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Roberta Torre with Anne-Katrin Titze on Gitt Magrini, Michelangelo Antonioni’s costume designer for Red Desert and with Bice Brichetto for L'Eclisse: “With Massimo Cantini Parrini we have thought a lot about this before making the film. So he went to all the beautiful costumes for Monica Vitti to see what remains today.”

A little over an hour and a half into Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert, Monica Vitti’s Giuliana visits Richard Harris’s Corrado Zeller at his hotel. “Mi fanno male i capelli” she says, her hair hurts, as do her eyes, her throat and her mouth. Roberta Torre’s Mi Fanno Male I Capelli with a score by Wong Kar Wai’s longtime composer Shigeru Umebayashi takes the sentence as a starting point to investigate time and the mind, memory and the fluidity of identity.

Edoardo (Filippo Timi) with Monica (Alba Rohrwacher) in dress inspired by Monica...

Twin directors Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo, who are known to Berlin Film Festival audiences for stylishly gritty dramas “Boys Cry” and “Bad Tales,” are back with eclectic detective series “Dostoevskij,” premiering in the fest’s Berlinale Special section.

Set in the stark Roman hinterland, the six-episode show — produced by Sky Studios with Rome’s Paco Cinematografica — stars Filippo Timi as Enzo Vitello, a policeman whose mind is warped by an incident involving his daughter Ambra. He winds up on the trail of a ruthless serial killer, nicknamed Dostoevskij because of the letters full of gruesome details that he leaves at crime scenes. Haunted by the killer’s words, the cop embarks on a dangerous solo investigation, getting closer and closer to a disturbing existential truth.

“Dostoevskij,” which marks the D’Innocenzo brothers’ TV debut, stemmed from Sky Studios Italia chief Nils Hartmann asking them if they wanted to create a...

Sky Italia has dropped a deliciously dark first teaser for “Dostoevskij,” the TV series by twin directors Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo, which will launch from the upcoming Berlin Film Festival in the Berlinale Special section.

The eclectic, six-episode detective drama set in the stark Roman hinterland stars Filippo Timi as Enzo Vitello, a detective whose mind is warped by a troubled past. He winds up on the blood trail of a ruthless serial killer, nicknamed Dostoevskij because of the letters full of gruesome details that he leaves at crime scenes.

Haunted by the killer’s words, the policeman embarks on a dangerous solo investigation, getting closer and closer to a disturbing existential truth.

The Italian duo’s stylishly gritty dramas “Boy’s Cry” and “Bad Tales” both previously launched from the Berlinale, while their most recent film, “America Latina,” bowed at Venice in 2022. “Dostoevskij” is their debut in the TV series sphere.

New films featuring Carey Mulligan, Adam Sandler, Amanda Seyfried, Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough are among 2024 Berlinale Specials lineup, the out-of-competition gala presentations at next year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

Spaceman, a Netflix sci-fi drama from Chernobyl director Johan Renck, starring Sandler, Mulligan, Kunal Nayyar, Isabella Rossellini and Paul Dano, will have its world premiere in the Berlinale Special gala sidebar. Sasquatch Sunset, an adventure comedy from the Zellner brothers which stars Keough, Eisenberg, Nathan Zellner, and Christophe Zajac-Denek, will screen in Berlin after its Sundance debut. Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils, which had its world premiere in Toronto, and stars Seyfried alongside Rebecca Liddiard, Douglas Smith, Ambur Braid, and Michael Kupfer-Radecky, will also have its international premiere in the Berlinale Specials gala section.

Treasure (aka Iron Box), the 90-set English-language feature from German director Julia von Heinz (And Tomorrow The Entire World), which stars Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry...

The Berlinale has announced the first seven productions, including one series, to be invited to the Berlinale Specials strand of its 74th edition running from February 15 to 25, 2024.

The line-up will include the world premiere of Johan Renck’s sci-fi drama Spaceman starring Adam Sandler as an astronaut on a lone space mission.

The drama, also featuring Carey Mulligan, Kunal Nayyar, Isabella Rossellini and Paul Dano in the cast, goes on worldwide release on Netflix on March 1, 2024

The Sandler sci-fi drama is due to go on worldwide release on Netflix on March 1, 2024.

There will also be international premieres for David and Nathan Zellner’s Sasquatch Sunset, with Riley Keough, Jesse Eisenberg, Nathan Zellner and Christophe Zajac-Denek, which is due to world premiere at Sundance.

Atom Egoyan’s TIFF-selected Seven Veils, featuring Amanda Seyfried, Rebecca Liddiard, Douglas Smith, Ambur Braid, Michael Kupfer-Radecky in the cast, is also in the line-up.

“We are...

