie steeped in the lore of his native southern port city.
The still untitled film is about a woman named Partenope “who bears the name of her city but is neither siren nor myth,” the Oscar-winning auteur has revealed to Variety.
In Greek mythology, Parthenope, as she is known in English, is the name of a siren who having failed to entice Odysseus with her songs, cast herself into the sea and drowned. Her body washed up on a symbolic foundational rock where Naples lies. Neapolitans in Italy are also known as “Parthenopeans.”
Shooting on Sorrentino’s new film is set to start “at the end of June” and will take place in Naples and on the island of Capri.
Here is the film’s full director’s statement,...
The still untitled film is about a woman named Partenope “who bears the name of her city but is neither siren nor myth,” the Oscar-winning auteur has revealed to Variety.
In Greek mythology, Parthenope, as she is known in English, is the name of a siren who having failed to entice Odysseus with her songs, cast herself into the sea and drowned. Her body washed up on a symbolic foundational rock where Naples lies. Neapolitans in Italy are also known as “Parthenopeans.”
Shooting on Sorrentino’s new film is set to start “at the end of June” and will take place in Naples and on the island of Capri.
Here is the film’s full director’s statement,...
- 6/23/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Italy’s Taormina Film Festival kicks off its 69th edition Friday evening against the backdrop of its landmark Teatro Antico amphitheatre with a “Pavarotti Forever” benefit event headlined by Placido Domingo and Vittorio Grigolo.
It’s not the typical opening for a film festival, but it is in keeping with the eclectic programming of incoming artistic director Barrett Wissman, whose interview with Deadline on his plans for the festival can be read here.
Much is riding on the edition, with Wissman being brought in to raise its local and international profile after a turbulent decade, which was compounded by the Covid pandemic.
Topping the bill over the first weekend is the Italian premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny in the presence of Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Mads Mikkelsen. It’s the first time a major Disney production has touched down at the festival since Inside Out in 2015. Indiana Jones,...
It’s not the typical opening for a film festival, but it is in keeping with the eclectic programming of incoming artistic director Barrett Wissman, whose interview with Deadline on his plans for the festival can be read here.
Much is riding on the edition, with Wissman being brought in to raise its local and international profile after a turbulent decade, which was compounded by the Covid pandemic.
Topping the bill over the first weekend is the Italian premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny in the presence of Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Mads Mikkelsen. It’s the first time a major Disney production has touched down at the festival since Inside Out in 2015. Indiana Jones,...
- 6/23/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Roberto Andò with Anne-Katrin Titze: “I am rehearsing a new play in Naples. It’s a play by Colm Tóibín.”
Toni Servillo (star of Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning The Great Beauty) plays Luigi Pirandello (winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize for literature) in Roberto Andò’s enchanted Strangeness, which is as gracefully far away from a biopic as it gets. The two men the famous author incognito encounters, both undertakers and madly involved in local theatre, are played by the popular Italian comedy team Ficarra e Picone (Salvatore Ficarra as Sebastiano Vella and Valentino Picone as Onofrio Principato).
Luigi Pirandello (Toni Servillo) with Sebastiano Vella (Salvatore Ficarra) and Onofrio Principato (Valentino Picone) in Roberto Andò’s Strangeness
I first met Roberto Andò the morning before Long Live Freedom (Viva La Libertà), starring Toni Servillo, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Valerio Mastandrea was screened at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Cinecittà...
Toni Servillo (star of Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning The Great Beauty) plays Luigi Pirandello (winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize for literature) in Roberto Andò’s enchanted Strangeness, which is as gracefully far away from a biopic as it gets. The two men the famous author incognito encounters, both undertakers and madly involved in local theatre, are played by the popular Italian comedy team Ficarra e Picone (Salvatore Ficarra as Sebastiano Vella and Valentino Picone as Onofrio Principato).
Luigi Pirandello (Toni Servillo) with Sebastiano Vella (Salvatore Ficarra) and Onofrio Principato (Valentino Picone) in Roberto Andò’s Strangeness
I first met Roberto Andò the morning before Long Live Freedom (Viva La Libertà), starring Toni Servillo, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Valerio Mastandrea was screened at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Cinecittà...
- 6/2/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Belgian directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s Italian-language drama The Eight Mountains and veteran Marco Bellocchio’s Exterior Night topped the 68th edition of Italy’s David di Donatello Awards on Wednesday evening.
The Eight Mountains won best film as well as best non-original screenplay, photography and sound.
Based on the novel of the same name by Paolo Cognetti, it stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as two men from different backgrounds who form a life-long bond during summers spent together as children in a remote mountain village.
The film world premiered in Competition at Cannes last year where it co-won the Jury Prize. Read the Deadline review here.
It is the second time in the history of the awards that a film by non-Italian directors has clinched the best film prize.
The last time was in 1971 when the Dino de Laurentiis-produced epic Waterloo by Russian director Sergei Bonderchuk,...
The Eight Mountains won best film as well as best non-original screenplay, photography and sound.
Based on the novel of the same name by Paolo Cognetti, it stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as two men from different backgrounds who form a life-long bond during summers spent together as children in a remote mountain village.
The film world premiered in Competition at Cannes last year where it co-won the Jury Prize. Read the Deadline review here.
It is the second time in the history of the awards that a film by non-Italian directors has clinched the best film prize.
The last time was in 1971 when the Dino de Laurentiis-produced epic Waterloo by Russian director Sergei Bonderchuk,...
- 5/11/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Italian sales company True Colours has closed a raft of sales following Berlin’s European Film Market. Italy’s box office hit “La Stranezza” (“Strangeness”) got picked up for a dozen territories and queer romantic drama “Norwegian Dream” also sold widely, including to North America.
Directed by Roberto Andò, “Strangeness” (pictured) toplines Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”) as Nobel-prize-winning playwright Luigi Pirandello. This tragicomic period piece about how Pirandello found inspiration to write his masterpiece “Six Characters in Search of an Author” has been a sleeper hit at the Italian box office, coming from nowhere to pull more than €5.5 million ($5.8 million) and becoming the local 2022 box office champ.
Now “Strangeness,” which is produced by Bibi Film and Tramp Limited with Rai Cinema and Medusa, will be playing in: Spain (Alfa Pictures); Poland (Aurora Film); Portugal (Il Sorpasso); Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay (Zeta Film); former Yugoslavia (Stars Media); Taiwan...
Directed by Roberto Andò, “Strangeness” (pictured) toplines Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”) as Nobel-prize-winning playwright Luigi Pirandello. This tragicomic period piece about how Pirandello found inspiration to write his masterpiece “Six Characters in Search of an Author” has been a sleeper hit at the Italian box office, coming from nowhere to pull more than €5.5 million ($5.8 million) and becoming the local 2022 box office champ.
Now “Strangeness,” which is produced by Bibi Film and Tramp Limited with Rai Cinema and Medusa, will be playing in: Spain (Alfa Pictures); Poland (Aurora Film); Portugal (Il Sorpasso); Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay (Zeta Film); former Yugoslavia (Stars Media); Taiwan...
- 3/10/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Actor-director Marco D’Amore, who played the ruthless central character Ciro Di Marzio on the Italian mob show “Gomorrah,” is directing “Caracas” a Naples-set drama in which he stars opposite Toni Servillo.
“Caracas” is a co-production between Picomedia, Mad Entertainment and Vision Distribution, which will release the film in Italy.
