Actualités

There’s a certain formula that often defines the recipients of the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious top prize, the Palme d’Or. These films, especially in the last two decades, tend to have a sense of importance about them, frequently due to their sociopolitical awareness of the world (Laurent Cantet’s The Class), or of specific societal ills.

From time to time, the Palme d’Or goes to a bold, experimental, and divisive vision from a well-liked auteur, such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. But more often it’s awarded to a film in the lineup that the majority of the members on the Cannes jury can agree is good. That felt like the case for Ken Loach’s The Wind that Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake, as well as Julia Ducournau’s Titane,...

Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope, the director’s sumptuous, occasionally surreal tribute to his hometown of Naples, and Andrea Segre’s The Great Ambition, a political biopic about Italian Communist Party leader Enrico Berlinguer, are the frontrunners for this year’s David Di Donatello awards, Italy’s version of the Oscars.

Parthenope and The Great Ambition picked up 15 nominations each, including for best film and best director. In the best film category, they will face up against Maura Delpero’s Italian WW2 drama Vermiglio and Valeria Golino and Nicolangelo Gelormini’s L’arte della gioia (The Art of Joy), which received 14 nominations each, and the Francesca Comencini-directed drama The Time It Takes, which received four nominations. Other multiple nominees include Margherita Vicario’s debut feature Gloria!, about women musicians at a Church-run establishment in early-1800s Italy, which scored nine nominations, and Francesco Costabile’s crime thriller Familia, with eight.

In the best international film category,...

Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope and Andrea Segre’s The Great Ambition have taken the lead at the nomination stage for Italy’s upcoming 70th David di Donatello awards.

The titles have secured 15 nominations each including for best film and director.

Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio and Valeria Golino and Nicolangelo Gelormini’s The Art Of Joy received 14 nominations each, followed by Gloria! and Familia with nine and eight nominations respectively.

Sorrentino’s Parthenope, following a woman from her birth in 1950 to the current day against the backdrop of Naples, world premiered in Cannes.

Biopic The Great Ambition stars Elio Germano as 1970s and 1980s left-wing political leader Enrico Berlinguer, who nearly led the Communist party into power.

Vermiglio world premiered in Venice where it won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize and went on to be Italy’s 2025 Oscars submission. Set in a remote mountain village in 1944, the drama revolves around...

It was a role that solidified Richard Gere as one of Hollywood’s most dashing leading men, but the actor has admitted he hasn’t watched his performance in Pretty Woman for a long time.

The star spoke at a master class at the 81st Venice Film Festival on Sunday on the art and craft of cinema through acting, screenwriting, lighting, scoring and dubbing.

To kick off the conversation, it was noted that Gere celebrated his 75th birthday on Saturday, so the capacity crowd erupted with cheers of “Happy Birthday,” after which he dutifully thanked everyone.

The personal touches continued throughout the master class as the actor was shown a clip from his first film role, Days of Heaven (1978), which he admitted made him “so emotional.” He swiftly pointed out his son, Homer, and asked him to stand up for the audience. “I think I’m only a little bit...

She’s survived xenomorphs, busted ghosts, lived among the gorillas, and co-starred in the top-grossing blockbuster of all time — and soon she’ll have a Golden Lion. Screen icon Sigourney Weaver, whose stately grace and steely will have captivated filmgoers for nearly 50 years, will be awarded the Venice Film Festival‘s top honor for lifetime achievement at the event’s glamorous 81st opening ceremony. But first, the three-time Oscar nominee met the international press in Venice on Wednesday afternoon for a wide-ranging conversation about her career and the art of cinema.

Within the first five minutes of the sit-down, Weaver was brought to tears by a female journalist’s personal thank you for her pioneering performances as strong women characters — most notably, as the heroine Ripley in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror classic Alien — which shifted perceptions in the industry about the kinds of parts women could play and empowered female viewers everywhere.

The Venice Film Festival is just over two weeks away, bringing starry talent back to the Lido in water taxis after a year off for many due to the strikes in 2023. The Biennale has unveiled its Conversations and Masterclasses lineup, with a richer program and in a new and larger (250 seats) location at the Match Point Arena, set up at the Tennis Club Venezia on the Lido.

Four Masterclasses will be held by directors and performers, including the actress Sigourney Weaver (recipient of the Golden Lion for Career) on Thursday, August, 29; filmmaker Peter Weir (Golden Lion for Career) on Sunday, September 1, and his 2003 film “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” also screens during the festival; actor/filmmaker Ethan Hawke on Monday, September 2; and Pupi Avati, director of closing night film “L’orto Americano” on Friday, September 6. All can be followed via live stream at labiennale.org.

Organized by Cartier,...

Venice Film Festival attendees will be treated to masterclasses from Ethan Hawke, Sigourney Weaver, Peter Weir and more.

As previously announced, both Weaver and Weir are receiving Golden Lion for Career Achievement awards at this year’s festival. Oscar-nominated actor Weaver is best known for her roles in the “Alien” and “Avatar” franchises, while retired director Weir has collected various accolades for his films like “Dead Poets Society,” “The Truman Show” and “Master and Commander.”