Solid, stately and — like the collapsing Papal States of the Italian Peninsula in the late 1800s — just a little too tradition-bound for its own good, Marco Bellocchio’s “Kidnapped,” based on a 19th-century case of religious abduction, opens with an eavesdrop. Anna (Aurora Camatti), the Catholic servant to the Jewish Mortara family of Bologna, pauses on the stairs after a tryst and spies her employers, Momolo Mortara (Fausto Russo Alesi) and his wife Marianna (Barbara Ronchi), murmuring a blessing in Hebrew over their newborn baby boy. It is not clear yet why the sight should make her stop in her tracks, but over the course of over two sedate but mostly absorbing hours, the veteran director follows its repercussions with a singleminded, narrow dedication that sits strangely at odds with the film’s immaculately expansive production design.

Six years later, the Mortara family has itself expanded greatly. The boy, Edgardo...

Belgian directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s Italian-language drama The Eight Mountains and veteran Marco Bellocchio’s Exterior Night topped the 68th edition of Italy’s David di Donatello Awards on Wednesday evening.

The Eight Mountains won best film as well as best non-original screenplay, photography and sound.

Based on the novel of the same name by Paolo Cognetti, it stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as two men from different backgrounds who form a life-long bond during summers spent together as children in a remote mountain village.

The film world premiered in Competition at Cannes last year where it co-won the Jury Prize. Read the Deadline review here.

It is the second time in the history of the awards that a film by non-Italian directors has clinched the best film prize.

The last time was in 1971 when the Dino de Laurentiis-produced epic Waterloo by Russian director Sergei Bonderchuk,...

Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer for Marco Bellocchio’s “Kidnapped” (Rapito), which has its world premiere in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film starts in 1858 in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, when the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education.

Edgardo’s parents, distraught, will do anything to get their son back. Supported by public opinion and the international Jewish community, the Mortaras’ struggle quickly takes a political dimension. But the Church and the Pope will not agree to return the child, to consolidate an increasingly wavering power.

The film stars Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi, Enea Sala (as the...

Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch enter a new stage of their partnership, both professional and personal, through their co-direction of The Eight Mountains. Vandermeersch, primarily known for her work as an actress, had previously appeared in several of her husband’s other movies and received a screenplay collaboration credit on his Oscar-nominated The Broken Circle Breakdown. But as Van Groeningen began to approach shooting the adaptation of Paolo Coginetti’s novel that he’d co-written with his wife during pandemic lockdowns, he suggested that she join him in helming the film.

In many ways, their collaboration behind the camera gracefully complements the narrative that transpires in front of it. The Eight Mountains is a gentle two-hander following two friends, the impetuous Bruno and the introverted Pietro (played respectively as adults by Alessandro Borghi and Luca Marinelli), that charts the ups and downs of their relationship over the course of four decades.

Editors note: This review was originally published May 18 after its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival where it co-won the Jury Prize. It opens in New York theaters Friday.

After breaking out internationally in 2012 with his Oscar-nominated drama The Broken Circle Breakdown, and making his Hollywood debut in 2018 with Beautiful Boy, Felix van Groeningen makes his Competition debut in Cannes with The Eight Mountains, perhaps the most understated film of his career so far.

This is a gentle tale of a decades-spanning friendship that seems a little out of its depth in such a heavyweight showcase. With terrific cinematography and two engaging leads, it’s easy on the eye — as well it should be at two hours and 27 minutes — but it’s lackluster in its telling and pales next to Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God, which covered similar themes of adolescence and young adulthood last awards season.

It can be surprisingly difficult to find a movie with an authentic, lived-in sense of how friendships truly unfold over the course of many years. What we so often get instead are hollow pastiches and tired tropes that hardly scrape the surface of what actually draws two individuals together from very different walks of life — and why. Maybe there's something to be said for a more matter-of-fact approach that gives such weighty topics room to grow, recede, and adapt at a glacial-like pace.

While that's usually considered a critique, this is at least one of the many reasons why "The Eight Mountains" stands in such stark relief from its peers. In the opening act set in 1984 Italy, two children become fast friends over the course of a single summer in the mountainous village of Grana — not through some shared trauma or because they instantly recognize some deep, soul-baring connection to one another.

La conversione

The true story has put the fear of god in the directors who consider making it, but finally, it was Italian maestro Marco Bellocchio who took on the project on a person who goes by the name of Edgardo Mortara. An almost three-plus month shoot in Bologna and Rome, Marco Bellocchio co-wrote with Susanna Nicchiarelli, this is the true-life drama set in 1858. La Conversione stars Paolo Pierobon, Barbara Ronchi, Fausto Russo Alesi, Filippo Timi, Fabrizio Gifuni, Enea Sala, playing Mortara as a child, and Leonardo Maltese, playing Mortara as an older boy.…...

Italian twin directors Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo have started shooting in Rome on “Dostoevskij,” an eclectic detective drama involving a policeman with a troubled past.