Vision Distribution’s international unit, headed by veteran sales agent Catia Rossi, is launching sales on the film at Berlin’s upcoming European Film Market.
In “Caracas,” which is based on writer Ermanno Rea’s novel “Napoli Ferroviaria,” Servillo plays Giordano Fonte, a Neapolitan author of international fame who returns to his hometown after many years. There he intersects with a former acquaintance nicknamed Caracas, a man originally from Venezuela who, having been a Neo-fascist skinhead, is now in the process of converting to Islam.
The film is a journey into the multi-ethnic, crime-ridden port city, where Caracas rules over the area near Naples’ central station.
“Caracas” is a co-production between Picomedia, Mad Entertainment and Vision Distribution, which will release the film in Italy.
Vision Distribution’s international unit, headed by veteran sales agent Catia Rossi, is launching sales on the film at Berlin’s upcoming European Film Market.
In “Caracas,” which is based on writer Ermanno Rea’s novel “Napoli Ferroviaria,” Servillo plays Giordano Fonte, a Neapolitan author of international fame who returns to his hometown after many years. There he intersects with a former acquaintance nicknamed Caracas, a man originally from Venezuela who, having been a Neo-fascist skinhead, is now in the process of converting to Islam.
The film is a journey into the multi-ethnic, crime-ridden port city, where Caracas rules over the area near Naples’ central station.
- 2/13/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Adagio
A quartet of heavyweight Italian actors in Pierfrancesco Favino, Toni Servillo, Valerio Mastandrea, Adriano Giannini were put together for Stefano Sollima‘s next directing gig. Production on Adagio took place last summer and the film actually completes a crime trilogy which began not with a pair of films, but back to back TV series. Written by Stefano Bises, this is a dark story of revenge and redemption shot in Rome. The Apartment’s Lorenzo Mieli (Priscilla) and AlterEgo’s Sollima produce the feature.
Gist: Completing the trilogy that began with “Romanzo Criminale” and “Suburra”, the story idea and screenplay are co-written by Stefano Bises.…...
A quartet of heavyweight Italian actors in Pierfrancesco Favino, Toni Servillo, Valerio Mastandrea, Adriano Giannini were put together for Stefano Sollima‘s next directing gig. Production on Adagio took place last summer and the film actually completes a crime trilogy which began not with a pair of films, but back to back TV series. Written by Stefano Bises, this is a dark story of revenge and redemption shot in Rome. The Apartment’s Lorenzo Mieli (Priscilla) and AlterEgo’s Sollima produce the feature.
Gist: Completing the trilogy that began with “Romanzo Criminale” and “Suburra”, the story idea and screenplay are co-written by Stefano Bises.…...
- 1/11/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Italy’s box office grosses in 2022 totaled €306 million while the admissions tally was a measly 44.5 million admissions, which reps a 48 drop compared with the country’s average pre-pandemic intake between 2017 and 2019.
On the positive side, the Italian 2022 box office result repped an 81 increase in grosses over 2021 when closures, mandatory Covid masks in cinemas, and other side effects of the pandemic prompted a massive plunge.
But the country’s moviegoing mojo pales in comparison with France’s 152 million admissions in 2022, and also with the admissions tallies in Germany, 74 million, and Spain, 59 million, all of which were also below pre-pandemic levels, but not as dramatically so. For example moviegoing numbers in France and Germany both clocked in at roughly 26 less that their pre-pandemic levels, while Spain was 37 below pre-pandemic par, according to a study by Italian motion picture association Anica which released the country’s box office figures and its contextual analysis...
On the positive side, the Italian 2022 box office result repped an 81 increase in grosses over 2021 when closures, mandatory Covid masks in cinemas, and other side effects of the pandemic prompted a massive plunge.
But the country’s moviegoing mojo pales in comparison with France’s 152 million admissions in 2022, and also with the admissions tallies in Germany, 74 million, and Spain, 59 million, all of which were also below pre-pandemic levels, but not as dramatically so. For example moviegoing numbers in France and Germany both clocked in at roughly 26 less that their pre-pandemic levels, while Spain was 37 below pre-pandemic par, according to a study by Italian motion picture association Anica which released the country’s box office figures and its contextual analysis...
- 1/10/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
“My need to work on monologues originates from my love of literature. I usually pick novels that have little or no dialogue, so that I perceive the book as a very long monologue. Since I make films where plot twists are rare, if not entirely absent, monologues help me to have something masquerade as a plot twist that is just not there,” says Paolo Sorrentino during a special event on the art of the monologue organized by the Torino Film Festival and held at the Teatro Astra on Friday. The talk was moderated by filmmaker David Grieco and festival director Steve Della Casa.
Reading the notes written by Andrea De Rosa (who could not take part in the event), Della Casa listed three types of monologues present throughout Sorrentino’s filmography. The first is the inner monologue, during which the character speaks alone, often with their voice over, while the...
Reading the notes written by Andrea De Rosa (who could not take part in the event), Della Casa listed three types of monologues present throughout Sorrentino’s filmography. The first is the inner monologue, during which the character speaks alone, often with their voice over, while the...
- 12/3/2022
- by Davide Abbatescianni
- Variety Film + TV
Invited to speak about his profession of acting during a masterclass at the 40th Torino Film Festival, Toni Servillo – whose credits include Oscar winner “The Great Beauty,” Cannes Jury Prize winner “Il Divo” and “The King of Laughter,” which won him the best actor prize at Venice – brushed aside the cliché that actors kept in them, as stigmas, the characters they had played.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I kept none of them. We are just empty vases that fill and empty. I’m always afraid of the question: ‘How did you get into Pirandello?’ [he plays the writer Luigi Pirandello in Roberto Andò’s new film, ‘La Stranezza’] How did I get in? Well, through the door!,” he says.
Servillo believes that there are many myths around these roles that would later prevent the actor from being himself again. “To identify with the character, the actor tries to master a tumult that,...
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I kept none of them. We are just empty vases that fill and empty. I’m always afraid of the question: ‘How did you get into Pirandello?’ [he plays the writer Luigi Pirandello in Roberto Andò’s new film, ‘La Stranezza’] How did I get in? Well, through the door!,” he says.
Servillo believes that there are many myths around these roles that would later prevent the actor from being himself again. “To identify with the character, the actor tries to master a tumult that,...
- 11/30/2022
- by Trinidad Barleycorn
- Variety Film + TV
Film had its market premiere at the AFM.
Italy’s Vision Distribution has closed a raft of sales for Donato Carrisi’s thriller I Am The Abyss for territories including France and Germany.
Swift Distribution has secured the rights for France. Plaion Pictures, which rebranded earlier this year from its previous name Koch Films, has acquired distribution rights for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
In addition, Vision has sold the film’s rights to Best Film for Poland, Beta Film for Bulgaria and Swallow Wings for Taiwan.
I Am The Abyss is author and director Carrisi’s third film after The...
Italy’s Vision Distribution has closed a raft of sales for Donato Carrisi’s thriller I Am The Abyss for territories including France and Germany.
Swift Distribution has secured the rights for France. Plaion Pictures, which rebranded earlier this year from its previous name Koch Films, has acquired distribution rights for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
In addition, Vision has sold the film’s rights to Best Film for Poland, Beta Film for Bulgaria and Swallow Wings for Taiwan.
