News

Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grazia,” a love story that re-teams the Oscar-winning director with “The Great Beauty” actor Toni Servillo, has been set as opening film of the upcoming Venice Film Festival.

“La Grazia” – the title can be translated in English as “Grace” – will be launching from the Lido in competition.

Servillo stars in “La Grazia” opposite Italian actor Anna Ferzetti, who recently appeared in Ferzan Ozpetek’s smash hit “Diamonds.” Plot details of Sorrentino’s new film are being kept under wraps besides the fact that it is a love story set somewhere in Italy.

“La Grazia” will mark Servillo’s seventh collaboration with Sorrentino who has shot 10 feature films to date. They first teamed up in Sorrentino’s dazzling 2001 debut, “One Man Up” in which Servillo played an ageing cocaine-addicted crooner. Servillo is best known to international audiences for his memorable turn as Roman writer and socialite Jep...

Ferzan Özpetek, the director of Diamonds (Diamanti):”There are certain costume designers I was thinking of, Milena Canonero, yes. Piero Tosi who was a good friend …”

Ferzan Özpetek’s sparkling Diamonds almost entirely takes place in a Roman film and theater costume atelier in the 1970s, owned by Alberta Canova (Luisa Ranieri) and her sister Gabriella (Jasmine Trinca), who after a personal loss seems more and more out of sorts to handle all the detailed requirements requested by demanding costume designers, movie directors, and stars.

Ferzan Özpetek with Anne-Katrin Titze about his encounter with Monica Vitti: ”She turned around and came back to me and said, you are going to make a lot of beautiful films!”

The fabulous ensemble cast sheds light on the various concerns of women in the garment business and their personal relationships through humorous and sometimes almost tragic vignettes.

The...

Colman Domingo has been announced as the host of amfAR Venezia, the Foundation for AIDS Research’s gala at the Venice Film Festival. The black-tie event, taking place Aug. 31 at Arsenale, will feature cocktails, dinner and a live auction of contemporary artworks and exclusive experiences.

“We are deeply grateful to Colman Domingo for his commitment to our cause and for recognizing the importance of amfAR’s work,” amfAR CEO Kevin Robert Frost said in a statement Monday. “There are still 40 million people living with HIV worldwide, and fundraising events like amfAR Venezia that support our efforts to find a cure for HIV remain as critically important as ever.”

Recent honorees of amfAR Venezia have included Antonio Banderas, Richard Gere, Ava DuVernay, Ferzan Ozpetek, Achille Boroli and Mohammed Al Turki.

This year’s presenting sponsor is World Gold Council. San Clemente Palace Kempinski is the official hotel partner.

The 82nd edition...

Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte, starring Monica Vitti, Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau screens in Cinecittà and Film at Lincoln Center’s Monica Vitti: La Modernista

Before the Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s 24th edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema luncheon at Leopard at des Artistes, I asked Fabrizio Gifuni, star of the Opening Night film, Francesca Comencini’s The Time It Takes (Il Tempo Che Ci Vuole with Anna Mangiocavallo) and directors Andrea Segre of The Great Ambition (Berlinguer. La Grande Ambizione with Elio Germano as Enrico Berlinguer), Sara Fgaier of Weightless (Sulla Terra Leggeri with Andrea Renzi and Sara Serraiocco), Alissa Jung of Paternal Leave, and Ferzan Özpetek of Diamonds (Diamanti with Luisa Ranieri and Jasmine Trinca) to name their favourite Monica Vitti films.

Monica Vitti: La Modernista

Michelangelo Antonioni’s masterpieces L’Avventura (4K Restoration); L’Eclisse opposite Alain Delon, La Notte with Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau,...

Paternal Leave director/screenwriter Alissa Jung with Anne-Katrin Titze on Luca Marinelli as Paolo: “Luca's performance gave me the opportunity to really dive in …”

Alissa Jung’s perceptive and compelling Paternal Leave (a highlight of Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema) stars fantastic newcomer Juli Grabenhenrich and the wonderful Luca Marinelli (of Pietro Marcello’s Martin Eden and Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning The Great Beauty) with Arturo Gabbriellini (from Luca Guadagnino’s We Are Who We Are), Gaia Rinaldi, and Joy Falletti Cardillo. Other films not to be missed include the Opening Night selection, Francesca Comencini’s The Time It Takes (Il Tempo Che Ci Vuole) with Anna Mangiocavallo and Fabrizio Gifuni; Sara Fgaier’s Weightless (Sulla Terra Leggeri) with Andrea Renzi and Sara Serraiocco (Lamberto Sanfelice's Chlorine); Ferzan Özpetek’s Diamonds (Diamanti), a celebration of movie costume design, with Luisa Ranieri and...

