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The Quay Brothers’ Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass, and Marie Losier’s biopic of feminist singer Peaches are among the line-up for this year’s Giornate degli Autori.

The independent sidebar of the Venice Film Festival runs from August 28-September 7 and has 10 films in competition.

Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass is a blend of stop-motion animation and live action, inspired by the story collection of the same name by Polish writer Bruno Schulz where the search for his late father becomes a metaphysical journey.

It is the only the third feature from UK-based animators the Quay Brothers,...

The Quay Brothers’ Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass, and Marie Losier’s biopic of feminist singer Peaches are among the line-up for this year’s Giornate degli Autori.

The independent sidebar of the Venice Film Festival runs from August 28-September 7 and has 10 films in competition.

Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass is a blend of stop-motion animation and live action, inspired by the story collection of the same name by Polish writer Bruno Schulz where the search for his late father becomes a metaphysical journey.

It is the only the third feature from UK-based animators the Quay Brothers,...

Films directed by women dominate the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Giornate Degli Autori, which has unveiled a lineup full of first works and special events including “Peaches Goes Bananas,” French filmmaker Marie Losier’s tribute to iconic Canadian electropop provocateur Peaches.

Shot over the course of 17 years, “Peaches Goes Bananas” provides an intimate portrait of the former schoolteacher, who during the 1980s moved from Canada to Berlin and became a queer feminist icon, breaking taboos and “transforming her body into art,” as the doc’s synopsis puts it.

The competition of the Giornate – which is also known as Venice Days – comprises 10 world premieres, six of which are first works, within a selection that artistic director Gaia Furrer described in her notes as “rigorous” and “stylistically eclectic.”

Furer underlined that 16 out of the section’s 25 titles are directed by women, a fact she called significant “because many of them...

Nicole Scherzinger, Succession star Sarah Snook, Game of Thrones and Sherlock actor Mark Gatiss, a revival of the musical Sunset Boulevard and the play Stranger Things: The First Shadow were among the winners at the 2024 Olivier Awards, which celebrate achievements in London theater. The ceremony at Royal Albert Hall in the British capital was hosted by Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham.

The revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s Sunset Boulevard, which has starred Scherzinger as Norma Desmond and is set to come to Broadway this year, won the best musical revival award, the best actress honor for the former Pussycat Dolls singer and five other honors after also leading the nominations with 11.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a prequel to the Netflix hit series, which has hinted at its Broadway ambitions, won the best new entertainment or comedy play award, as well as the Olivier for best set design.

Dear England,...

Sarah Snook, Sarah Jessica Parker, Andrew Scott and David Tennant were among the nominees for the 2024 Olivier Awards, which celebrate achievements in London theater.

Parker was nominated for best actress for her role in Plaza Suite, opposite her husband, Matthew Broderick, while Snook was nominated in the same category for her one-woman take on The Picture of Dorian Gray. Tennant was nominated for best actor for his role in Macbeth, in the same category as Andrew Scott, in a one-man version of Vanya.

Sunset Boulevard, which starred Nicole Scherzinger, who is also nominated, and is set to come to Broadway next year, received 11 nominations, while Dear England, a play by James Graham about an English football manager, received nine nominations. Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a prequel to the television series, which has also hinted at its Broadway ambitions, is up for best new entertainment or comedy play.

The Olivier...

Stars including Sarah Jessica Parker, Sarah Snook, Andrew Scott and David Tennant will compete for Olivier Awards at the UK’s most prestigious theater ceremony next month.

The Sex and the City stars is up for Best Actress for her performance in Plaza Suite – her first Olivier – while Succession’s Snook has picked up a nod for her critically-acclaimed performance as 26 characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

In the Best Actor category, Scott’s performance in Vanya will come up against Tennant’s role in Macbeth, while the starry nominee list also includes Joseph Fiennes for Dear England, which is being made into a BBC series, Mark Gatiss for The Motive And The Cue and James Norton in A Little Life.

Other notable nominations include for singer Nicole Scherzinger in Sunset Boulevard, where she has picked up a nod for Best Actress in a Musical. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s...

Leading Italian actor, playwright and militant leftwing politician who was the wife and professional partner of Dario Fo

Franca Rame, who has died aged 84, was one of Italy's most admired stage performers and playwrights. A leftwing militant, she was elected to the Italian senate in 2006 but resigned within two years, saying the assembly was an icebox of feelings. But Rame was best known as the wife and professional partner of the actor-playwright Dario Fo. In spite of their ups and downs, which they themselves pilloried in a one-act play, Coppia Aperta (The Open Couple, 1982), she remained at his side on stage and off. When Fo received the Nobel prize for literature in 1997, he called Rame his muse and shared the medal with her.

Rame was born in Parabiago, Milan. Her mother, Emilia, was a teacher and a strict Catholic; her father, Domenico, was an actor and socialist militant. She grew...

The film that possibly gave Mariangela Melato her biggest worldwide exposure was strangely omitted from her obituary. It is Flash Gordon (1980), in which she played the role of Kala, the Emperor Ming's head of security. I directed it and can vouch that Mariangela and Max von Sydow, both very serious actors, revelled in portraying these outrageous villains. We had a lot of fun making that film and I think the fun that she had is up there on the screen.

I had no idea that she had started her career with the radical theatre company of Dario Fo and his wife, Franca Rame, so I did not get to talk to her about what must have been an amazing time in her life. In the mid-60s Fo and Rame performed in London and I became an immediate fan, seeing them on three consecutive nights. Now I can clearly see...

Versatile Italian actor known for her roles in Lina Wertmüller's films

Mariangela Melato, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 71, was one of Italy's most versatile and vivacious actresses, working in theatre and cinema with some of the leading directors of her time. She won international cult status for three films directed by Lina Wertmüller in which she co-starred with Giancarlo Giannini: The Seduction of Mimi (1972), Love and Anarchy (1973) and Swept Away (1974), in all of which the controversial Wertmüller mixed sex and politics. Melato had no qualms about submitting with great good humour to the sometimes humiliating situations and explicit dialogue inflicted on the two stars.

Those Wertmüller films made Melato well-known, but she liked to be recognised as an actor rather than a star. Born in Milan, she trained at the city's Brera Academy. One of the first companies to sign her up was that of the...