This first TV series written and directed by the D’Innocenzo brothers – who are known on the festival circuit for dark dramas “Boy’s Cry,” “Bad Tales” and “America Latina” – is an in-house Sky Studios production produced by the Comcast-owned pay-tv player with Rome’s Paco Cinematografica.

Filippo Timi stars as Enzo Vitello, a sharp detective with a troubled past, who winds up on the blood trail of a ruthless serial killer, nicknamed Dostoevskij because of letters full of gruesome details that he leaves at crime scenes.

Haunted by the killer’s words, the policeman embarks on a dangerous solo investigation, getting closer and closer to a disturbing existential truth.

Rounding out the “Dostoevskij” cast are Gabriel Montesi (“Bad Tales”), Carlotta Gamba (“Dante”) and...

Click here to read the full article.

Italy, and all of Europe, awoke Monday to a new political reality after far-right politician Giorgia Meloni claimed victory in Italy’s snap elections. With nearly all the results in, Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, a group with neofascist origins, secured the biggest share of votes.

Her far-right coalition, which includes the League, headed by Matteo Salvini, and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, have a clear majority and should be able to form a new government. Such a coalition of nationalist and far-right parties would represent Italy’s most rightwing government since the end of Benito Mussolini’s reign in 1945. Meloni has made a name for herself with starkly conservative stances, on abortion, immigration and LGBTQ+ rights.

Given the seismic political shift, it was perhaps surprising to see few voices among Italy’s traditionally leftist entertainment industry raised in protest. Only...

"Someone told me nobody can outsmart history… F&!k history." Netflix has revealed an official trailer for an ambitious action comedy heist film from Italy titled Robbing Mussolini (in English), also known as Rapiniamo il Duce in Italian. At the end of WWII, a ragtag group of resistance fighters team up to steal Mussolini’s treasure from Milan's fascist headquarters. They try to steal back all the legendary treasure belonging to the one known as the "Duce of Fascism" - Benito Mussolini. "An ambitious heist movie, full of action and humor" skipping theaters entirely. It's premiering at the Rome Film Festival which doesn't seem that exciting. The film's cast includes Pietro Castellitto, Matilda De Angelis, Filippo Timi, Tommaso Ragno, Luigi Fedele, Eugenio di Fraia, and Isabella Ferrari. This looks over-the-top cheesy but it might be a fun watch. Who doesn't love a good heist movie? As long as it's a complex heist,...

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights to Cannes Jury Prize winner “The Eight Mountains” by Belgian directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch.

The Italian-language film, which tracks the decades-long friendship between two Italian boys named Pietro and Bruno — one from the city, the other a shepherd boy from the Alps — was praised as “quietly magnificent” by Variety critic Jessica Kiang.

Kiang also praised the pic’s “slow, gradual accretion of detail that builds to a spectacular vista across the ridges and troughs, the spires and valleys of a lifelong, life-defining friendship.”

The drama about friendship, mountains, growing up, and our changed rapport with the planet in the wake of the pandemic stars Italian A-lister Luca Marinelli (“Martin Eden”) and Alessandro Borghi (“Devils”) — respectively as Pietro and Bruno — as well as Filippo Timi (“Vincere”) and Elena Lietti (“Three Floors”).

Based on an Italian novel of the same title by Paolo Cognetti,...

Click here to read the full article.

Sideshow and Janus Films have nabbed the North American rights to The Eight Mountains, the Cannes Jury Prize winner.

The film stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as unlikely friends whose lives are inextricably linked to the Alpine village of Aosta where they met as boys in this retelling of Paolo Cognetti’s novel. Sideshow and Janus Films plan a theatrical release at the end of the year.

Sideshow and Janus Films said: “We fell in love with The Eight Mountains, a sweeping, deeply moving film about friendship filled with heart and featuring tremendous performances by Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi. We are thrilled to collaborate with Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch, Mario Giannani and Lorenzo Gangarossa to bring this special film to North America,” Sideshow and Janus Films said in a joint statement.

The Eight Mountains is written and directed by van...

Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch co-directed and co-wrote epic tale of friendship.

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights to Cannes jury prize winner The Eight Mountains directed by Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch.

The story about a friendship spanning a lifetime in the Italian Alpine valley of Aosta is based on Paolo Cognetti’s award-winning novel of the same name and stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi, Filippo Timi, Elena Lietti and Elisabetta Mazzullo. Van Groeningen and Vandermeersch co-wrote the screenplay.

Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Gangarossa produced for Wildside in co-production with Belgium’s Rufus and Menuetto,...

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights to Cannes 2022 Jury Prize winner The Eight Mountains for a theatrical release at the end of the year.

The New York-based distribution partners had a busy Cannes this year also acquiring Jerzy Skolimowski’s Eo, which shared the Jury Prize with The Eight Mountains; and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Tori And Lokita, which won the 75th Anniversary Prize at Cannes.