I Am The Abyss is author and director Carrisi’s third film after The...
- 11/29/2022
- by Alina Trabattoni
- ScreenDaily
Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” Roman Polanski’s “The Palace,” “The Son” with Anthony Hopkins, and “Golda” with Helen Mirren are among the theatrical releases lined up for the rest of this year and next year for Italy’s 01 Distribution. Paolo Del Brocco, CEO of the distributor’s parent company, Rai Cinema, presented the lineup at the Torino Film Festival on Friday, and discussed an adjustment in his company’s production strategy in favor of bigger budget Italian films.
As well as the stellar international titles, there is also a strong Italian contingent on the 01 Distribution slate, including Marco Bellocchio’s “La Conversione,” Matteo Garrone’s “Io capitano,” “Il ritorno de Casanova,” starring Toni Servillo, and Saverio Costanzo’s “Finalmente l’alba,” starring Lily James.
“It is a luminous list because cinema in theaters illuminates cities, urban spaces,...
As well as the stellar international titles, there is also a strong Italian contingent on the 01 Distribution slate, including Marco Bellocchio’s “La Conversione,” Matteo Garrone’s “Io capitano,” “Il ritorno de Casanova,” starring Toni Servillo, and Saverio Costanzo’s “Finalmente l’alba,” starring Lily James.
“It is a luminous list because cinema in theaters illuminates cities, urban spaces,...
- 11/27/2022
- by Trinidad Barleycorn
- Variety Film + TV
There’s a pastoral scene about halfway through Mario Martone’s indulgent portrait of Italian theatrical legend Eduardo Scarpetta which throws everything else into sharp relief. In it, we see one of the playwright’s youngest children, Peppino (Salvatore Battista) running through the farmyard at the place where he is being temporarily fostered, chasing a playful young lamb. Here there are soft green hills, the sun is warm, the buildings are humble but welcoming. Later, Peppino will ask for permission to share his bed with the lamb. he doesn’t want to leave. He doesn’t want to go back to that ugly house in the city.
That ugly house is known as the Scarpetta palace, a lavishly furnished, expansive mansion where the playwright (played by Toni Servillo) lives with his wife and mistresses and some of his numerous offspring. it’s a place where the women and girls are...
That ugly house is known as the Scarpetta palace, a lavishly furnished, expansive mansion where the playwright (played by Toni Servillo) lives with his wife and mistresses and some of his numerous offspring. it’s a place where the women and girls are...
- 11/25/2022
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Torino Film Festival, Italy’s pre-eminent event for young directors and indie cinema where Matteo Garrone and Paolo Sorrentino screened their first works, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year with film critic Steve Della Casa – who previously served as the fest’s artistic director from 1999-2002 – back at the helm.
Della Casa, who is also a national radio personality and documentary director, has chosen to open the Nov. 25-Dec. 3 fest with a musical and visual extravaganza focusing on a specially made montage centered around the Beatles and The Rolling Stones and their love for cinema that led them to work with the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Jonas Mekas, Wim Wenders and Martin Scorsese. The fest’s eclectic opener is a 70-minute patchwork of film clips, interviews, and rare archive materials celebrating the vibrant ties between pop and rock music and movies.
Della Casa spoke to Variety about his...
Della Casa, who is also a national radio personality and documentary director, has chosen to open the Nov. 25-Dec. 3 fest with a musical and visual extravaganza focusing on a specially made montage centered around the Beatles and The Rolling Stones and their love for cinema that led them to work with the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Jonas Mekas, Wim Wenders and Martin Scorsese. The fest’s eclectic opener is a 70-minute patchwork of film clips, interviews, and rare archive materials celebrating the vibrant ties between pop and rock music and movies.
Della Casa spoke to Variety about his...
- 11/23/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
While his latest film, Nostalgia, is Italy’s Oscar entry this year, director Mario Martone’s previous feature will finally arrive stateside. The King of Laughter, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year and picked up the Best Actor Award for Toni Servillo at Venice and Best Costume Design at Italy’s 2022 David di Donatello Awards, is being released on VOD and on digital platforms by Film Movement on November 25 and we’re pleased to exclusively debut the new trailer.
At the beginning of the 20th century, in Belle Époque Naples, theatres and the cinema were thriving and the great comic actor Eduardo Scarpetta (Servillo) is the box office king. Known in the Neapolitan theater for his cheeky alter egos, Scarpetta’s larger-than-life stage productions were matched only by his eccentric personal life. Composed of wives, partners, lovers, legitimate and illegitimate children, Scarpetta’s home situation resembled one...
At the beginning of the 20th century, in Belle Époque Naples, theatres and the cinema were thriving and the great comic actor Eduardo Scarpetta (Servillo) is the box office king. Known in the Neapolitan theater for his cheeky alter egos, Scarpetta’s larger-than-life stage productions were matched only by his eccentric personal life. Composed of wives, partners, lovers, legitimate and illegitimate children, Scarpetta’s home situation resembled one...
- 11/11/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The Torino Film Festival, which celebrates its 40th edition this year, will open with a special musical and visual event focusing on two of the most iconic British bands – the Beatles and the Rolling Stones – and their love for cinema, which led them to work with the likes of Richard Lester, Jean-Luc Godard, Jonas Mekas, Wim Wenders and Martin Scorsese.
The 70-minute event, set to be held at the prestigious Teatro Regio on Nov. 25 and broadcast by Rai Radio3, will feature “both rare and never-before-seen archive footage.”
Film critic Steve Della Casa, who served as the gathering’s artistic director from 1999-2002, is back at the helm. In his introductory remarks, he described Torino as “a true urban festival,” which places great importance on the theatrical experience, and set to attract both industry reps as well as a large young, cinephile audience. Moreover, this year’s edition will see the inauguration of Casa Festival,...
The 70-minute event, set to be held at the prestigious Teatro Regio on Nov. 25 and broadcast by Rai Radio3, will feature “both rare and never-before-seen archive footage.”
Film critic Steve Della Casa, who served as the gathering’s artistic director from 1999-2002, is back at the helm. In his introductory remarks, he described Torino as “a true urban festival,” which places great importance on the theatrical experience, and set to attract both industry reps as well as a large young, cinephile audience. Moreover, this year’s edition will see the inauguration of Casa Festival,...
- 11/8/2022
- by Davide Abbatescianni
- Variety Film + TV
Click here to read the full article.
Visitors to the Rome Film Festival and Mia Market last month couldn’t have avoided them. They were everywhere in the eternal city: bright red billboards celebrating Cinecittà, the city’s legendary film studio. They weren’t promoting any new film or TV series shooting at the fame backlot. Instead the ads were part of a campaign, call it Cinecittà reboot, intended to return the Italian studio to its place atop the world stage.
Things have been quiet for a while around Cinecittà. Now the studio that write the history of international cinema with such productions as Ben-Hur, Cleopatra, Once Upon a Time In America and Gangs of New York, is looking to take back its place atop the world’s stage.
The new push comes amid a shakeup in the Italian film and TV industry, a market revolution in which Cinecittà intends to be a driving force.
Visitors to the Rome Film Festival and Mia Market last month couldn’t have avoided them. They were everywhere in the eternal city: bright red billboards celebrating Cinecittà, the city’s legendary film studio. They weren’t promoting any new film or TV series shooting at the fame backlot. Instead the ads were part of a campaign, call it Cinecittà reboot, intended to return the Italian studio to its place atop the world stage.