Hawke had his breakthrough performance in “Dead Poets Society,” and went on to star in Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy and “Boyhood” as well as Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed.” Also set to give a masterclass is director Pupi Avati, who helmed Venice’s closing film “L’orto Americano” and is also known for his horror films “The House With Laughing Windows” and “Zeder.”

Three conversations will also take place, organized by festival sponsor Cartier. These will comprise composer Nicola Piovani,...

The Venice Film Festival unveiled its lineup of master classes and conversations for 2024. Highlights include talks with triple Oscar-nominee Sigourney Weaver and Australian director Peter Weir, both of whom will receive honorary Golden Lion awards in Venice this year for lifetime achievement.

Actor-director Ethan Hawke and Italian filmmaker Pupi Avati will also give master classes at the 81st Venice International Film Festival.

Venice’s conversations series, organized in collaboration with Cartier, includes sit-downs with Richard Gere, Oscar-winning composer Nicola Piovani (Life Is Beautiful) and French director Claude Lelouch (A Man and a Woman).

The master classes will be held at the Match Point Arena at the Tennis Club Venezia across from the Hotel Excelsior on the Lido from Aug. 29 to Sept. 6. They kick off with Weaver’s master class Thursday, Aug 29 at 4:30 p.m. local time. Weir’s master class is at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 1. Hawke’s at 10 a.

Kevin Spacey will be honored with the Nations Award for Lifetime Achievement at a special gala evening in the historic southern Italian town of Taormina in July.

The organizers said The Usual Suspects and American Beauty Oscar winner will also give a short on-stage performance at the event, taking place on July 21 in Taormina’s 4,000-seats Greek-roman Theatre.

The event, which is part of a program of cultural events running in the landmark ancient amphitheater across the summer, is not connected to the Taormina Film Festival, which runs from July 12 to 19.

The honor comes as Spacey continues to battle multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against him, which he has denied.

He was found not liable in a 2022 battery case brought by actor Anthony Rapp in the U.S., and not guilty in a UK trial in 2023, related to allegations by four men, but faces a fresh civil trial in the...

The Bloody Disgusting-powered Screambox is home to a variety of unique horror content, from originals and exclusives to cult classics and documentaries. With such a rapidly-growing library, there are many hidden gems waiting to be discovered.

Here are five recommendations you can stream on Screambox right now.

The Collector

If the triumphant return of the Saw franchise has you in the mood for more trap-laden horrors, look no further than The Collector — which was originally conceived as a prequel to Saw that would show Jigsaw’s original story. When producers passed on the idea, writers Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan (Saw IV-vii) reworked it into an original script, which Dunstan directed in 2009.

A slasher/home invasion hybrid for the so-called “torture porn” era, The Collector stars Criminal Minds‘ Josh Stewart as struggling ex-con Arkin. A planned heist at his new employer’s home to repay a debt becomes deadly when he...

The awards took place at the closing night of Film Fest Gent.

Volker Bertelmann has won the film composer of the year at the 23rd World Soundtrack Awards (Wsa), which took place tonight (October 21), at the closing night of Film Fest Gent.

Bertelmann was nominated for his scores for War Sailor, All Quiet On The Western Front and Memory Of Water. Other nominees in this category included Carter Burwell for The Banshees of Inisherin, Catherine Called Birdy and To Catch A Killer and Hildur Guðnadóttir for Women Talking and Tár.

Scroll down for full list of winners

Nicholas Britell took...

John Williams, Nicholas Britell and Taylor Swift are all nominated

John Williams, Nicholas Britell and Taylor Swift are among the first wave of nominees for the World Soundtrack Awards (Wsa) 2023.

The winners will be announced at the 23rd edition of the World Soundtrack Awards on October 21 at the Film Fest Ghent in Belgium, during which the annual celebration of film music is held.

Williams is nominated in the film composer of the year category for his work on The Fabelmans and Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny. The veteran composer is up against Volker Bertelmann who won the Oscar...

The composer has been nominated for two Oscars and received seven Emmys.

US composer Laurence Rosenthal will be honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Soundtrack Awards this year. The 23rd edition of the awards ceremony will take place at Film Fest Gent on October 21.

Rosenthal has composed scores for over 100 films and television shows throughout his six decades-spanning career.

Known for his creative partnership with actor-director Peter Glenville, Rosenthal wrote original scores for three of his films throughout the 1960s, including Hotel Paradiso, The Comedians and the 1964 film Becket, for which he was nominated for an Acadamy Award.

Piovani composed the Oscar-winning soundtrack to Roberto Benigni’s ’Life Is Beautiful’.

Italian composer Nicola Piovani will receive a lifetime achievement at the 2023 World Soundtrack Awards, held at Film Fest Ghent on October 21.

Piovani is best known for composing the score to Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful for which he won the Oscar in 1999.

The composer began his career in 1971 with Silvano Agosti’s N.P. Il Segreto and has gone on to compose the music to more than 200 films and series.

He worked with Federico Fellini on a number of his films including Ginger & Fred (1986), Intervista (1987) and...