The Eight Mountains is written and directed by Oscar-nominated Belgian director Felix van Groeningen and his long-time collaborator and life partner Charlotte Vandermeersch.

Adapted from Italian writer Paolo Cognetti’s novel of the same name, the work follows the life-long friendship of two men from very different backgrounds against the backdrop of a remote valley in Italy’s mountainous Aosta Valley region. One is a boy from the city, the other the last child of a forgotten mountain village.

In adulthood,...

Shooting has begun in Roccabianca in the province of Parma, Italy, on Marco Bellocchio’s new film, “La Conversione” (The Conversion), inspired by the story of Edgardo Mortara, the Jewish child who in 1858 was removed from his family to be raised as a Catholic in the custody of Pope Pius IX. Bellocchio is pictured, above, on set in Roccabianca this week.

“La Conversione” stars Paolo Pierobon, Barbara Ronchi, Fausto Russo Alesi, Filippo Timi, Fabrizio Gifuni, Enea Sala, playing Mortara as a child, and Leonardo Maltese, playing Mortara as an older boy.

The film is an IBCmovie and Kavac Film production with Rai Cinema, with the support of the Emilia Romagna region and its film commission, in co-production with Ad Vitam Production in France, and Match Factory Productions in Germany. It is produced by Beppe Caschetto and Simone Gattoni.

The screenplay is by Bellocchio and Susanna Nicchiarelli, with the collaboration of Edoardo Albinati and Daniela Ceselli,...

Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s drama received an average score of 2.1.

Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains landed just below Tchaikovsky’s Wife on Screen’s jury grid with an average score of 2.1.

The adaptation of Paolo Cognetti’s Italian bestseller follows a male friendship spanning three decades and stars Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi and Filippo Timi.

The Italian-language film received a mixed reception from our jurors with four scores of two (average) and three scores of three (good).

Click top left to expand

Le Monde’s Mathieu Macheret awarded the film a zero...

Kirill Serebrennikov’s biographical drama received an average of 2.3.

Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s Tchaikovsky’s Wife is the first title to take its place on Screen’s 2022 Cannes jury grid, dividing our critics.

The 19th-century biographical drama following the explosive relationship of Pyotr Tchaikovsky and his wife Antonina Miliukova received an average of 2.3 (with two reviews still outstanding), with five critics awarding it two (average).

Postif’s Michel Ciment awarded the film top marks with four stars (excellent) but The Telegraph critics Tim Robey and Robbie Collin gave it one star (poor).

Serebrennikov’s previous film Petrov’s Flu scored 2.3 on the 2021 Cannes jury grid,...

Kirill Serebrennikov’s biographical drama received an average of 2.3.

Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s Tchaikovsky’s Wife is the first title to take its place on Screen’s 2022 Cannes jury grid, dividing our critics.

The 19th-century biographical drama following the explosive relationship of Pyotr Tchaikovsky and his wife Antonina Miliukova received an average of 2.3 (with two reviews still outstanding), with five critics awarding it two (average).

Postif’s Michel Ciment awarded the film top marks with four stars (excellent) but The Telegraph critics Tim Robey and Robbie Collin gave it one star (poor).

Serebrennikov’s previous film Petrov’s Flu scored 2.3 on the 2021 Cannes jury grid,...

Mountains are not formed in an instant. Tectonic plates may buckle like the crumpling hoods of crashing cars, but it’s a collision that takes thousands of millennia to play out, and on a human timescale, seems infinitesimally slow. An inch here, a millimeter there, even the most imposing ranges were built in increments; rocky peaks rising pebble by pebble. It’s just one way that the vast, vertiginous landscapes of northwestern Italy so well suit Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s quietly magnificent “The Eight Mountains”: The film, too, is a slow, gradual accretion of detail that builds to a spectacular vista across the ridges and troughs, the spires and valleys of a lifelong, life-defining friendship.

Based on the award-winning Italian bestseller “Le Otto Montagne” by Paolo Cognetti, the movie is novelistic in the best sense. It immerses you in the world of its characters – both human...

Friendship, mountains, growing up, and our changed rapport with the planet in the wake of the pandemic are the main elements in Cannes competition title “The Eight Mountains” by Belgian directors Felix van Groeningen (“Beautiful Boy”) and Charlotte Vandermeersch. (Watch the trailer above.)

The film is based on an Italian novel of the same title by Paolo Cognetti. It has won multiple awards in Italy and France and is also the author’s first book published in the U.S.

“The Eight Mountains” is a coming-of-age tale set over three decades about two young Italian boys — one, named Pietro, who is the son of a chemist, the other, Bruno, of a stonemason — who spend their childhoods together in a secluded Alpine village roaming the surrounding peaks and valleys before their paths diverge. Many years later, they reconnect in the same place.