Women dominated Italy’s David di Donatello Awards with Maura Delpero’s Venice Silver Lion winner “Vermiglio” taking top honors and Valeria Golino’s female empowerment drama “The Art of Joy” and Margherita Vicario’s directorial debut “Gloria!” also scoring multiple statuettes.

“Vermiglio,” which is set at the end of World War II in an Alpine village where the arrival of a soldier causes disruption in the dynamics between three sisters, was the night’s big winner taking best picture, best director, screenplay, producer, cinematography, sound and the David’s newly introduced casting category.

Delpero, who is the first woman to win the best director David in the 70-year history of the awards – and only the third female filmmaker to win best film – underlined the anti-war aspect of “Vermiglio”

“When I thought about writing it, someone asked me if it wasn’t anachronistic to talk about war,” she said.

“Unfortunately,...

Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio took home Best Film and Director at the 70th edition of Italy’s David di Donatello Awards on Wednesday evening, in an historic win for a female director.

Delpero is the first woman to win the David di Donatello Best Director prize in the history of the awards, and only the third female filmmaker to win Best Film.

The film picked up seven David di Donatellos in total which also included Best Original Screenplay, Casting, Producer, Cinematography and Sound.

Set in a remote mountain village in 1944, Vermiglio revolves around a family whose life is disrupted by the arrival of a deserted soldier. The feature world premiered in Venice where it won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize and went on to be Italy’s 2025 Oscars submission.

It was an historically strong night for female directors.

Other big winners included Italian actress and singer-songwriter Margherita Vicario who won Best First Film,...

Prolific Italian director Ferzan Ozpetek’s female-centric ensemble drama “Diamonds” is fast becoming Italy’s first standout title of 2025. The film has scored sales in some 40 territories while becoming the country’s No. 1 local box office draw so far this year.

“Diamonds,” which is set both in the present day and in the 1970s, revolves around the life and love affairs of a group of warmhearted women who work in a large Rome cinema costume company run by two sisters “who are as different as they are close,” as the synopsis puts it.

Hailed by Italian critics as a love letter to women, the art of costume design and the emotional power of cinema, “Diamonds” has been shining locally, pulling more than $15 million – and counting – at the Italian box office since its Dec. 19 theatrical release via Vision Distribution.

The film’s ensemble cast includes Luisa Ranieri, who played the emotionally...

The Italian box office softened by 0.4% in 2024 for an overall gross of $508M, on the back of a 1.3% dip in spectators to 69.7M, according to data detailed by Italy’s box office data monitor Cinetel on Thursday.

The body suggested the results were broadly positive in a challenging year marked by big sporting diversions such as the Euro 2024 soccer championships and the Paris 2024 Olympics as well as fewer potential blockbuster releases in the wake of the 2023 Hollywood strikes.

The top performing movie was Inside Out 2, which drew 6.4M spectators for a $47M (€46.5M) gross, followed by Moana 2 ($19.9M), Deadpool & Wolverine ($18.5M), Despicable Me 4 ($18.1M) and Mufasa – The King Lion ($15.1M).

No Italian production made it into the top five – unlike 2023, when Paolo Cortellesi’s unexpected blockbuster There’s Still Tomorrow beat Barbie with a $35M gross – but Cinetel said local films had held their own in the overall market nonetheless.

Known as the queen of Italian pop, Mina has sold over 150 million records worldwide and remains a music legend who’s been captivating fans since the ’60s. Her new album, Gassa d’Amante, drops on November 22, and its title — named after an essential sailing knot — represents the solid and yet easily untangled nature of love. Just like the knot, the album explores the twists and turns of love in all of its beauty and complexity. At 84, Mina is still going strong, and she’s as iconic as ever.

Mina, born Mina Anna Mazzini, is one of the most adored pop stars in Italy. She is a cult figure who can be compared to Liza Minelli and Bette Midler; a musical diva who is as great a superstar to the Italians as Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift today. Like a 21st century Greta Garbo, she lives in exile in Lugano, Switzerland,...

The collection “Let's make it weird: Laughing with Italian Comedies” is now showing exclusively on Mubi.Most of us have experienced the joys of watching Italian cinema—not least of which is the delight of laughing at Italian comedies. In the second season of Mubi Podcast: Voci Italiane Contemporanee, we explore how Italian comedy has changed since the days of classic postwar “Commedia all’Italiana,” tracking the evolution of the genre to explore what makes us laugh today and why. Our guide is comedian and cinephile Saverio Raimondo, who has conducted five conversations with contemporary filmmakers, critics, and stand-up comedians. This episode features Paola Minaccioni:Does contemporary social awareness and sensitivity change the way we watch the films of Dino Risi, Mario Monicelli and Carlo Vanzina? Might we now perceive that these Italian comedy masterpieces are sexist?We discuss these questions with Paola Minaccioni, one of the leading authorities on Italian comedy,...