Things have been quiet for a while around Cinecittà. Now the studio that write the history of international cinema with such productions as Ben-Hur, Cleopatra, Once Upon a Time In America and Gangs of New York, is looking to take back its place atop the world’s stage.
The new push comes amid a shakeup in the Italian film and TV industry, a market revolution in which Cinecittà intends to be a driving force.
- 11/1/2022
- by Gianmaria Tammaro
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Italian sales company True Colours has taken international distribution rights to Roberto Andò’s “La Stranezza” (“Strangeness”), toplining Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”) as the Nobel-prize-winning playwright Luigi Pirandello.
This tragicomic period piece about how Pirandello found inspiration to write his masterpiece “Six Characters in Search of an Author” will launch from the Rome Film Festival and concurrently have its market premiere at the Eternal City’s upcoming Mia Market, which runs Oct. 11-15.
Starring alongside Servillo are popular Sicilian comedy duo Salvo Ficarra and Valentino Picone, who are known in Italy as Ficarra and Picone.
“Strangeness” is set in 1921, the year when Pirandello returned to Sicily for the 80th birthday of his mentor, famous novelist and playwright Giovanni Verga.
Upon arriving in the city of Agrigento, the playwright becomes captured by a world populated by strange personalities, ghostly visions, distant memories and melancholy apparitions, all of which inspire him to write “Six Characters,...
This tragicomic period piece about how Pirandello found inspiration to write his masterpiece “Six Characters in Search of an Author” will launch from the Rome Film Festival and concurrently have its market premiere at the Eternal City’s upcoming Mia Market, which runs Oct. 11-15.
Starring alongside Servillo are popular Sicilian comedy duo Salvo Ficarra and Valentino Picone, who are known in Italy as Ficarra and Picone.
“Strangeness” is set in 1921, the year when Pirandello returned to Sicily for the 80th birthday of his mentor, famous novelist and playwright Giovanni Verga.
Upon arriving in the city of Agrigento, the playwright becomes captured by a world populated by strange personalities, ghostly visions, distant memories and melancholy apparitions, all of which inspire him to write “Six Characters,...
- 10/5/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Italian director Stefano Sollima, who is known in Hollywood for “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” “Without Remorse” and TV show “Gomorrah,” is back behind camera on a contemporary Rome-set crimer titled “Adagio.”
Shooting started Sept. 5 on “Adagio” which features an ensemble cast of Italian A-listers comprising Pierfrancesco Favino (“Nostalgia”), Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”), Valerio Mastandrea (“Perfect Strangers”) and Adriano Giannini (“The Ties”).
“I am eager and full of enthusiasm about finally returning to depict my city after all these years. Rome has changed, and so have I,” Sollima said in a statement for Variety. He went on to describe “Adagio” as a dark story of revenge and redemption, which will be the last chapter of my Roman criminal trilogy.”
The previous two installments in this trilogy are “A.C.A.B: All Cops Are Bastards,” from 2012, and “Suburra,” from 2015, which was subsequently spun out into a Netflix TV series.
The “Adagio” story...
Shooting started Sept. 5 on “Adagio” which features an ensemble cast of Italian A-listers comprising Pierfrancesco Favino (“Nostalgia”), Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”), Valerio Mastandrea (“Perfect Strangers”) and Adriano Giannini (“The Ties”).
“I am eager and full of enthusiasm about finally returning to depict my city after all these years. Rome has changed, and so have I,” Sollima said in a statement for Variety. He went on to describe “Adagio” as a dark story of revenge and redemption, which will be the last chapter of my Roman criminal trilogy.”
The previous two installments in this trilogy are “A.C.A.B: All Cops Are Bastards,” from 2012, and “Suburra,” from 2015, which was subsequently spun out into a Netflix TV series.
The “Adagio” story...
- 9/7/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
The New York Film Festival on Tuesday revealed its Spotlight section lineup, which includes the world premiere of She Said, Universal’s drama based on the work of New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey who investigated and wrote the bombshell 2017 Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse story.
Maria Schrader directed the pic starring Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan that features a cast including Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Samantha Morton and Jennifer Ehle. Adapted from the reporters’ book by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, the film hits theaters November 18.
Other Spotlight world premieres set for NYFF, which runs September 30-October 16, includes Till, Chinonye Chukwu’s story of Mamie Till-Mobley, the Chicago woman whose son, Emmett, was lynched while visiting cousins in Mississippi in 1955. Also, a pair of documentaries: A Cooler Climate, James Ivory and Giles Gardner’s film that uncovers boxes of film Ivory shot during a trip to Afghanistan in 1960; and Personality Crisis: One Night Only,...
Maria Schrader directed the pic starring Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan that features a cast including Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Samantha Morton and Jennifer Ehle. Adapted from the reporters’ book by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, the film hits theaters November 18.
Other Spotlight world premieres set for NYFF, which runs September 30-October 16, includes Till, Chinonye Chukwu’s story of Mamie Till-Mobley, the Chicago woman whose son, Emmett, was lynched while visiting cousins in Mississippi in 1955. Also, a pair of documentaries: A Cooler Climate, James Ivory and Giles Gardner’s film that uncovers boxes of film Ivory shot during a trip to Afghanistan in 1960; and Personality Crisis: One Night Only,...
- 8/16/2022
- by Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
Following their stellar Main Slate lineup, the 60th New York Film Festival has unveiled its Spotlight section, featuring a number of notable world premieres. Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s David Johansen documentary Personality Crisis: One Night Only will debut at the festival, along with Maria Schrader’s She Said, Chinonye Chukwu’s Till, Elvis Mitchell’s Is That Black Enough for You?!?, and James Ivory and Giles Gardner’s A Cooler Climate.
Also in the lineup is Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All, Sarah Polley’s Woman Talking, a special 50th anniversary presentation of Solaris with a new live score, a new documentary on the late Robert Downey, Sr. by Chris Smith and new series from Lars von Trier and Marco Bellocchio.
“Ranging from illuminating portraits and affecting personal stories to uncomfortable histories that ignite change, the third edition of our NYFF Spotlight section is a curated mix of world premieres,...
Also in the lineup is Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All, Sarah Polley’s Woman Talking, a special 50th anniversary presentation of Solaris with a new live score, a new documentary on the late Robert Downey, Sr. by Chris Smith and new series from Lars von Trier and Marco Bellocchio.
“Ranging from illuminating portraits and affecting personal stories to uncomfortable histories that ignite change, the third edition of our NYFF Spotlight section is a curated mix of world premieres,...
- 8/16/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Italian auteur Mario Martone, who was recently in Cannes with “Nostalgia,” is set to direct a high-profile doc about the late Massimo Troisi, one of Italy’s most beloved comic actors who starred in the Oscar-winning film “Il Postino.”
Troisi, who played the simple postman who rides his bicycle on the sandy terrain of an Italian island to deliver mail to his sole client, the Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda, died tragically of congenital heart failure at age 41 in June 1994, the day after “Il Postino” finished shooting at Rome’s Cinecittà studios.
The film directed by Michael Radford, which also starred Maria Grazia Cucinotta and Philippe Noiret, became an arthouse sensation one year later when it opened in the U.S. distributed by Miramax.
“Il Postino” went on to win an Oscar in 1996 for best dramatic score, having earned five nominations, including for best film, as well as best director for Radford,...