Nino Rota’s soundtrack for Federico Fellini’s 1976 film “Il Casanova,” which is getting a re-release via Italian record label Cam Sugar, has been a favorite of Alexandre Desplat’s ever since the Oscar-winning French composer first listened to it at 15 years old.

The magnificently staged film stars Donald Sutherland as the legendary 18th-century Venetian adventurer Giacomo Casanova, who sought wealthy patrons and sexual encounters as he traveled from Venice to Paris, London, Germany, Rome and Austria, where he makes love to a mechanical doll.

The 27 remastered tracks on Rota’s “Casanova” score are being re-released by Cam Sugar in collaboration with Decca Records on Feb. 10, both digitally and on vinyl. They feature compositions on the edge of classical and electronic music, making use of a wide range of instruments including harpsichord, vibraphone and electric piano.

Rota, who scored most of Fellini’s films, including “La Dolce Vita” and “8 1/2,...

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...

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...

What comes to mind when you picture the likely protagonist of a film titled “Anaïs in Love?” If it’s not a flighty, free-spirited young Frenchwoman, cycling around Paris with flowers in her bike basket, completing a Masters literature thesis (long past deadline) on “17th-century descriptions of passion,” and wearing bright floral sundresses in all weathers, you’ve tried too hard to avoid the obvious — not something you could easily accuse Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s blithe, gossamer-light debut feature of doing in imagining said heroine. Is it too on the nose if she’s played by reliably winsome starlet Anaïs Demoustier? Don’t answer that: she is.

At first rosy blush, then, “Anaïs in Love” appears to gently parody an idealized screen vision of Gallic femininity (a manic pixie dream fille of sorts) that has endured in various incarnations from the French New Wave to “Amelie” and beyond. To what end is harder to determine,...

Italy’s robust 2022 Berlinale representation of a half-dozen titles runs the gamut from the latest works by venerable veterans Paolo Taviani and Dario Argento to pics by fresh new Cinema Italiano voices including Chiara Bellosi, whose first film, “Ordinary Justice,” launched from Berlin in 2020.

Taviani, who is 91, is returning to Berlin but alone this time — his filmmaker brother, Vittorio, with whom he won a Golden Bear in 2012 for “Caesar Must Die,” passed away in 2018 — in competition with surreal drama “Leonora Addio,” inspired by a short story by Italian playwright and author Luigi Pirandello.

Argento, who set his 1977 chiller “Suspiria” in Germany, will be at the Berlinale for the first time as a director with Rome-set suspenser “Dark Glasses,” though he was on the fest’s main jury panel in 2001. Film unspools as a Berlinale Special Gala.

Bellosi is back with Panaorama selection “Swing Ride” (“Calcinculo”), about a 15-year-old named...

Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.

His name is Luca. He lives on the ocean floor. If you subscribe to Disney+ you may have seen him before.

Pixar’s latest movie takes a different perspective on the ocean from Finding Nemo. Where Nemo anthropomorphized real marine life, Luca creates a world of sea monsters, though they are also a family just like humans. Luca (voice of Jacob Tremblay) wants to go exploring, but his mother Daniela (Maya Rudolph) wants to keep him close and safe.

Fellow sea monster Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer) shows Luca they can turn human when they emerge from the water. So, Luca spends the summer palling around with Alberto in the seaside town of Portorosso, where they make friends with Giulia (Emma Berman). But, any water...

Festival

The 78th Venice International Film Festival (Sept. 1-11) will include an out of competition screening of “Ennio” by Giuseppe Tornatore, director of the Oscar winning “Cinema Paradiso.” “Ennio” is a comprehensive portrait of two time Oscar winning composer Ennio Morricone, among the most influential and prolific musicians of the twentieth century, who has scored over 500 movie soundtracks.

The documentary tells the Maestro’s story in a long interview of him with Tornatore, and with comments by artists and directors such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Giuliano Montaldo, Marco Bellocchio, Dario Argento, the Taviani brothers, Carlo Verdone, Barry Levinson, Roland Joffé, Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino, Bruce Springsteen, Nicola Piovani, Hans Zimmer and Pat Metheny, and through music and archive footage.

The film also seeks to reveal Morricone’s lesser-known aspects, such as his passion for chess, and the origin of some of his musical intuitions, like the howl of a coyote that...

Venice Adds Ennio Morricone Film By Giuseppe Tornatore

The Venice Film Festival is adding an Out of Competition screening of Ennio Morricone documentary Ennio by Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso). The film is described as a comprehensive portrait of the late great composer, who was the winner of two Oscars and responsible for more than 500 movie soundtracks, many of them classics. The story is told via a long interview between the two Italians but also with comments by artists and directors such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Giuliano Montaldo, Marco Bellocchio, Dario Argento, the Taviani brothers, Carlo Verdone, Barry Levinson, Roland Joffé, Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino, Bruce Springsteen, Nicola Piovani, Hans Zimmer and Pat Metheny. The film reveals lesser known aspects of the composer such as his passion for chess and the origin of some of his musical intuitions, like the howl of a coyote that inspired the theme of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

It took composer Dan Romer a while to find the right Italian touch for the music of “Luca,” Disney-Pixar’s animated fantasy (opening June 18) about young sea monsters masquerading as humans on the Italian Riviera.