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...

Exclusive: Following recent confirmation from Amazon MGM Studios and Lionsgate that A Simple Favor 2 is a go, the film has added seven new cast members: Elena Sofia Ricci, Michele Morrone (365 Days), Elizabeth Perkins (Minx), Alex Newell (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist), Taylor Ortega (Grand Death Lotto), Lorenzo de Moor, and Aparna Nancherla (The Drop).

While Nancherla reprises her role as Sona, all other roles are new and under wraps for now.

Deadline was first to report on the sequel two years ago, as stars Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively and director Paul Feig signed on to return. Others set to reprise include Henry Golding, Andrew Rannells, Bashir Salahuddin, Joshua Satine, Ian Ho, and Kelly McCormack.

Released by Lionsgate in 2018 to critical acclaim and more than $97 million at the worldwide box office, A Simple Favor is a mystery thriller that adapts the same-name novel by Darcey Bell. The first film introduces...

Budding filmmaker Enea and medical student Pietro see each other for the first time at a film set in Rome. The year is 1978. Not a word is spoken between the two of them, but their eyes meet. Butterflies start to fly inside their stomachs. Enea is obviously working there, and Pietro is just passing by. Soon, they meet in Nuovo Olimpo, a movie theater that only plays black-and-white classic films from the old days. The theater also happens to be a safe place for gay men to have quick rendezvous. Titti, the matronly woman who sits at the ticket counter, is progressive enough to aid all these men in their exploration and, at times, give them necessary guidance. Enea and Pietro don’t take much time to hit it off. Pietro is initially nervous, as he has never been with a man before. Enea is rather flamboyant and confident, is smitten by Pietro,...

Nuovo Olimpo is a movie written and directed by Ferzan Özpetek starring Damiano Gavino, Andrea Di Luigi, Luisa Ranieri, and Greta Scarano.

In the late 1970s, two 25-year-old individuals serendipitously cross paths and experience an intense love for one another. Unfortunately, an unforeseen circumstance abruptly separates them. Nevertheless, for three decades, they persistently hold onto the hope of reuniting, driven by their enduring love.

Release Date

November 1, 2023

Where to Watch Nuovo Olimpo

Netflix

Director: Ferzan Özpetek Ferzan Özpetek The Cast Damiano Gavino Luisa Ranieri Andrea Di Luigi Greta Scarano...

A highlight of the first weekend of the 80th Venice International Film Festival was seeing Giorgio Armani appear on the catwalk, visibly excited, moved, smiling and proudly satisfied with his work. He then advanced graceful and happy, in his impeccable blue tuxedo holding hands with the model Agnese Zogla.

The moment was experienced by the more than 500 guests at Armani’s One Night Only event, where the world of cinema flocked to pay homage to King Giorgio, with guests including Sophia Loren, who has always been his beloved friend, accompanied by her son Edoardo Ponti, actor Benicio Del Toro, actress Jessica Chastain, and directors Ang Lee, Gabriele Salvatores and Giuseppe Tornatore.

The standing ovation lasted several minutes from an audience composed of numerous couples from the Italian film star system: from Sergio Castellitto and Margaret Mazzantini and Pierfrancesco Favino and Anna Ferzetti to Raul Bova and Rocio Munoz Morales to Kasia Smutniak and Domenico Procacci.

The first trailer has been unveiled for “Walls” (“Mur”), actor-turned-filmmaker Kasia Smutniak’s directorial debut that will world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, leading to a mass exodus of refugees seeking asylum across Europe. Among the European countries offering aid and refuge, Poland was particularly generous but the country had also simultaneously commenced the construction of Europe’s most expensive wall along its entire border with Belarus to deter further refugees from entering.

A strip of land known as the red zone running parallel to the Belarusian border prevents anyone from approaching and seeing the construction of the wall. Smutniak undertakes an uncertain and risky journey into the red zone, where access is not allowed to the media, with the help of local activists and minimal technical equipment. The director’s journey begins and ends with two walls.

The first wall rejects migrants arriving...

In Italy, Pierfrancesco Favino needs no introduction. At this year’s David di Donatello awards ceremony — Italy’s equivalent of the Oscars — a Favino film was nominated in every major category. A shortlist of the directors he’s worked with — Gabriele Salvatores, Giuseppe Tornatore, Marco Bellocchio, Gianni Amelio, Gabriele Muccino, Ferzan Ozpetek, Mario Martone — reads like a who’s who of Italian cinema.

Internationally, Favino has carved out a second career as a supporting player in Hollywood productions. In Spike Lee’s Miracle at St. Anna, Ron Howard’s Rush and Angels and Demons, or Mark Forster’s World War Z. But his most recent U.S. visit — to this year’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York — was for an Italian film: Andrea Di Stefano’s Last Night of Amore, which screened in competition.