The film marks the first foray into Italian-language filmmaking for Van Groeningen who,...

Belgian director Felix van Groeningen (“Beautiful Boy”) and Charlotte Vandermeersch have started shooting in the Alps on “The Eight Mountains,” an Italian drama based on a bestseller about male bonding set against a mountainous backdrop.

Vision Distribution will launch international sales of the film at the upcoming Cannes virtual market.

The film will be released in France by Pyramide Distribution and in Benelux by Kinepolis Film Distribution and Dutch FilmWorks.

Pic marks the first foray into Italian-language filmmaking for Van Groeningen who prior to “Beautiful Boy,” his English-language debut, broke out with Oscar-nominated “The Broken Circle Breakdown,” which is in Dutch, followed by “Belgica” winner of a prize at Sundance.

Van Groeningen has teamed up on “Eight Montains” with Vandermeersch, his partner in life, an actor and writer now making her directorial debut. They previously collaborated professionally on “Breakdown” on which she served as a co-writer.

“Bringing this deeply human,...

Czech title Little Crusader takes Crystal Globe; works in progress winners announced.

The 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 20 - July 8) closed last night with a packed awards ceremony, whose winners included Czech movie Little Crusader, UK director Ken Loach and Us stars Jeremy Renner and Uma Thurman.

Scroll down for full list of winners

According to organisers, the festival was attended by 13, 734 accredited visitors. Of that number 11, 554 had festival passes, 398 were filmmakers, 1,165 film professionals, and 617 journalists.

There were a total of 505 film screenings and a total of 140 067 tickets were sold. A total of 207 films were shown: 179 feature films (144 full-length and 35 short) and 28 documentary films.

23 films received their world premiere, while 18 had their international premiere and 13 their European premiere. 183 screenings were personally presented by delegations of filmmakers. 96 Press & Industry screenings were held.

According to a festival release, 1,248 film buyers, sellers, distributors, film festival programmers, representatives of film institutions, and other industry professionals were accredited for the...

Czech title Little Crusader takes Crystal Globe; works in progress winners revealed.

The 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 20 - July 8) closed last night with a packed awards ceremony, whose winners included Czech movie Little Crusader, UK director Ken Loach and Us stars Jeremy Renner and Uma Thurman.

Scroll down for full list of winners

According to organisers, the festival was attended by 13, 734 accredited visitors. Of that number 11, 554 had festival passes, 398 were filmmakers, 1,165 film professionals, and 617 journalists.

There were a total of 505 film screenings and a total of 140 067 tickets were sold. A total of 207 films were shown: 179 feature films (144 full-length and 35 short) and 28 documentary films.

23 films received their world premiere, while 18 had their international premiere and 13 their European premiere. 183 screenings were personally presented by delegations of filmmakers. 96 Press & Industry screenings were held.

According to a festival release, 1,248 film buyers, sellers, distributors, film festival programmers, representatives of film institutions, and other industry professionals were accredited for the...

Title: Questi Giorni (These Days) Director: Giuseppe Piccioni Starring: Margherita Buy, Marta Gastini, Maria Roveran, Laura Adriani, Caterina Le Caselle, Filippo Timi, Sergio Rubini. Giuseppe Piccioni is known in Italy for being an auteur who is engaged with grasping his country’s social trends, depicting marginal human figures that are detached from the world, and traverse tormented love affairs. Questi Giorni (These Days) is a road trip. It’s the story of four teenage girlfriends who – as the genre imposes – will venture on a journey that is also meant to be a spiritual one. Caterina (Marta Gastini), is moving to Belgrade and will be accompanied by three of her old [ Read More ]

The post Questi Giorni (These Days) Movie Review (Venice Film Festival 2016) appeared first on Shockya.com.

The American Film Institute announced today the films that will screen in the World Cinema, Breakthrough, Midnight, Shorts and Cinema’s Legacy programs at AFI Fest 2015 presented by Audi.

AFI Fest will take place November 5 – 12, 2015, in the heart of Hollywood. Screenings, Galas and events will be held at the historic Tcl Chinese Theatre, the Tcl Chinese 6 Theatres, Dolby Theatre, the Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at the Egyptian, the El Capitan Theatre and The Hollywood Roosevelt.

World Cinema showcases the most acclaimed international films of the year; Breakthrough highlights true discoveries of the programming process; Midnight selections will grip audiences with terror; and Cinema’s Legacy highlights classic movies and films about cinema. World Cinema and Breakthrough selections are among the films eligible for Audience Awards. Shorts selections are eligible for the Grand Jury Prize, which qualifies the winner for Academy Award®consideration. This year’s Shorts jury features filmmaker Janicza Bravo,...