“Not quite Italian enough” was director Enrico Casarosa’s response to his first try. “Too Italian!” was the response to his second. Eventually Romer discovered the correct instrumental seasoning: a bit of accordion, a little mandolin, a lot of acoustic guitar and pizzicato strings — just enough to hint at the locale and the period.

“I was looking for something off the beaten path, a little bit independent,” Casarosa tells Variety about his choice for composer. The director had been a fan of Romer’s music for the Benh Zeitlin films “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “Wendy,” and says “there was something about his scores that said ‘kids on an adventure ride,’” which nicely describes “Luca.

Leonora Addio

Following the death of his brother and fellow co-director Vittorio Taviani in 2018, Paolo Taviani continues with his first solo effort Leonora Addio, based on the novella Il Chiodo by Nobel prize winner Luigi Pirandello. Produced through Rai Cinema and Donatella Palermo’s Stemal Entertainment, the project is headlined by Fabrizio Ferracane and Massimo Popolizio. Nicola Piovani provides the score, while regular Taviani Dp Simone Zampagni will lens alongside Paolo Carnera. The Taviani Bros. emerged as one of Italy’s most prominent filmmaking duos in the 1970s, winning the Palme d’Or in 1977 for Padre Padrone and Cannes would be great to them with their 1982 classic The Night of Shooting Stars with the brothers winning the Grand Prize of the Jury and the Ecumenical Jury Prize.…...

Paolo Taviani, of revered filmmaking duo the Taviani brothers, is back behind the camera — this time without his brother Vittorio, who died in 2018.

Taviani is shooting “Leonora Addio,” a surreal drama that takes its cue from a short story by great Italian playwright and author Luigi Pirandello. It’s a long-gestating project that Paolo says he and Vittorio had long intended to film together.

Italy’s Fandango Sales has taken international distribution for the film and will be kicking off world sales outside Italy during the Toronto International Film Festival’s online film market this month.

Co-produced by Donatella Palermo’s Stemal Entertainment and Rai Cinema with France’s Les Films d’Ici, “Leonora” started principal photography at the end of July at Cinecittà Studios and will also be shooting in Sicily. Production is expected to wrap in October and Taviani said he expects to complete the film by year’s end.

A comic book about a chameleon-like master thief done as a live-action movie, a reinvention of the Spaghetti Western and a manhunt thriller with a Hollywood A-list cast are among buzz titles by Italian directors in various stages expected to soon be hitting the international festival circuit and, more important, entering the global movie market. Besides a shift toward genre moviemaking, they reflect a more international mindset while remaining firmly rooted in the Italian cinema canon.

“Born To Be Murdered”

Luca Guadagnino is producing this English-language manhunt thriller directed by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino (“Antonia”), toplining John David Washington and Alicia Vikander as a couple vacationing in Greece who become enmeshed in a tragically violent conspiracy. Pic also boasts “Call Me by Your Name” lenser Sayombhu Mukdeeprom and editor Walter Fasano, as well as Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. In production.

“Bad Days”

Twins Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo, who made a...

The Traitor

Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio, whose radical early works were a seminal part of 1960s and 1970s Italian cinema, embarks on his latest feature The Traitor, a biopic of Cosa Nostra member Tommaso Buscetta, the first high ranking official of the mafia organization to break their code of silence. Pierfrancesco Favino stars as Buscetta, joined by Brazilian actress Maria Fernando Candido, Luigi Lo Cascio, Fabrizio Ferracane and Fausto Russo Alesi. Oscar winning composer Nicola Piovani of 1998’s Life is Beautiful is writing the score and Vladan Radovic will serve as Dp. The feature is a four-country co-pro financed through Italy’s Ibc Movie, Kavac Film and Rai Cinema, while France’s Ad Vitam, Arte France Cinema and Canal Plus are also joined by Brazil’s Gullane and Germany’s Match Factory.…...

Brazilian actress and model Maria Fernanda Candido is to play the female lead in veteran Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio’s “The Traitor,” a biopic of Tommaso Buscetta, the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence.

Candido, who most recently starred in Rede Globo’s popular prime-time soap “Edge of Desire,” will play Buscetta’s third wife, Maria Cristina de Almeida Guimaraes, the daughter of an upper-crust Brazilian lawyer. She played an important part in her husband’s decision in 1984 to start cooperating with Italian and, later, American prosecutors.

She is believed to have been crucial in prompting Buscetta to turn against the Corleonesi faction in the first major “betrayal” within Cosa Nostra’s high-ranks. Buscetta’s testimony about heroin smuggling in the ”pizza connection” case in the mid-1980s allowed him to obtain U.S. citizenship and a place in the witness protection program.

Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl wins Queer Lion

Veteran director Marco Bellocchio’s Blood Of My Blood (Sangue Del Mio Sangue) has won the Fipresci Award at the 72nd Venice Film Festival (Sept 2-12).