In the gritty police drama, Favino plays the titular Franco Amore, a good cop called...

The romantic drama is Ozeptek’s first film since 2019’s ‘The Fortune Goddess’.

Italian director Ferzan Ozpetek has started shooting the romantic drama Nuovo Olimpo in Rome today for Netflix. Damiano Gavino and Andrea Di Luigi star with Luisa Ranieri, Greta Scarano, Aurora Giovinazzo, Alvise Rigo, and Giancarlo Commare.

Ozeptek has written the script with regularr collaborator Gianni Romoli who is also producing the film with Tilde Corsi for R&c Productions and Faros Film.

Nuovo Olimpo follows the lives of two young men who meet and fell in love in the 1970s as idealistic, young 25 year-olds . After a twist of events separates them,...

Prolific Turkish-Italian director Ferzan Ozpetek has started shooting “Nuovo Olimpo,” a Rome-set gay romance that marks his first collaboration with Netflix.

Ozpetek’s first Netflix Italian original film is the fourteenth feature from the popular helmer known for commercially successful pics such as “Ignorant Fairies” and “Loose Cannons.” He was celebrated during an AmfAR gala at the Venice Film Festival in September in recognition for how his movies bring to the fore characters within the LGBTQ community. Ozpetek’s works are also consistently among Italy’s most widely exported movies despite the fact they don’t always go to festivals.

Set in the late 1970s “Nuovo Olimpo” is about two 25-year-old men who meet by chance, fall madly in love, and are then separated due to an unexpected event. For the next thirty years they pursue the hope of finding each other again.

The pic’s protagonists are young actors...

“I see a lot of rich people here!” said Jodie Turner-Smith as she took to the stage to open the Venice Film Festival AmfAR gala and auction held Wednesday evening in the Arsenale, a former shipyard complex on the edge of the city’s Grand Canal.

Urging guests to be generous, Turner-Smith, who looked stunning in a yellow corset top, reminded everyone that, “It’s easy to forget that AIDS still remains one of the world’s most serious health threats.”

Though undoubtedly lower key than the event held at Cannes, AmfAR Venice had its fair share of glamour and star power with Heather Graham, Patricia Clarckson, Marisa Tomei and Rachel Brosnahan among chairs.

Also spotted: Trace Lysette; Sarah Ferguson; Italian A-lister Stefano Accorsi; Saudi producer and Red Sea fest chairman Mohammed Al Turki with Egyptian megastar Youssra; Portuguese supermodel Sara Sampaio; and Zooey Deschanel, Casey Affleck and Caylee Cowan...

The Goddess Of Fortune (La dea fortuna) Breaking Glass Pictures Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Ferzan Ozpetek Writer: Ferzan Ozpetek, Silvia Ranfagni, Gianni Romoli Cast: Stefano Accorsi, Edoardo Leo, Jasmine Trinca, Sara Ciocco, Edoardo Brandi, Barbara Alberti, Serra Yilmaz Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 11/18/20 Opens: November […]

The post The Goddess of Fortune Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Drama, comedy, sci-fi and documentary projects greenlit.

Disney+ has unveiled its first slate of 10 European originals, including drama, comedy, sci-fi and documentary projects from France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

It has greenlit projects from creators and producers including Juliette Howell, Stephen Butchard, Quoc Dang Tran and Jörg Winger, and includes the first titles for new entertainment brand Star, which will launch on the streaming platform on February 23.

The move follows the studio’s announcement in December that it would commission 50 productions in Europe by 2024. A UK title has yet to be revealed but Disney said it had “a raft...

Among the market premieres were Venice Days winner 200 Meters and Evi Romen’s Why Not You.

Italian sales outfit True Colours has closed a number of sales for its autumn slate at this year’s Mia Market (October 16-20) in Rome.

Among the market premieres were Venice Days audience award winner 200 Meters by Palestinian director Ameen Nayfeh, which was acquired for French-speaking territories by Shellac and for Turkey by Filmarti. Italian distribution rights for the film have been secured by I Wonder.

Also premiering at Mia was Evi Romen’s Why Not You, winner of best picture in...

Ferzan Ozpetek’s The Fortune Goddess and Sergio Castellitto’s new film starring Bérénice Bejo Il materiale emotive are both in the line-up of the expanding Italian sales agency. True Colours, a firm in full, international expansion, is bulking up its own list of films on the occasion of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival’s Online Marché du Film (22-26 June). New works include Il materiale emotivo by Sergio Castellitto (in post-production): an Italian-French co-production courtesy of Rodeo Drive together with Rai Cinema, Mon Voisin Productions and Tikkun Production, which is based upon a screenplay by the great master Ettore Scola, who passed away in 2016. Starring in the cast alongside Castellitto himself is the French star Bérénice Bejo and Matilda De Angelis. Among the titles for 2021 featuring in the line-up, there’s the highly promising Supereroi, which is the new sentimental dramedy by Paolo Genovese who directed the box-office champion (which has.