★★★☆☆ Italian director Marco Bellocchio makes his return with Blood of My Blood (2015), another typically anomalous effort being theme rather than plot-driven. Divided into two distinct parts, it's bound together by recurring actors and the vampiric Count Basta (Roberto Herlitzka). The first half of the film is set in the 17th century and tells the story of Benedetta (Lidiya Liberman), a young nun from the convent of Bobbio, accused of witchcraft and worshipping Satan. Man of arms Federico Mai (Pier Giorgio Bellocchio) attends her trial, which is conducted by Father Cacciapuoti (Fausto Russo Alesi) and to which an unnamed mysterious figure (Roberto Herlitzka) is witness for a brief moment.

The second half opens in contemporary Bobbio, where the convent is now a decrepit prison secretly inhabited by shady Count Basta (Hetlitzka again). Tax inspector and con man Federico Mai (Pier Giorgio Bellocchio) together with Russian millionaire Ivan Rikalkov (Ivan Franek) try...

Omar Sharif in 'Doctor Zhivago.' Egyptian star Omar Sharif, 'The Karate Kid' producer Jerry Weintraub: Brief career recaps A little late in the game – and following the longish Theodore Bikel article posted yesterday – below are brief career recaps of a couple of film veterans who died in July 2015: actor Omar Sharif and producer Jerry Weintraub. A follow-up post will offer an overview of the career of peplum (sword-and-sandal movie) actor Jacques Sernas, whose passing earlier this month has been all but ignored by the myopic English-language media. Omar Sharif: Film career beginnings in North Africa The death of Egyptian film actor Omar Sharif at age 83 following a heart attack on July 10 would have been ignored by the English-language media (especially in the U.S.) as well had Sharif remained a star within the Arabic-speaking world. After all, an "international" star is only worth remembering...

Exclusive: New Alba Rohrwacher drama among trio.

Indie sales powerhouse The Match Factory has struck a three-film deal with Cannes regular Marco Bellocchio, which includes the acclaimed director’s next two films and his directorial debut Fists in the Pocket (I Pugni in Tasca).

Alba Rohrwacher, star of Hungry Hearts and The Wonders, is set to reteam with the Dormant Beauty director on Blood of my Blood (Sangue Del Mio Sangue).

The actress stars alongside Filippo Timi (Vincere), Roberto Herlitzka (The Great Beauty), Pier Giorgio Bellocchio and Lidyia Liberman in the film currently near completion which Bellocchio describes as a story about “love for the past and the need to make a clean break with it”.

The film is a co-production between Simone Gattoni of Kavac Film, Beppe Caschetto of Ibc Movie, Tiziana Soudani of Amka Films Production, Fabio Conversi of Barbary Films and Rai Cinema.

The deal will also include Sweet Dreams (Fai Bei Sogni) - announced...

L’ultimo Vampiro

Director: Marco Bellocchio // Writer: Marco Bellocchio

Marco Bellocchio is a key figure from mid-60s radical Italian cinema with his 1965 film Fists in the Pocket. He’s gone on to enjoy a steady filmography with intermittent renewals of interest in his work, such as critical hits with titles like Good Morning, Night (2003), and, most recently with his scalding Vincere (2009). While we found his Isabelle Huppert/Toni Servillo headlined euthanasia film Dormant Beauty (2012) to be a bit overwrought (we interviewed the filmmaker then) , we’re excited to see his latest, which has received a provocative new title, L’ultimo Vampiro (The Last Vampire)—formerly known as La Monaca. Bellocchio reunites with Rohrwacher and his regular cast mate Roberto Herlitzka for this tale based on the true tale of a 17th century noblewoman forced to become a nun, but whose free-spirited love affairs inside the convent lead to incarceration.

Title: Come il vento (Like The Wind) Director: Marco Simone Puccioni Starring: Valeria Golino, Filippo Timi, Francesco Scianna, Chiara Caselli, Marcello Mazzarella. A tragic biopic on Italian prison governor Armida Miserere, was presented Out of Competition at 2013’s Rome Film Festival: Come il vento (Like The Wind). The brave but fragile protagonist is embodied with sensitivity by Valeria Golino, under the guidance of the talented director Marco Simone Puccioni, who has a gift for directing actresses, as seen in his previous feature, ‘Shelter Me,’ which earned co-stars Maria de Medeiros and Antonia Liskova multiple kudos. Valeria Golino’s portrayal of the edgy, chain-smoking Armida, is utterly moving, but the film’s narration feels [ Read More ]

The post Come il vento (Like The Wind) Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Title: Un Castello in Italia (Un château en Italie/ A castle in Italy) Director: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi Starring: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Louis Garrel, Filippo Timi, Marisa Borini. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, is known to the general public for being the older sister of former French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, as well as being an established actress, screenwriter and director. In ‘Un Castello in Italia,’ Valeria delivers her third feature as director, and co-stars, next to her mother in real life and on stage, Marisa Borini, and her former long time partner, with whom she adopted an African baby girl, Louis Garrel, son of the famous director Philippe. ‘A Castle in Italy’ [ Read More ]