The film is a vampire-themed period drama starring Alba Rohrwacher, who won last year’s Volpi prize for best actress with her performance in Hungry Hearts, as a 17th-century noblewoman who becomes a nun and seduces a young army officer and his twin brother. The film is sold by The Match Factory.

Venice’s ‘Collateral Awards’ - prizes assigned independently by film critics and cultural associations - also saw the Queer Lion Award go to Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, starring Eddie Redmayne as Danish artist Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of sexual reassignment surgery.

The film, which receives its North American premiere at Toronto tonight (Sept 12), is a hot contender for the upcoming awards season.

Fipresci AwardBest...

Heart of Glass: Costanzo’s Uncomfortable, Emotional Glance at Madness

Must every cinematic portrait of mental illness be ‘illuminating?’ Your answer to that question may gauge your reaction to Italian director Sergio Costanzo’s New York set domestic horror film, Hungry Hearts, a film best walked into cold. Ambiguity reigns supreme, and for those enjoying a feeling of befuddlement, a rarity in the contemporary cinematic landscape of political correctness, may find Costanzo’s adaptation of Marco Franzoso’s novel a winning concoction. Drawing comparisons to early works by Roman Polanski in how it swiftly throws an unraveling relationship drama into the domestic level of hell, the film instead recalls an era when allowances were made for cinematic representation of strange behaviors and dysfunctional relationships. Surprisingly odd, yet leaving us, roughly, with the feeling of being slapped, perhaps by today’s standards the film can best be understood as the anti-romcom,...

Here is a film that really disturbed me. It’s called Hungry Hearts and it’s made by the Italian director Saverio Costanzo, who clearly enjoys Roman Polanski’s Apartment Trilogy but has less positive feelings about the difficulties of raising a child. But, as what often makes Polanski’s movies so effective, inspired technique can work horrifying, if (in this case, and Polanski’s) alienating wonders with material that its maker is hostile towards, or at least skeptical of.

Costanzo’s new movie relies heavily on the accumulation of dread. It does not win us over with big surprises, uncertainty, or unruly plot twists. While the aforementioned devices have their place in the horror/thriller genre, Costanzo is exploring the genre from an unique angle, prodding different nerve endings. Many viewers will criticize this film for its over-determined nature, calling its seemingly unnerving events a preordained chain of implausible contrivances.

Italian screenwriter, novelist and poet who formed a successful partnership with the film director Roberto Benigni

Although he was a respected novelist and poet, Vincenzo Cerami, who has died aged 72 after a long illness, was perhaps best known as a screenwriter, thanks to his long partnership with the director Roberto Benigni. The pair co-wrote six films and had their greatest success with La Vita è Bella (Life Is Beautiful, 1997), which starred Benigni as a Jewish internee in a concentration camp, desperately pretending to his young son that it is all a game. The film won three Oscars and had a further four nominations, including for best screenplay. "Knowing Vincenzo was a gift," said Benigni, "because he taught people's hearts to beat."

On their early films together, Cerami was not able to totally sublimate Benigni's excesses as an actor. Nevertheless, Il Piccolo Diavolo (The Little Devil, 1988), Johnny Stecchino (1991) and Il Mostro (The Monster,...

★★★★☆ Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful (1997) won three Oscars at the 1999 Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Benigni's performance and Best Original Score for Nicola Piovani's sumptuous soundtrack, and achieved the kind of commercial success and international visibility that Italian cinema only sporadically enjoys. Benigni himself already had some fame on the world stage having starred in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law (1986) and Night on Earth (1991), as well as a misjudged turn as Inspector Clouseau's son in the rightly forgotten Son of the Pink Panther (1993).

Read more »...

Daniele Luppi is scoring the upcoming Starz series Magic City. The show is set in the 1950′s and centers around mobsters and other colorful characters in Miami Beach. Magic City stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Olga Kurylenko, Jessica Marais, Steven Strait, Christian Cooke, Kelly Lynch, Seymour Cassel and Danny Huston. The project is created by Mitch Glazer (The Recruit, Great Expectations). Dwayne Shattuck (Mad Men) and Ed Bianchi (The Killing, Deadwood) are producing alongside Glazer. The 10-episode drama is expected to premiere in 2012 on Starz. Luppi’s previous credits include the Quentin Tarantino-produced action film Hellride and the 2008 comedy Assassination of a High School President starring Bruce Willis. The composer also currently has an album out with Danger Mouse that features Jack White and Norah Jones. Luppi and Danger Mouse hired original Italian session players from famous 1960′s scores by Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota and Nicola Piovani for the album.

The French biopic The Conquest (La conquete) recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and also opened in France last week. The film’s music is composed by Academy Award-winning composer Nicola Piovani (Life is Beautiful) and has recently been released commercially. The soundtrack album featuring 14 tracks from Piovani’s score is currently available to download on Amazon. For a preview of all tracks, check out the audio clips below. The Conquest takes a look at French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s rise to power. The film is directed by Xavier Durringer (Chok-Dee) and stars Florence Pernel, Bernard Le Coq and Samuel Labarthe. Music Box Films has acquired domestic rights for the film and is planning a release to precede the upcoming American presidential primary season.For more information, watch the trailer below and visit the French official movie website.