The ceremony was run from an empty studio with winners acknowledging awards via video-link.

Marco Bellocchio’s mafia drama The Traitor swept Italy’s top David di Donatello awards on Friday evening (May 8), winning six prizes including best film, director and lead actor.

The biopic, which premiered in Competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, captures the life of Tommaso Buscetta, the late infamous mafia turncoat who began his organised crime career in Sicily and died in Florida incognito under the Us witness protection programme in 2000.

It marked the first time Bellocchio has won best film at the awards although he...

Marco Bellocchio’s elegant mob drama “The Traitor,” about the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence, was the big winner at Italy’s 65th David di Donatello Awards, the country’s equivalent of the Oscars.

“The Traitor” scored six statuettes including best picture, director, and actor honors.

The prizes were announced – but not physically given out – during a no-frills ceremony conducted in primetime on pubcaster Rai by star host Carlo Conti in an empty studio with talents appearing in live web platform link-ups. The event served as a collective rebirth rite just when local coronavirus lockdown restrictions slowly begin to lift.

“My wish is for the Italian film community to start working again,” Bellocchio, who is a revered veteran auteur, said speaking from his home, before adding: “I’m 80, and I also hope to make a few more movies.”

“The Traitor,...

In Italy, which is suffering the biggest coronavirus outbreak in Europe with more than 350 deaths, box office crashed to an all time low of €439.000 over the March 5 weekend frame. Or rather, the portion of the weekend prior to Sunday May 8.

On Sunday the government ordered a total shutdown until at least April 3 of all movie theaters. Prior to Sunday, roughly half the country’s screens – those in the less affected central and southern regions – had been allowed to stay open, provided spectators sit three seats apart in what turned out to be a short-lived Italian experiment.

Battered by all these impediments, Italy’s March 5 frame repped a roughly 90% plunge in grosses compared with the same period in 2019 and a 79% drop compared to the previous weekend, which had already been a total bloodbath.

The top title was Berlin prizewinner “Hidden Away,” the biopic of eclectic painter Antonio Ligabue that recently scored...

Sales also secured on ‘The Goddess Of Fortune’, ‘Once Upon A Time… In Bethlehem’ and more.

Rome-based sales company True Colours has secured deals on a raft of titles out of the Efm, led by Sergio Castellitto’s romantic drama A Bookshop In Paris.

The film, starring Castellitto and Berenice Bejo, has pre-sold to Taiwan (Andrews Film), Poland (Aurora), Benelux (Paradiso), former Yugoslavia (Stars Media), Sweden (Studio S Entertainment), Finland (Future Film), Denmark (Another World) and Israel (Nachshon).

The romantic drama, now in post-production, marks the last screenplay written by the late Ettore Scola and has subsequently been adapted by Castellitto and novelist Margaret Mazzantini.

The painful disintegration of a couple who have been together for 15 years plays out in Ferzan Ozpetek’s La dea Fortuna (literally, "The Goddess Fortune"), a breakup complicated by their sick friend Annamaria, who parks her two kids with them while she’s in the hospital. After his poetic-exotic excursions in Red Istanbul and Naples in Veils, the director returns to the familiar ironies of gay dramedy that found a broad Italian audience for two of his most popular works, Le fate ignoranti (in which a young widow discovers her dead husband was bisexual) and Loose Cannons (a youth has to ...

The painful disintegration of a couple who have been together for 15 years plays out in Ferzan Ozpetek’s La dea Fortuna (literally, "The Goddess Fortune"), a breakup complicated by their sick friend Annamaria, who parks her two kids with them while she’s in the hospital. After his poetic-exotic excursions in Red Istanbul and Naples in Veils, the director returns to the familiar ironies of gay dramedy that found a broad Italian audience for two of his most popular works, Le fate ignoranti (in which a young widow discovers her dead husband was bisexual) and Loose Cannons (a youth has to ...

Gli Indifferenti

It’s been well over a decade since a filmmaker has attempted an new adaptation of Italian author Alberto Moravia, whose novels provided the basis for such classics as De Sica’s Two Women (1960), Godard’s Contempt (1963) and Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970), among many others. For his third feature, Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli remounts Moravia’s The Time of Indifference, assembling a formidable cast with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Giovanna Mezzorgiorno, Edoardo Pesce, Beatrice Granno and Vincenzo Crea. The title is produced by Marco Cohen, Fabrizio Donvito, Benedetto Habib and Daniel Campos Pavoncelli with Gian Filippo Corticelli (favored Dp of Ferzan Ozpetek) lensing.…...