Troisi, who played the simple postman who rides his bicycle on the sandy terrain of an Italian island to deliver mail to his sole client, the Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda, died tragically of congenital heart failure at age 41 in June 1994, the day after “Il Postino” finished shooting at Rome’s Cinecittà studios.
The film directed by Michael Radford, which also starred Maria Grazia Cucinotta and Philippe Noiret, became an arthouse sensation one year later when it opened in the U.S. distributed by Miramax.
“Il Postino” went on to win an Oscar in 1996 for best dramatic score, having earned five nominations, including for best film, as well as best director for Radford,...
- 7/28/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Three further Cannes titles also added to 2022 edition.
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (July 1-9) has revealed it will open on Friday with Italian director Paolo Genovese’s romantic drama Superheroes and close with George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing.
Superheroes explores the relationship between a physics teacher and cartoonist, played respectively by Alessandro Borghi and Jasmine Trinca, at the beginning of their courtship and 10 years later. It marks the latest feature of Genovese, who has since directed upcoming drama The First Day Of My Life, starring Toni Servillo. It was released in Italy in December 2021 via Medusa Film.
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (July 1-9) has revealed it will open on Friday with Italian director Paolo Genovese’s romantic drama Superheroes and close with George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing.
Superheroes explores the relationship between a physics teacher and cartoonist, played respectively by Alessandro Borghi and Jasmine Trinca, at the beginning of their courtship and 10 years later. It marks the latest feature of Genovese, who has since directed upcoming drama The First Day Of My Life, starring Toni Servillo. It was released in Italy in December 2021 via Medusa Film.
- 6/29/2022
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
Marco Martone’s Cannes competition title has sold to Spain and Switzerland.
True Colours has clinched additional sales on Marco Martone’s Cannes competition title Nostalgia, with Vertigo Film buying rights for Spain and Xenix Filmdistribution for Switzerland.
The film has also sold to Benelux (Paradiso Filmed Entertainment), Poland (Gutek Film), Taiwan (Av-Jet), Baltic territories (Estinfilm), Bulgaria (Beta Film) and Mena (Moving Turtle).
The feature starring Pierfrancesco Favino is set in Martone’s hometown of Naples and revolves around the protagonist Felice Lasco’s return to his origins after some four decades of being away. Nostalgia so far has grossed...
True Colours has clinched additional sales on Marco Martone’s Cannes competition title Nostalgia, with Vertigo Film buying rights for Spain and Xenix Filmdistribution for Switzerland.
The film has also sold to Benelux (Paradiso Filmed Entertainment), Poland (Gutek Film), Taiwan (Av-Jet), Baltic territories (Estinfilm), Bulgaria (Beta Film) and Mena (Moving Turtle).
The feature starring Pierfrancesco Favino is set in Martone’s hometown of Naples and revolves around the protagonist Felice Lasco’s return to his origins after some four decades of being away. Nostalgia so far has grossed...
- 6/10/2022
- by Alina Trabattoni
- ScreenDaily
Marco Martone’s Cannes competition title has sold to Spain and Switzerland.
True Colours has clinched additional sales on Marco Martone’s Cannes competition title Nostalgia, with Vertigo Film buying rights for Spain and Xenix Filmdistribution for Switzerland.
The film has also sold to Benelux (Paradiso Filmed Entertainment), Poland (Gutek Film), Taiwan (Av-Jet), Baltic territories (Estinfilm), Bulgaria (Beta Film) and Mena (Moving Turtle).
The feature starring Pierfrancesco Favino is set in Martone’s hometown of Naples and revolves around the protagonist Felice Lasco’s return to his origins after some four decades of being away. Nostalgia so far has grossed...
True Colours has clinched additional sales on Marco Martone’s Cannes competition title Nostalgia, with Vertigo Film buying rights for Spain and Xenix Filmdistribution for Switzerland.
The film has also sold to Benelux (Paradiso Filmed Entertainment), Poland (Gutek Film), Taiwan (Av-Jet), Baltic territories (Estinfilm), Bulgaria (Beta Film) and Mena (Moving Turtle).
The feature starring Pierfrancesco Favino is set in Martone’s hometown of Naples and revolves around the protagonist Felice Lasco’s return to his origins after some four decades of being away. Nostalgia so far has grossed...
- 6/10/2022
- by Alina Trabattoni
- ScreenDaily
Veteran Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio returned to Cannes this year with “Exterior Night,” a limited TV series about the 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists that, prior to playing on pubcaster Rai, is now on release in two installments via Lucky Red in Italian cinemas where it’s doing quite well.
Bellocchio, who previously recounted Moro’s still-mysterious abduction in the 2005 film “Goodmorning, Night” from the viewpoint of one of his captors, is taking a different narrative approach in this series consisting of six one-hour episodes that reconstruct the 55 days of Moro’s imprisonment from different points of view, including that of his family, his fellow high-echelon Christian Democrat politicians, and the ailing Pope Paul VI, played by Toni Servillo.
He spoke to Variety about what drove him to revisit Italy’s deepest recent collective trauma and why he thinks the crucial...
Bellocchio, who previously recounted Moro’s still-mysterious abduction in the 2005 film “Goodmorning, Night” from the viewpoint of one of his captors, is taking a different narrative approach in this series consisting of six one-hour episodes that reconstruct the 55 days of Moro’s imprisonment from different points of view, including that of his family, his fellow high-echelon Christian Democrat politicians, and the ailing Pope Paul VI, played by Toni Servillo.
He spoke to Variety about what drove him to revisit Italy’s deepest recent collective trauma and why he thinks the crucial...
- 5/30/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Most films ask nothing of you. You simply press play and watch the story unfold, gleaning context as the filmmaker colors in their narrative. But the occasional movie demands prerequisites to appreciate. Think: Dušan Makavejev’s Man Is Not a Bird, or last year’s competition title Petrov’s Flu, Kirill Serebrennikov’s mind-numbing swan dive into the socio-political climate of post-Soviet Russia whose commentary nearly requires a Ph.D. to unpack. Marco Bellocchio’s Exterior Night hovers somewhere in-between.
It would help if the historical thriller came with the equivalent of a summer reading list, but there’s enough explanation to clue you in if you’re not brushed up on your 1970s Italian politics. Perhaps more important that the story is easy to get wrapped up in, a six-episode miniseries that feels like a brisk five-and-a-half hours. No doubt it will be richer the more you know, but Bellocchio––with co-writers Stefano Bises,...
It would help if the historical thriller came with the equivalent of a summer reading list, but there’s enough explanation to clue you in if you’re not brushed up on your 1970s Italian politics. Perhaps more important that the story is easy to get wrapped up in, a six-episode miniseries that feels like a brisk five-and-a-half hours. No doubt it will be richer the more you know, but Bellocchio––with co-writers Stefano Bises,...
- 5/19/2022
- by Luke Hicks
- The Film Stage
03 March 2014 by Sydney Levine in SydneysBuzz
The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza), Italy’s Submission for the Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film
Inspirational and awe-inspiring are the words that come to mind first when I think about the great movie just out of Italy, The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) from acclaimed director Paolo Sorrentino ( Il Divo, The Consequences of Love, This Must be the Place) with a screenplay by Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello.