Amazon.com Widgets...

What should have been a daring portrait of Nicolas Sarkozy's rise to power falls flat like a cold soufflé

Heralded as the French answer to Stephen Frears's The Queen, a daring portrait of Nicolas Sarkozy's rise to power, La Conquête (The Conquest) promised to shake up French cinema, no less. Teams of lawyers had to read the script for fear of legal retaliation. How audacious, how brave was the team behind the film, director-writer Xavier Durringer and the producers, the Altmeyer brothers.

La Conquête promised all but delivers little, and sadly falls flat like a cold soufflé. First of all, we don't learn anything new. No new insight, no daring hypothesis, no cunning analysis on the kind of political animal Nicolas Sarkozy is. Performances by Denis Podalydès, interpreting Sarkozy, and Bernard Le Coq, playing Chirac, may be tremendous, with all the right mimics, tics, grimaces and more importantly the perfect voice intonations,...

In keeping with the current turmoil and unrest running amok in the world, Italy finds itself in a very confused state. Partly resigned, partly in denial, Italians have looked on as the recent recession has made worse what was a "not-really-thriving" situation already in terms of occupation, education reforms, and the political landscape in general.

Things have now somehow reached the point of non-return, and while the country's being forced to answer questions of "What exactly is wrong with your Prime Minister" from the whole civilised world, young generations think about their future as a bit of a gamble.

It is therefore both a remarkable and surprising challenge the one the Italian Film Festival is planning to take on when it opens in London on the 1st of March 2011. Remarkable, as the event will provide a rare chance for the UK public to watch new and mostly non mainstream Italian films by talented filmmakers who,...

The Italian Film Festival 2011 will kick off on 1 March 2011 with a concert at London’s Cadogan Hall by Nicola Piovani, winner of the Academy Award for the score of Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful in 1998. The festival, due to become an annual event, is organized by the Italian Cultural Institute in London and Cinecittà Luce in Rome.

The festival’s programme includes ten new Italian films: a selection of eight titles made by Italian film critic Irene Bignardi and a special choice of two by Adrian Wootton of Film London. The screenings at Ciné Lumière will be followed by Q&A sessions with directors and actors.

The event will offer an opportunity for London audiences to see Italian films most of which have yet to be screened in the UK, and a rare opportunity for British film distributors to catch up with brand new, cutting edge Italian cinema. The...

TOKYO -- The Tokyo International Film Festival has chosen the jury for its 20th outing and has tapped David Puttnam as the recipient of its fourth Akira Kurosawa Award.

Alan Ladd Jr. will be president of the international competition jury. Ladd has headed both 20th Century Fox and MGM/UA. His producing credits include the upcoming "Gone Baby Gone".

Also sitting on the jury will be Serge Losique, the Montreal World Film Festival director and president of the Ottawa International Animation Festival. Italian composer Nicola Piovani, who has written more than 130 soundtracks, including the Grammy-nominated "Life Is Beautiful" in 2000, will serve alongside Wu Nien-jen, the Taiwanese director, producer and actor who also has written more than 80 screenplays.

Representing Japan on the jury will be Tokyo actress Kyoko Kagawa and director Yasuo Furuhata. Kagawa made her movie debut in 1950, while Furuhata made his directorial debut in 1966.

The Akira Kurosawa Award, which includes a $100,000 cash prize, is awarded to directors and producers who "made many works of high quality that balance entertainment and artistic objectives and who contributed to the development of world cinema."

Previous winners include Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsein, and joint recipients Steven Spielberg and Yamada Yoji.

MOSCOW -- French director Claire Denis will chair a competition jury that includes Oscar-winning Italian film composer Nicola Piovani and Russian screenwriter Valentin Chernykh at the 27th edition of the Moscow International Film Festival, organizers said Friday. Austrian director Ulrich Seidl, a Venice prizewinner for Dog Days, also is expected to serve on the jury, along with two other members yet to be announced. Among films competing for the festival grand prize will be Thomas Vinterberg's new film Dear Wendy, scripted by Lars von Trier; Le Sourire d'Hassan (Hassan's Smile), a French-Syria co-production by Frederic Goupil; Macedonian director Darko Mitrevski's Bal-Can-Can, a Kusturica-style take on the ethnic conflict of the Balkans; and Uzbek director Yusup Razykov's The Shepherd.

Known for his lighter fare, Italian filmmaker-actor Nanni Moretti gets serious with "La Stanza Del Figlio" (The Son's Room"), a highly contemplative but emotionally remote examination of the grieving process.

While there will be those who applaud the film for generally steering clear of heavy-handed manipulation, the scenes nevertheless have a prefabricated, synthetic feel that prevent the material from being tangibly affecting.

Judging from a very diverse audience response at Cannes, its ultimate success depends on the degree of viewer identification. Some might find it consoling; others will dismiss it as clinically calculating.