The post Un Castello in Italia (Un Château en Italie/ A Castle in Italy) Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

As the debate continue to rage about the place – or rather, the lack thereof – of female directors in Hollywood, the trend seems to be little different at the Croisette; in Cannes’ coveted In Competition bracket, of the 21 films screening, only a single one, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi‘s A Castle in Italy, is directed by a female. This has already earned it plenty of pre-buzz as a dark horse for the Palme D’Or, and while Bruni Tedeschi, who also stars in the leading role, may well be a top contender for the Best Actress award, the film itself is likely too milquetoast to catch the allure of jury head Steven Spielberg. Louise (Bruni Tedeschi) is a middle-aged actress who is taking some time out from acting to take care of herself, at which point the news arrives that the luxurious mansion she and the other family members maintain may have to be liquidated or sold on to...

Actor-turned-director Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi has given us probably the worst film of the Cannes competition so far: a smug, twee confection about a family losing their house

This is turning out to be a tricky Cannes competition for French film-makers. François Ozon's Jeune et Jolie was interestingly made, but Arnaud Desplechin's Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian was a baffling, cumbersome bore. And now performer-turned-director Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi has given us what may well turn out to be the most insidiously awful film in the entire festival: a strained jeu d'ésprit which is smug, precious, carelessly constructed, emotionally negligible, and above all fantastically annoying. It's a terrible waste of real acting talent, including that of Bruni-Tesdeschi. The director presumably intended gaiety and pathos. What she created was clunkingly misjudged strains of comedy and high drama — that is: individually misjudged and misjudged in their combination.

It's a truly baffling little...

Since he broke through in 2010 with the Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom, Aussie Joel Edgerton has been steadily forging a reputation as a captivating actor. From Academy Award-nominated follow-ups like Warrior and Zero Dark Thirty to more mainstream fare like Baz Luhrmann's flashy adaptation The Great Gatsby, Edgerton is gaining momentum. (I'd argue he's the best part of Gatsby, bringing a surprising depth and sex appeal to the mostly loathsome character Tom Buchanan.) Deadline reports he'll soon be stepping up to play a romantic lead opposite Michelle Williams in The Double Hour. A remake of an Italian psychological thriller starring Kseniya Rappoport and Filippo Timi, The Double Hour centers on a pair of lovers (Williams and Edgerton) who meet during a speed dating event. She's a maid; he's a former cop, and soon they are on their way to a romantic weekend in a country cottage. However, once they...

Joel Edgerton and Michelle Williams are set to headline a remake of the 2009 Italian thriller The Double Hour , Deadline reports. The original film, which received a domestic release in 2011, was directed by Giuseppe Capotondi and is officially described as follows: Guido (Filippo Timi), a former cop, is a luckless veteran of the speed-dating scene in Turin. But, much to his surprise, he meets Slovenian immigrant Sonia (Ludovica Rappoport), a chambermaid at a high-end hotel. The two hit it off, and a passionate romance develops. After they leave the city for a romantic getaway in the country, things suddenly take a dark turn. As Sonia's murky past resurfaces, her reality starts to crumble. Everything in her life begins to change.questions arise and answers only arrive through a...

Un chateau en Italie

Director: Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi

Writer(s): Bruni-Tedeschi, Noémie Lvovsky, Agnès de Sacy

Producer(s): Sbs Productions’ Saïd Ben Saïd

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Louis Garrel, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Xavier Beauvois, Filippo Timi, Marisa Borini, André Wilms

With well over fifty films under her belt, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi is obviously at ease working with fellow thesps. Her third trip behind and in front of the camera follows her It’s Easier for a Camel…, her 2003 debut was critically well received and then she followed that up with the Cannes winning Actresses (2007). No problems with the location nor the dual languages, this Euro dramedy sees her once again team with creative folk such as her hubby Louis Garrel on screen and she penned the project alongside actress/director/writer Noémie Lvovsky. This should resonate if it carries much of the same elements we loved the most...

La Doppia Ora is getting a remake! And what definitely sounds great at this moment is that Michelle Williams is reportedly in some serious talks to star as the female lead! So, what can I tell you guys, you better get ready for The Double Hour movie, ’cause Fox Searchlight is apparently quite serious about the whole thing & The Forgiveness of Blood helmer Joshua Marston is already on board to direct the remake!

Marston will direct The Double Hour from his own script, which will, according to the latest reports, center on an ex-cop and a hotel maid who fall in love after meeting at a speed-dating event. After they retreat to the ex-cop’s employer’s house for a romantic evening, they are ambushed by a gang that the maid later appears to be involved with.

At least that’s what the original movie was all about. In case...

Godzilla

Max Borenstein ("Art of the Steal") is set to re-write Gareth Edwards' planned remake of "Godzilla" at Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures.