I could watch this film over and over again and still be inspired by the beauty of Rome and the depth of its flaneur, the hero of this film, journalist Jep Gambardella as played by the incomparable Toni Servillo (Gomorrah, Il Divo). In fact, after interviewing Paolo Sorrentino recently at the Chateau Marmont, I feel compelled to watch it again in order to understand the ending’s reference to what might have been the subject of the original and only book Jeb ever wrote which was perhaps (according to Paolo) “about the love he had for the girl — and you can see that at the end of the movie”.
During my interview, I tried not to discuss how the film carries echoes of the classic works of Federico Fellini as Sorrentino had already gone on record stating that, “Roma and La Dolce Vita are works that you cannot pretend to ignore when you take on a film like the one I wanted to make. They are two masterpieces and the golden rule is that masterpieces should be watched but not imitated. I tried to stick to that. But it’s also true that masterpieces transform the way we feel and perceive things.”
A dazzling tour through modern day Rome through the eyes of Jep Gambardella gives us feelings for grandeur whose beauty can lead to death, to dangerous adventures leading nowhere and to a certain level of sadness. When his 65th birthday coincides with a shock from the past, Jep finds himself unexpectedly taking stock of his life, turning his cutting wit on himself and his contemporaries, and looking past the extravagant nightclubs, parties, and cafés to find Rome in all its glory: a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
The stripper daughter of his old friend and nightclub owner represents a simpler normality as does his housekeeper. Both are touchstones to a reality he has abandoned since becoming a permanent fixture in Rome’s literary and social circles after the legendary success of his one and only novel. Armed with a roguish charm, he has seduced his way through the city’s lavish night life for decades.
As an interviewer for popular press, his curiosity about everything is satisfied and dissatisfied at the same time. He finds his yearning for simplicity is sparked when he rather cynically interviews a saintly nun and more importantly, he finds the seed for his next book in the simple, normal lives of ordinary people and in the fragility of those snobbish, superficial, gossiping “friends” with whom he has spent too much time weaving a uselessly complicated life of nothingness, living in a world which makes no sense.
There are many literary references in the film — Flaubert who wanted to write a book about nothing, Proust whose masterpiece “capitalizes on his own biography”, Celine whose opening line to his novel Journey to the End of the Night is also the film’s opening line.
This quote from Celine is a declaration of intent that I followed in turn in the film. It comes down to saying: there’s reality, but everything is invented too. Invention is necessary in cinema, just to attain the truth.
What is it about the Flaubert references?
Flaubert said he wanted to write a book about nothing. This gave him the right to write about the frivolous, gossip, nothing and it acquired a literary standing. Nothingness becomes life. It takes on a life of its own and life’s nothingness is its beauty.
Jeb is living it among awkward, weak people, even hateful people. This is life and all of it belongs to The Great Beauty. The immediacy of the beauty of Rome is obvious, but the subterranean part — like these horrible people around him, you realize they are are also so vulnerable and fragile and that gives them and him the redeeming grace of beauty. The communist writer is emblematic.
Are you an intellectual?
I don’t like to think that I am. I do read a lot. I read more than I watch movies.
What do you do in your free time?
I hibernate. I hibernate until the next project takes shape in my mind. I watch a lot of football. And I tend to my family. I have two children aged 10 and 16 who keep me very busy.
Do you find that the Italian character is theatrical?
In my hometown (Naples), the people are extraordinarily theatrical. Orson Welles himself, on seeing Neapolitan actor Eduardo de Felipo said that he was the greatest actor in the world.
Whatever you say about it, Italy has an extraordinary pool of actors of every sort. They are all very different, from many different backgrounds, but all with often under-exploited potential, all just waiting to find good characters.
Tony Servillo is also from Naples, like I am. He is an actor I can ask anything of, because he is capable of doing absolutely everything. I can now move forward with him with my eyes closed, not only as far as work goes, but also in terms of our friendship, a friendship which over time becomes more joyful, lighter yet deeper at the same time.
Tony Servillo is quoted as saying about Sorrentino:
We have something in common which we both cultivate, and that’s a taste for mystery. That has something to do with esteem, with a sense of irony and self-mockery, with certain similar sources of melancholy, and certain subjects or themes of reflection. These affinities are renewed each time we meet, as if it were the first time, without there being any need for a closer relationship between one film and the next. We meet and it’s as if we’ve never been apart. And that means there’s a deep friendship between us, and that’s what so great.
Thank you Paolo for this interview. I wish you all the luck in winning not only the Nomination but also the prize of the Academy Award.
I also want to draw the reader’s attention to the fabulous photography of cinematographer Luca Bigazzi and the music of Lele Marchitel, who juxtaposes original music with repertory music of sacred and profane, pop music reflecting the city itself and to the extraordinary pool of actors, Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Buccirosso, Iaia Forte, Pamela Villoresi and Galatea Ranzi, Massimo de Francovich, Roberto Herlitzka and Isabella Ferrari.
Manohla Dargis of the New York Times called this visually spectacular film “an outlandishly entertaining hallucination”, and according to Variety’s Jay Weissberg it’s an “astonishing cinematic feast”.
This rapturous highlight of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it played in Competition was acquired for U.S. by Janus Films who will release it theatrically in N.Y. on November 15, L.A. on November 22, expanding to other cities on November 29, with a home video release from the Criterion Collection.
“We were swept away by this gorgeous, moving film at Cannes”, said Peter Becker, president of the Criterion Collection and a partner in Janus Films. “Sorrentino is one of the most exciting directors working today, and Toni Servillo gives another majestic, multilayered performance.”
The deal to distribute Sorrentino’s film in the U.S. was struck with international distributor Pathé. “Janus has over the years become a valued partner in the promotion of Pathé’s heritage in the U.S. through its releases of our library titles, and we are, of course, thrilled to once again partner up with this company for the release of this film which represents the finest of Italian cinema today and at the same time pays a respectful homage to its nation’s cinematic past”, said Muriel Sauzay, Evp, International Sales.
For more information on the film visit Here
La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) also screened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival and was recently award the European Film Academy award for its editing by Cristiano Travaglioli. Since its Cannes debut, it has sold to Australia — Palace Films , Austria — Filmladen , Benelux — Abc — Cinemien , Brazil — Mares Filmes Ltda. , Canada — Mongrel Media, Métropole Films Distribution , Czech Republic — Film Europe, Denmark — Camera Film A/S , Estonia -Must Käsi, France — Canal + , Germany — Dcm , Greece — Feelgood Entertainment, Hong Kong (China) — Edko Films Ltd , Israel — United King Films, Italy — Medusa Distribuzione, Norway — As Fidalgo Film Distribution , Portugal — Lusomundo, Russia — A-One Films , Slovak Republic — Film Europe (Sk) , Switzerland — Pathe Films Ag , United Kingdom — Curzon Film World...
The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza), Italy’s Submission for the Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film
Inspirational and awe-inspiring are the words that come to mind first when I think about the great movie just out of Italy, The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) from acclaimed director Paolo Sorrentino ( Il Divo, The Consequences of Love, This Must be the Place) with a screenplay by Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello.
I could watch this film over and over again and still be inspired by the beauty of Rome and the depth of its flaneur, the hero of this film, journalist Jep Gambardella as played by the incomparable Toni Servillo (Gomorrah, Il Divo). In fact, after interviewing Paolo Sorrentino recently at the Chateau Marmont, I feel compelled to watch it again in order to understand the ending’s reference to what might have been the subject of the original and only book Jeb ever wrote which was perhaps (according to Paolo) “about the love he had for the girl — and you can see that at the end of the movie”.