Moretti casts himself in the role of Giovanni, a psychoanalyst with a smart, pretty wife, Paola (Laura Morante), well-behaved teenage kids Irene (Jasmine Trinca) and Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice) and a comfortable home in a small Italian seaside town.

But their warm, nurturing existence is shattered when son Andrea is killed in a diving incident. As Giovanni consumes himself with various "what if" scenarios, his wife becomes obsessed with a letter written by a girl who had met Andrea the previous summer. Daughter Irene, meanwhile, takes out her frustrations on the school basketball court.

Not surprisingly, Giovanni's practice begins to falter as his patients' comparatively trivial problems begin to get on his ragged nerves, while his marriage also is threatening to come apart at the seams.

To his credit, Moretti assembles an entirely convincing family unit, and his character's fevered attempts to rewrite the course of fate by constantly replaying in his mind the chain of events that lead to his son's tragedy have a stirring potency.

But there's a transparent deliberateness to the storytelling (credited to Moretti along with Linda Ferri and Heidrun Schleef), that results in the picture playing more like a series of scrupulously connected scenes than a cohesive, involving experience.

That prevailing sense self-awareness is heightened by an annoyingly repetitive, tinkly piano theme by composer Nicola Piovani that drones on listlessly with the slightest provocation.

LA STANZA DEL FIGLIO

Sacher Film, Bac Films, StudioCanal

Director: Nanni Moretti

Screenwriters: Linda Ferri, Nanni Moretti, Heidrun Schleef

Director of photography: Giuseppe Lanci

Set designer: Giancarlo Basili

Editor: Esmeralda Calabria

Costume designer: Maria Rita Barbera

Music: Nicola Piovani

Color/stereo

Cast:

Giovanni: Nanni Moretti

Paola: Laura Morante

Irene: Jasmine Trinca

Andrea: Giuseppe Sanfelice

Oscar: Silvio Orlando

Arianna: Sofia Vigliar

Running time -- 99 minutes

No MPAA rating...

Known for his lighter fare, Italian filmmaker-actor Nanni Moretti gets serious with "La Stanza Del Figlio" (The Son's Room"), a highly contemplative but emotionally remote examination of the grieving process.

While there will be those who applaud the film for generally steering clear of heavy-handed manipulation, the scenes nevertheless have a prefabricated, synthetic feel that prevent the material from being tangibly affecting.

Judging from a very diverse audience response at Cannes, its ultimate success depends on the degree of viewer identification. Some might find it consoling; others will dismiss it as clinically calculating.

Moretti casts himself in the role of Giovanni, a psychoanalyst with a smart, pretty wife, Paola (Laura Morante), well-behaved teenage kids Irene (Jasmine Trinca) and Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice) and a comfortable home in a small Italian seaside town.

But their warm, nurturing existence is shattered when son Andrea is killed in a diving incident. As Giovanni consumes himself with various "what if" scenarios, his wife becomes obsessed with a letter written by a girl who had met Andrea the previous summer. Daughter Irene, meanwhile, takes out her frustrations on the school basketball court.

Not surprisingly, Giovanni's practice begins to falter as his patients' comparatively trivial problems begin to get on his ragged nerves, while his marriage also is threatening to come apart at the seams.

To his credit, Moretti assembles an entirely convincing family unit, and his character's fevered attempts to rewrite the course of fate by constantly replaying in his mind the chain of events that lead to his son's tragedy have a stirring potency.

But there's a transparent deliberateness to the storytelling (credited to Moretti along with Linda Ferri and Heidrun Schleef), that results in the picture playing more like a series of scrupulously connected scenes than a cohesive, involving experience.

That prevailing sense self-awareness is heightened by an annoyingly repetitive, tinkly piano theme by composer Nicola Piovani that drones on listlessly with the slightest provocation.

LA STANZA DEL FIGLIO

Sacher Film, Bac Films, StudioCanal

Director: Nanni Moretti

Screenwriters: Linda Ferri, Nanni Moretti, Heidrun Schleef

Director of photography: Giuseppe Lanci

Set designer: Giancarlo Basili

Editor: Esmeralda Calabria

Costume designer: Maria Rita Barbera

Music: Nicola Piovani

Color/stereo

Cast:

Giovanni: Nanni Moretti

Paola: Laura Morante

Irene: Jasmine Trinca

Andrea: Giuseppe Sanfelice

Oscar: Silvio Orlando

Arianna: Sofia Vigliar

Running time -- 99 minutes

No MPAA rating...

Got a yen for "A Day at the Races" or "A Night at the Opera" and a dose of "The Dictator"? Italy's Roberto Benigni has paid homage to both the Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin in "La Vita e Bella" (Life Is Beautiful). It's a nimble romantic farce that combines the mayhem antics of the Marx boys with the romantic and political elements of a Chaplin escapade.

Stacked with deliriously funny slapstick, this Miramax film is marvelously manic entertainment. Unfortunately, Benigni's comic dexterity loses its wallop in the film's laborious second half, a good-hearted but forced treatise on the evils of fascism. Despite its second-half ponderousness, "Bella" should do mucho bella boxoffice in select sites for Miramax.