New works by Ferzan Ozpetek and Alessandro Rak are among the titles set to be presented on 12 December, with a co-production market featuring 13 projects. The 12th edition of the Italian Film Meetings – “De Rome à Paris” (read our news) will open with two professional days held on 12 and 13 December in Paris. The programme includes a Work In Progress session for French distributers, with 9 feature films set to screen on Thursday 12 December at the l’Arlequin cinema. Standing out among them is the Belgian co-production Caliber 9 by Toni D’Angelo, a work presented as a sequel to Milan Caliber 9 by Fernando Di Leo (1972). The story, which unfolds in the Lombardian city in the present-day, revolves around a brilliant criminal defence lawyer, raised by his mother in order that his destiny might be different to that of his criminal father. But the prime suspect...

Leading Italian sales company True Colors has closed a slew of sales at the Cannes Market and landed North American deals on horror pic “In The Trap” and gay-themed comedy “An Almost Ordinary Summer,” acquired respectively by Mpi Media Group and Wolfe Releasing.

The English-language “In The Trap” (pictured) directed by Italy’s Alessio Liguori as his feature-film debut, and produced by Italian shingles Dreamworld Movies and Mad Rocket Entertainment generated a flurry of deals, confirming the growing global appetite for horror titles and the resurgence of Italy’s capability to churn out chillers that can travel.

“In The Trap,” which features an international cast comprising South Africa’s David Bailie (“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”), and Sonya Cullingford (“The Mummy”), is about a solitary proof reader trapped by fear in his apartment where he is tortured by an unknown evil force. Besides the U.S. and Canada,...

It is written by Ozpetek with his longtime collaborator and producer Gianni Romoli and Silvia Ranfagni.

Italy’s True Colours has picked up international rights to Ferzan Ozpetek’s anticipated new feature The Fortune Goddess.

Stefano Accorsi, Jasmine Trinca and Edoardo Leo are set to star in the film about a gay couple who are thrown into crisis when a friend asks them to take care of her children for a couple of days.

The Italian-language film is being produced by Gianni Romoli and Tilde Corsi for R&C Production with Warner Bros Entertainment Italia. It is written by Ozpetek with...

Box office returns in Italy dropped about 5% to €555 million ($631 million) in 2018, posting their worst result in a decade as Hollywood blockbusters drew in fewer Italian moviegoers than usual.

On the bright side, Italian films gained traction last year, scoring a 22% market share, up from 16% in 2017, marking the second-best showing in the past four years, according to box office analyst Robert Bernocchi. He said that this surpassed the results for homegrown pics in Spain and Germany, which clocked in at about 17% and 18%, respectively.

U.S. films in 2018 nabbed a total of €330 million ($375 million), accounting for 60% of Italy’s market share. That’s a solid result, but roughly six percentage points lower than in 2017, fueling the country’s overall box office drop. The year’s top grosser was Fox’s international hit “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which has pulled in more than €21 million ($23 million), and counting.

Italian ticket sales in 2018 were just shy of 86 million,...

Exclusive: Breaking Glass Pictures has acquired North American rights to the mystery thriller and noir feature Naples in Veils from writer/director Ferzan Ozpetek. The film will get a theatrical release in the first half of 2019 in English with Italian subtitles, followed by a DVD/VOD release.

The film held its world premiere at the Moscow Film Festival where it took home the Best Actress Prize for star Giovanna Mezzogiorno, and then played multiple festivals after that. It was scripted by Gianni Romoli, Balia Santella, and Ozpetek and produced by Tilde Corsi and Gianni Romoli with the collaboration of the Foundation Film Commission of the Region of Campania and the support of The Region of Lazio.

The storyline: A woman is at a party and meets a confident and attractive young man, and they spend the night together. Little does she know, however,...

Other winners included Derek Doneen’s The Price Of Free and Samal Yeslyamova for her performance in Ayka.

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s drama 3 Faces scooped the top prize at the 55th edition of International Antalya Film Festival (Sept 29-Oct 5) last weekend.

The feature, which premiered in competition at Cannes where it won the prize for best screenplay, was feted with Antalya’s Golden Orange award and $53,000 cash prize for best film.

The director, who is currently under house arrest in Iran, participated in the awards ceremony via a video-link.

Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda won the $25,000 Golden Orange prize for...

Though Italy’s box office for the first eight months of 2018 is down, Italian movies account for a quarter of grosses, up from 17% a year ago, a clear sign of local production vibrancy amid alarming theatrical erosion.

Outside the country, Italian cinema is steadily gaining more international traction after the four Oscar nominations (and one win) scored earlier this year by Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name,” followed by two Cannes competition prizewinners, Alice Rohrwacher’s “Happy as Lazzaro” and Matteo Garrone’s “Dogman,” and strong presences at the Venice and Toronto festivals.