During my interview, I tried not to discuss how the film carries echoes of the classic works of Federico Fellini as Sorrentino had already gone on record stating that, “Roma and La Dolce Vita are works that you cannot pretend to ignore when you take on a film like the one I wanted to make. They are two masterpieces and the golden rule is that masterpieces should be watched but not imitated. I tried to stick to that. But it’s also true that masterpieces transform the way we feel and perceive things.”
A dazzling tour through modern day Rome through the eyes of Jep Gambardella gives us feelings for grandeur whose beauty can lead to death, to dangerous adventures leading nowhere and to a certain level of sadness. When his 65th birthday coincides with a shock from the past, Jep finds himself unexpectedly taking stock of his life, turning his cutting wit on himself and his contemporaries, and looking past the extravagant nightclubs, parties, and cafés to find Rome in all its glory: a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
The stripper daughter of his old friend and nightclub owner represents a simpler normality as does his housekeeper. Both are touchstones to a reality he has abandoned since becoming a permanent fixture in Rome’s literary and social circles after the legendary success of his one and only novel. Armed with a roguish charm, he has seduced his way through the city’s lavish night life for decades.
As an interviewer for popular press, his curiosity about everything is satisfied and dissatisfied at the same time. He finds his yearning for simplicity is sparked when he rather cynically interviews a saintly nun and more importantly, he finds the seed for his next book in the simple, normal lives of ordinary people and in the fragility of those snobbish, superficial, gossiping “friends” with whom he has spent too much time weaving a uselessly complicated life of nothingness, living in a world which makes no sense.
There are many literary references in the film — Flaubert who wanted to write a book about nothing, Proust whose masterpiece “capitalizes on his own biography”, Celine whose opening line to his novel Journey to the End of the Night is also the film’s opening line.
This quote from Celine is a declaration of intent that I followed in turn in the film. It comes down to saying: there’s reality, but everything is invented too. Invention is necessary in cinema, just to attain the truth.
What is it about the Flaubert references?
Flaubert said he wanted to write a book about nothing. This gave him the right to write about the frivolous, gossip, nothing and it acquired a literary standing. Nothingness becomes life. It takes on a life of its own and life’s nothingness is its beauty.
Jeb is living it among awkward, weak people, even hateful people. This is life and all of it belongs to The Great Beauty. The immediacy of the beauty of Rome is obvious, but the subterranean part — like these horrible people around him, you realize they are are also so vulnerable and fragile and that gives them and him the redeeming grace of beauty. The communist writer is emblematic.
Are you an intellectual?
I don’t like to think that I am. I do read a lot. I read more than I watch movies.
What do you do in your free time?
I hibernate. I hibernate until the next project takes shape in my mind. I watch a lot of football. And I tend to my family. I have two children aged 10 and 16 who keep me very busy.
Do you find that the Italian character is theatrical?
In my hometown (Naples), the people are extraordinarily theatrical. Orson Welles himself, on seeing Neapolitan actor Eduardo de Felipo said that he was the greatest actor in the world.
Whatever you say about it, Italy has an extraordinary pool of actors of every sort. They are all very different, from many different backgrounds, but all with often under-exploited potential, all just waiting to find good characters.
Tony Servillo is also from Naples, like I am. He is an actor I can ask anything of, because he is capable of doing absolutely everything. I can now move forward with him with my eyes closed, not only as far as work goes, but also in terms of our friendship, a friendship which over time becomes more joyful, lighter yet deeper at the same time.
Tony Servillo is quoted as saying about Sorrentino:
We have something in common which we both cultivate, and that’s a taste for mystery. That has something to do with esteem, with a sense of irony and self-mockery, with certain similar sources of melancholy, and certain subjects or themes of reflection. These affinities are renewed each time we meet, as if it were the first time, without there being any need for a closer relationship between one film and the next. We meet and it’s as if we’ve never been apart. And that means there’s a deep friendship between us, and that’s what so great.
Thank you Paolo for this interview. I wish you all the luck in winning not only the Nomination but also the prize of the Academy Award.
I also want to draw the reader’s attention to the fabulous photography of cinematographer Luca Bigazzi and the music of Lele Marchitel, who juxtaposes original music with repertory music of sacred and profane, pop music reflecting the city itself and to the extraordinary pool of actors, Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Buccirosso, Iaia Forte, Pamela Villoresi and Galatea Ranzi, Massimo de Francovich, Roberto Herlitzka and Isabella Ferrari.
Manohla Dargis of the New York Times called this visually spectacular film “an outlandishly entertaining hallucination”, and according to Variety’s Jay Weissberg it’s an “astonishing cinematic feast”.
This rapturous highlight of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it played in Competition was acquired for U.S. by Janus Films who will release it theatrically in N.Y. on November 15, L.A. on November 22, expanding to other cities on November 29, with a home video release from the Criterion Collection.
“We were swept away by this gorgeous, moving film at Cannes”, said Peter Becker, president of the Criterion Collection and a partner in Janus Films. “Sorrentino is one of the most exciting directors working today, and Toni Servillo gives another majestic, multilayered performance.”
The deal to distribute Sorrentino’s film in the U.S. was struck with international distributor Pathé. “Janus has over the years become a valued partner in the promotion of Pathé’s heritage in the U.S. through its releases of our library titles, and we are, of course, thrilled to once again partner up with this company for the release of this film which represents the finest of Italian cinema today and at the same time pays a respectful homage to its nation’s cinematic past”, said Muriel Sauzay, Evp, International Sales.
For more information on the film visit Here
La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) also screened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival and was recently award the European Film Academy award for its editing by Cristiano Travaglioli. Since its Cannes debut, it has sold to Australia — Palace Films , Austria — Filmladen , Benelux — Abc — Cinemien , Brazil — Mares Filmes Ltda. , Canada — Mongrel Media, Métropole Films Distribution , Czech Republic — Film Europe, Denmark — Camera Film A/S , Estonia -Must Käsi, France — Canal + , Germany — Dcm , Greece — Feelgood Entertainment, Hong Kong (China) — Edko Films Ltd , Israel — United King Films, Italy — Medusa Distribuzione, Norway — As Fidalgo Film Distribution , Portugal — Lusomundo, Russia — A-One Films , Slovak Republic — Film Europe (Sk) , Switzerland — Pathe Films Ag , United Kingdom — Curzon Film World...
- 5/8/2022
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
The Rome-based sales outfit has committed to focusing on more international titles this year.
Italy’s True Colours has unveiled its 2022 Cannes Marché slate, as it commits to focusing on more international titles this year.
The Rome-based sales outfit will start selling rights for Delta, Michele Vannucci’s second film after 2016 Venice Horizons debut I Was A Dreamer. The film, produced by Groenlandia and Kino Produzioni with Rai Cinema, is finished and looking for festival slots. The noir drama stars Alessandro Borghi and Luigi Locascio (both David di Donatello winners for On My Skin and One Hundred Steps, respectively) in...
Italy’s True Colours has unveiled its 2022 Cannes Marché slate, as it commits to focusing on more international titles this year.
The Rome-based sales outfit will start selling rights for Delta, Michele Vannucci’s second film after 2016 Venice Horizons debut I Was A Dreamer. The film, produced by Groenlandia and Kino Produzioni with Rai Cinema, is finished and looking for festival slots. The noir drama stars Alessandro Borghi and Luigi Locascio (both David di Donatello winners for On My Skin and One Hundred Steps, respectively) in...