Set during the World War II era, the comic romp stars Benigni as Guido, an innocent in the Little Tramp tradition whose kind-hearted naivete is mixed with a mischievous moxie. Guido has dreams: He wants to open a book store and yearns to marry beautiful young schoolteacher Dora (Nicoletta Braschi). In both instances, his energy and yearnings outdistance his personal qualities; he knows little or nothing about business, and he's not exactly a dashing romantic figure with his tiny frame and spindly hair. Like most guys, he's pitted against the establishment bureaucracy for his business interests and a dashingly rich rival for his lady love. Yes, he's woefully overmatched, which is what makes him so endearing.

What's funniest about "Bella" is when little Guido is trouncing authority figures -- be they pompous women in big hats, smarmy functionaires, priggish romantic rivals or the Third Reich. The comedy is keenest when it's lightweight, with Benigni's slapdash sorcery making mockery of authority figures and social ogres. His noodly movements, combined with some blazing farce, make for constant belly laughs and gurgly chuckles. Unfortunately, Benigni founders when he turns big-themed and serious. The narrative takes a massive leap into a treatise against fascism and the horrors of anti-Semitism. Although Benigni's feelings are to be lauded, his eloquence -- so powerful in his goofy farce -- is muted when he turns preachy and serioso. Paradoxically, but not surprisingly, he's at his most powerful thematically when he's being the silliest -- same as Chaplin.

Despite the film's preachy and overreaching qualities, "Bella" is a genuine delight, recalling the great era of silent comedy. Once again like Chaplin, Benigni is not particularly resourceful with a camera, but his gag construction is truly gifted and articulate. To his credit, he doesn't resort to cute close-ups and overpunctuation in the excessive manner that Chaplin was prone to indulge in. In short, his character is a captivating Everyman, identifiable and resilient. Braschi is indeed entrancing as his lady love, exuding both innocence and desire.

The technical contributions are mucho bella, particularly composer Nicola Piovani's bursting-at-the-seams musical flourishes, which add sparkle and sly counterpoint to the foolery.

La Vita E Bella

Miramax

Mario and Vittorio Cecchi Gori present

A Melampo Cinematografica production

Credits:

Producers:Elda Ferri, Gialluigi Braschi

Director:Roberto Benigni

Screenwriters:Roberto Benigni, Vincenzo Cerami

Line producer:Mario Cotone

Director of photography:Tonino Delli Colli

Production designer:Danilo Donati

Music:Nicola Piovani

Editor:Simona Paggi

Cast:

Guido:Roberto Benigni

Dora:Nicoletta Braschi

Giosue:Giorgio Cantarini

Ferruccio:Sergio Bustric

Zio Eliseo:Giustino Durano

Dottor Lessing:Horst Bucholz

¥Running time: 114 minutes...

The Italian entry in the 1996 foreign-language Academy Award competition, the political drama "My Generation" (La Mia Generazione) is set during one long day in 1983 and concentrates on a quartet of characters, one of whom is a leftist terrorist serving a 30-year prison term.

Wilma Labate's second feature recently showed at the AFI and Palm Springs film festivals. Its commercial prospects on the domestic front are unpromising given the film's lack of major stars and challenging but often unengaging agenda.

Despite a realistic approach and good performances from leads Silvio Orlando and Claudio Amendola, "My Generation" moves at too slow a pace and fails overall to make the cagey characters as fascinating as they could be.

A dispirited subversive (Amendola) is suddenly given a "month's leave" from prison to see his girlfriend. A cheerful, seemingly sympathetic captain (Orlando) rides with the prisoner and the film becomes the story of their journey, and several interruptions, such as a prison riot and a few tense moments with an anti-terrorist mob bent on revenge.

Francesca Neri, employing many forlorn looks and quizzical expressions reminiscent of Michelle Pfeiffer, has the impossible task of playing the girlfriend. She's seen in several sequences en route to the rendezvous with her old flame, but there's no real effort to get inside her head.

From Alessandro Pesci's stark cinematography to Nicola Piovani's overbearingly somber score, "My Generation" does succeed in showing the courageousness and genuine shame of the terrorist, while the captain believably represents an Italy that is "rotten."

Indeed, the gloomy atmosphere of the film evokes the era, but "My Generation" is frustratingly bereft of fireworks, emotional or otherwise. Deceptive acts of the captain almost crack Amendola's character, but the latter sticks to his principles and maintains loyalty to old comrades for a heavy price.

MY GENERATION

A Compact production

in collaboration with Rai Radiotelevisioner Italiana

and Dania Film

Presented by Maurizio Tini

Director:Wilma Labate

Producer:Maurizio Tini

Writers:Wilma Labate, Paolo Lapponi, Andrea Leoni, Sandro Petraglia

Director of photography:Alessandro Pesci

Art director:Marta Maffucci

Editor:Enzo Meniconi

Costume designer:Metella Raboni

Music:Nicola Piovani

Color/stereo

Cast:

Captain:Silvio Orlando

Braccio:Claudio Amendola

Giulia:Francesca Neri

Concilio:Vincenzo Peluso

Running time -- 95 minutes

No MPAA rating...