The drop in Italian moviegoers amounts to a 7% drop so far this year. That follows a dramatic 12% box office plunge in 2017 and is forcing producers and distributors to come up with some innovative strategies.

Case in point is Oscar-winner Paolo Sorrentino’s Silvio Berlusconi-themed “Loro,” which was edited into a longer version divided into two installments,...

Prokino take Naples in Germany, Aurora Film in Poland.

Italy’s True Colours has announced a streak of deals on thriller Naples In Veils and several other titles on its Efm slate.

Ferzan Ozpetek’s Naples In Veils gone to Prokino for Germany and German-speaking territories, while Aurora Film picked up rights for Poland, and Stars Media for former Yugoslavia and Albania.

Swallow Wings acquired the film for Taiwan before the Efm, and talks are ongoing for Japan, France and Spain.

Surprise comedy hit Like A Cat On A Highway will open in Spain through Caramel Films and in Greece via Weirdwave.

Weirdwave and South Korea’s First Run secured rights for the Sky-produced docu-drama Michelangelo – Endless, a biopic on the life and art of the Italian renaissance artist.

Greek rights for I’m Back, the Italian remake of German Hitler satire Look Who’s Back reconfigured with Mussolini as the focal point, have gone to Seven...

A gluttonous feast of Neapolitan art and culture, Ferzan Ozpetek’s new thriller Naples in Veils (Napoli velata) celebrates the oft-maligned Italian city as an ancient source of mystery, whose Baroque palaces and streets are the moody backdrop to a morbid story of lost love and repressed memories. Co-produced by Warner Bros. Entertainment Italia, the film has benefited from wide domestic holiday release and should have little trouble tapping into cultivated Italophile audiences abroad.

The sensual photography, music and locations are so entrancing, in fact, they help the viewer to overlook the weak storyline, which prefers psychological ambiguity to solid police work....

Exclusive: Italian sales company scores deals on multiple titles.

Italian sales outfit True Colours has scored a series of deals for titles on its Cannes slate.

Among those are Sergio Castellitto’s Un Certain Regard drama Fortunata [pictured], which stars Jasmie Trinca as a young mother fighting for her dream to open a hair salon.

True Colours inked deals for the film in eight territories: France (Paname Distribution), Latin America (Fenix Distribuidora), former-Yugoslavia (Stars Media), Greece (Seven Films), China (Times Vision), Hungary (Mozinet), Bulgaria (Bulgaria Film Vision) and Australia (Palace Films). Negotiations are ongoing for Spain.

The company also signed multiple deals for Simone Godano’s body-swapping comedy Wife & Husband (Moglie e Marito), which stars Pierfrancesco Favino and Kasia Smutniak.

The film has been sold to Swallow Wings (Taiwan), Estin Film (Estonia), Times Vision (China), Film Medya (Turkey) and New People Film Company (Russia) and Palace Films (Australia).

More deals

At this year’s Cannes Marchè, True Colours also kicked...

Exclusive: Sales for the film, which started shooting this month, will commence in Cannes.

True Colours has acquired the worldwide sales rights to Ferzan Ozpetek’s next project, Naples In Veils.

Ozpetek co-wrote the script with Gianni Romoli, who is producing with Tilde Corsi, Faros Film and Warner Bros Entertainment Italia.

Set in the titular city, the film revolves around a woman who is overwhelmed by a sudden love and a violent crime; Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Alessandro Borghi star.

It’s the second film in a row from the Turkish-born filmmaker dedicated to a city after previous feature Istanbul Red.

The film’s Naples-set shoot kicked off on May 13, with an Italian release date pencilled for early 2018. True Colours kicks off sales on the project here in Cannes.

The company has also acquired sales rights to previous Ozpetek films including Ignorant Fairies and Facing Widow.

Read more:

The latest Cannes news, reviews and features...

While we wait for Turkish films to catch up to the new political status quo after the failed coup against the Erdogan government last July, those shot just before the attempted coup risk seeming like old news. Poised on the cusp, Ferzan Ozpetek’s Red Istanbul describes a melancholy city on the Bosphorus laden with poignant memories like an over-decorated Christmas tree. The story is based on the director’s own novel about a famous Turkish filmmaker who vanishes into thin air one day, leaving his writer friend stranded in Istanbul. Though politics are barely touched on, a sense of underlying tension...

It’s become a great breaking in the new year traditional here at Ioncinema.com. We begin our countdown to the our most anticipated foreign films (anything outside the U.S.) with our own Nicholas Bell curating the best bets for 2016. Here are the titles and filmmakers that didn’t make our final Top 100 cut, but are nonetheless “radar” worthy.