- 5/4/2022
- by Gabriele Niola
- ScreenDaily
The David di Donatello Awards were held in Rome on Tuesday evening, the first time Italy’s equivalent to the Oscar has had a fully in-person ceremony in the pandemic era. Taking top honors was Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand Of God which scooped Best Film and Director as well as Best Supporting Actress for Teresa Saponangelo and a tie for Best Cinematography. In the latter category, The Hand Of God shared the win with Freaks Out, a fantasy drama that likewise debuted in Venice.
Sorrentino’s autobiographical drama launched on the Lido last September where it won the Grand Jury Prize. A Netflix title, it went on to myriad festival and critics prizes and was also nominated for an Oscar as Best International Feature.
Freaks Out, directed by Gabriele Mainetti, also picked up prizes for Producer, Production Design, Hair and Makeup. Other titles to figure in the David di...
Sorrentino’s autobiographical drama launched on the Lido last September where it won the Grand Jury Prize. A Netflix title, it went on to myriad festival and critics prizes and was also nominated for an Oscar as Best International Feature.
Freaks Out, directed by Gabriele Mainetti, also picked up prizes for Producer, Production Design, Hair and Makeup. Other titles to figure in the David di...
- 5/4/2022
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline Film + TV
Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God” and Gabriele Mainetti’s “Freaks Out” lead the pack at the David di Donatello Awards this year with 16 nominations each.
Here’s the complete list of nominees:
Picture
“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Leonardo Di Costanzo
“The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino
“Ennio,” Giuseppe Tornatore
“Freaks Out,” Gabriele Mainetti
“Qui Rido Io” (The King of Laughter), Mario Martone
Director
“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Leonardo Di Costanzo
“The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino
“Ennio,” Giuseppe Tornatore
“Freaks Out,” Gabriele Mainetti
“Qui Rido Io” (The King of Laughter), Mario Martone
Debut Director
“The Bad Poet,” Gianluca Jodice
“Maternal,” Maura Delpero
“Small Body,” Laura Samani
“Re Granchio” (The Legend of King Crab), Alessio Rigo De Righi, Matteo Zoppis
“Una Femmina” (The Code of Silence), Francesco Constabile
Producer
“A Chiara,” Jon Coplon, Paolo Carpignano, Ryan Zacarias, Jonas Carpignano (Stayblack Productions) — Rai Cinema
“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Carlo Cresto...
Here’s the complete list of nominees:
Picture
“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Leonardo Di Costanzo
“The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino
“Ennio,” Giuseppe Tornatore
“Freaks Out,” Gabriele Mainetti
“Qui Rido Io” (The King of Laughter), Mario Martone
Director
“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Leonardo Di Costanzo
“The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino
“Ennio,” Giuseppe Tornatore
“Freaks Out,” Gabriele Mainetti
“Qui Rido Io” (The King of Laughter), Mario Martone
Debut Director
“The Bad Poet,” Gianluca Jodice
“Maternal,” Maura Delpero
“Small Body,” Laura Samani
“Re Granchio” (The Legend of King Crab), Alessio Rigo De Righi, Matteo Zoppis
“Una Femmina” (The Code of Silence), Francesco Constabile
Producer
“A Chiara,” Jon Coplon, Paolo Carpignano, Ryan Zacarias, Jonas Carpignano (Stayblack Productions) — Rai Cinema
“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Carlo Cresto...
- 4/30/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Toni Servillo stars in a Genovese film for the first time.
Paolo Genovese’s The First Day Of My Life, starring Toni Servillo, and now in post-production, has sold widely for Italian sales outfit True Colours, following the European Film Market.
The film has been acquired for Benelux (Paradiso Entertainment), Taiwan (Swallow Wings), Israel (Nachshon), former Yugoslavia (Stars Media), Finland (Future Films) and Portugal (Outsider Pictures).
The First Day Of My Life is an adaptation of Genovese’s novel of the same title. about a group of individuals who meet a stranger, played by Servillo, at the worst moment in their lives.
Paolo Genovese’s The First Day Of My Life, starring Toni Servillo, and now in post-production, has sold widely for Italian sales outfit True Colours, following the European Film Market.
The film has been acquired for Benelux (Paradiso Entertainment), Taiwan (Swallow Wings), Israel (Nachshon), former Yugoslavia (Stars Media), Finland (Future Films) and Portugal (Outsider Pictures).
The First Day Of My Life is an adaptation of Genovese’s novel of the same title. about a group of individuals who meet a stranger, played by Servillo, at the worst moment in their lives.
- 3/4/2022
- by Gabriele Niola
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Film Movement has acquired U.S. rights to the dramedy Queen of Glory, written, directed by and starring Nana Mensah, from Magnolia Pictures International, with plans to release it in theaters and on digital and VOD later this year.
In her debut feature, Mensah plays Sarah, a Ghanaian-American doctoral student at Columbia University who is weeks away from following her very married boyfriend to Ohio when her mother dies suddenly, leaving her as the owner of the small, Bronx-based Christian bookstore, King of Glory. Tasked with planning a culturally respectful funeral befitting the family matriarch, Sarah is forced to juggle the expectations of her loving, yet demanding family while also navigating the reappearance of her estranged father. Aided by an only-in-New York ensemble of Eastern European neighbors, feisty African aunties and a no-nonsense ex-con co-worker, she faces her new responsibilities while figuring out how to remain true to herself.
In her debut feature, Mensah plays Sarah, a Ghanaian-American doctoral student at Columbia University who is weeks away from following her very married boyfriend to Ohio when her mother dies suddenly, leaving her as the owner of the small, Bronx-based Christian bookstore, King of Glory. Tasked with planning a culturally respectful funeral befitting the family matriarch, Sarah is forced to juggle the expectations of her loving, yet demanding family while also navigating the reappearance of her estranged father. Aided by an only-in-New York ensemble of Eastern European neighbors, feisty African aunties and a no-nonsense ex-con co-worker, she faces her new responsibilities while figuring out how to remain true to herself.
- 2/28/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Italy’s True Colours has taken international sales on “Perfect Strangers” director Paolo Genovese’s new movie, a comedy drama titled “The First Day of My Life.”
The Rome-based sales company will be launching pre-sales at the upcoming online EFM market on Genovese’s latest concept pic, which has echoes of Frank Capra’s classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Based on Genovese’s novel of the same title, which was a bestseller in Italy, “The First Day of My Life” revolves around four characters on the brink of taking their lives who make a pact with a stranger with supernatural powers, played by “The Great Beauty” star Toni Servillo.
The mystery man gives them a chance to travel forward in time to see for a week how their friends and relatives would react to their deaths and what the world would be like without them. On the last day of the week,...
The Rome-based sales company will be launching pre-sales at the upcoming online EFM market on Genovese’s latest concept pic, which has echoes of Frank Capra’s classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Based on Genovese’s novel of the same title, which was a bestseller in Italy, “The First Day of My Life” revolves around four characters on the brink of taking their lives who make a pact with a stranger with supernatural powers, played by “The Great Beauty” star Toni Servillo.
The mystery man gives them a chance to travel forward in time to see for a week how their friends and relatives would react to their deaths and what the world would be like without them. On the last day of the week,...
- 1/28/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.