101. El Rey del Once – Daniel Burman

102. The Dancer – Stephanie Di Giusto

103. Le Cancre – Paul Vecchiali

104. While the Women are Sleeping – Wayne Wang

105. Tomorrow – Martha Pinson

106. Spring Again – Gael Morel

107. Crowhurst – Simon Rumley

108. Le Garcon – Philippe Lioret *

109. Marie and the Misfits – Sebastien Betbeder

110. Le Caravage – Alain Chevalier

111. Night Song – Raphael Nadjari

112. Réparer les vivants – Katell Quillevere *

113. Project Lazarus – Mateo Gil

114. Afterimages – Andrzej Wajda

115. Don’t Knock Twice – Caradog James

116. Detour – Christopher Smith

117. The Bride of Rip Van Winkle – Shunji Iwai

118. Three on the Road – Johnnie To

119. Le Vin et le Vent...

Wild, Gemma Bovery bookend festival.

The Turin Film Festival (Nov 21-29) is to open with Jean-Marc Vallee’s Wild and close with Anne Fontaine’s Gemma Bovary.

In total, 197 films will presented at the Italian festival with 45 world premieres and 65 first or second features.

The 15-strong competition line-up includes New Zealand Vampire film What We Do in the Shadows by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, and Bryan Reisberg’s Big Significant Things, a road trip through Southern America’s larger tourist attractions.

Jim Mickle’s crime thriller Cold in July, starring Michael C. Hall and Sam Shepard, will get its Italian premiere.

The Festa Mobile section will include Michael R. Roskam’s thriller The Drop, screening ahead of its March premiere in Italy.

Other highlights include Woody Allen’s Magic in the Moonlight, Tommy Lee Jones’ The Homesman and David Michod’s The Rover while Dario Argento will screen a long-awaited restoration of his 1975 film Deep Red.

Director...

Italy hopes to repeat last year’s win in the Best Foreign-Language Film category with Paolo Virzi’s family thriller.

Italy has submitted Paolo Virzi’s Human Capital for consideration in the Best Foreign-Language Film category of the Academy Awards.

Italy holds the record for the most foreign-language Oscars, with 14 wins including the statuette for Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty earlier this year.

Human Capital centres on two families, irrevocably tied together after a cyclist is hit off the road by a jeep on the night before Christmas Eve. The film was based on the Us novel by Stephen Amidon, relocating from Connecticut to Northern Italy.

It won seven trophies at the David di Donatello awards, beating The Great Beauty for best film, and six Nastri d’Argento Awards.

Human Capital has also proved a box office hit in Italy

Italy’s Oscar shortlist also include Alice Rohrwacher’s The Wonders, Francesco Munzi’s Black...

Perks of Using the Star System: Tognazzi’s Tale a Tad Too Familiar

Maria Sole Tognazzi, daughter of famed actor/director Ugo Tognazzi, visits the mid-life crisis mode of the single female for her third feature, A Five Star Life. Featuring one of Italy’s most noted leading ladies, Margherita Buy, this rather reserved exercise feels far too buttoned up to make any lasting impression, genuine as everyone involved seems to be. The plotting, the scenario, and the eventual outcome are all far too familiar, (unique occupations aside) to register as anything more than standard cliché. Several subplots seem like a bid to pad out the running time rather than furthering the development of supporting characters.

A single, childless fortysomething woman, Irene (Buy) seems to have a dream job as a luxury hotel inspector. Sailing into extravagant lodges, she plays a mystery guest, ticking off demerits on the service and presentation.

Netflix is “open” to investing in original European series and feature films, according to Christopher Libertelli, vp of global public policy at the Us VoD provider.

Speaking at a hearing organised this week by the European Commission on the promotion of European films and TV series online, Libertelli said that Netflix’s chief Ted Sarandos “is open to that, but hasn’t announced any specific plan”.

In reply to a question from André Lange of the European Audiovisual Observatory about whether Netflix would exclusively invest in series or also move into feature films, Libertelli replied: “If Ted Sarandos was here, he would say ‘everything is possible’ and there is no limitation on just doing serialised content.

“It just so happens that works best on Netflix, (but) that doesn’t mean we are not open to original features. In Hollywood at least, there is a potential gap in the market between these micro-films and these huge Hollywood blockbusters...

Netflix is “open” to investing in original European series and feature films, according to Christopher Libertelli, vp of global public policy at the Us VoD provider.

Speaking at a hearing organised this week by the European Commission on the promotion of European films and TV series online, Libertelli said that Netflix’s chief Ted Sarandos “is open to that, but hasn’t announced any specific plan.”

In reply to a question from André Lange of the European Audiovisual Observatory about whether Netflix would exclusively invest in series or also move into feature films, Libertelli replied: “If Ted Sarandos was here, he would say ‘everything is possible’ and there is no limitation on just doing serialised content.

“It just so happens that works best on Netflix, (but) that doesn’t mean we are not open to original features. In Hollywood at least, there is a potential gap in the market between these micro-films and these huge Hollywood blockbusters...