David Goyer ("Batman Begins") previously worked on the script which will be more faithful than the 1998 remake to the original Japanese films about the city-destroying and monster-fighting giant lizard. [Source: Heat Vision]

The Double Hour

Joshua Marston ("The Forgiveness of Blood") is set to write and direct a remake of Giuseppe Capotondi's Italian thriller "The Double Hour". Roy Lee and Nicola Giuliano are producing.

The original followed a Slovenian hotel maid (Ksenia Rappoport) and an ex-cop (Filippo Timi) who fall in love after meeting at a speed-dating event. When they retreat to his employer's house in the Turin countryside, armed intruders shatter their romantic interlude and throw light on secrets from their pasts. [Source: Risky Biz Blog]

Asteroids

Evan Spiliotopoulos ("Snow White and the Huntsman") will pen a new draft of...

Giuseppe Capotondi.s Italian thriller The Double Hour, which played the 2009 Venice and Toronto International film festivals, starred Filippo Timi as an ex-cop who meets a beauty (Ksenia Rappoport) during a speed-dating session. But the duo encounters serious troubles when they retreat to a country cottage, and secrets from her dark past begin to surface. Samuel Goldwyn Films released the foreign film in the States, but it never made it beyond the art-house circuit, which means most reading this probably missed it. Never fear, however, as Hollywood plans a U.S. remake (which seems to be the industry.s favorite new trend). The Hollywood Reporter says that Joshua Marston, writer/director of the indie drug drama Maria Full of Grace, will pen a treatment for a Double Hour remake, which Roy Lee and Nicola Giuliano will produce. The trade offers very few details beyond the announcement that the project.s...

[Editor's Note: Manolis has been reporting for The Film Experience and the Greek site Cinema News. We thank him for that. You can read all the Venice reports here. - Nathaniel R]

Emile Hirsch worshipping at Venice's red carpet

This is my last report from Venice which I'm writing from Athens. During my last two festival days I caught five films ranging from great surprises to total mediocrities.

Quando La Notte

This little Italian romantic drama about a troubled young mother and a mountaineer would have benefited immensely by trimming 15 minutes from its running time. The last reel or so of the film is totally unnecessary and unfortunately shows of Cristina Comencini’s weaknesses as both screenwriter and director. The two stars, Filippo Timi and Claudia Pandolfi give very good performances, but they weren't enough to save the film from the Italian critics who just massacred it. Interesting subject matter, mediocre film.

The Exchange

The Israeli film within the Competition section started off nicely. Eran Kolirin's follow up to the much praised The Band's Visit watches an everyman watching his life...

Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, The Ides of March Tomas Alfredson – Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy UK, Germany, 127' Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt Andrea Arnold – Wuthering Heights UK, 128' Kaya Scodelario, Nichola Burley, Steve Evets, Oliver Milburn Ami Canaan Mann – Texas Killing Fields USA, 109' Sam Worthington, Jessica Chastain, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jeffrey Dean Morgan George Clooney – The Ides Of March [Opening Film] USA, 98' Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood Cristina Comencini – Quando La Notte Italy, 116' Claudia Pandolfi, Filippo Timi, Michela Cescon, Thomas Trabacchi Emanuele Crialese – Terraferma Italy, France, 88' Filippo Pucillo, Donatella Finocchiaro, Giuseppe Fiorello, Claudio Santamaria David Cronenberg – A Dangerous Method Germany, Canada, 99' Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Vincent Cassel Abel Ferrara – 4:44 Last Day On Earth USA, 82' Willem Dafoe, Shanyn Leigh, Paz de la Huerta, Natasha Lyonne William Friedkin – Killer Joe USA, 103' Matthew McConaughey,...

As with the 2009 original, the basic model for The Hangover Part II isn’t the Ferrell-Sandler-Carrell-Vaughn comedies but the noir quicksands of Maté’s D.O.A. and Nolan’s Memento, where dying or amnesic protagonists scramble to decipher the vortexes they’re in. The first film remained fairly repellent in its view of frat-house regression unquestioningly papered over with massive smirks, so it’s a nifty surprise to see Todd Phillips’s sequel willing to smear a dash of grime on the original’s outlandish morning-after routines even as it virtually recreates them. As the action shifts from Las Vegas to Bangkok and their dazed characters experience severed body parts and invaded orifices, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis amp up their screen personas—Alpha douchebag, elongated nervous Nellie and Zen Lou Costello, respectively—to an interestingly unpleasant degree, positing a stark comic version of the Hostel films...

The Double Hour

Directed by Giuseppe Capotondi

Italy, 2009

Equal parts Under the Sand, Tell No One and Femme Fatale, The Double Hour is a genre-hybrid that starts off with a roar, wriggles its way through a slippery second act, and steps in a few potholes on its way to satisfying if muted conclusion.

Guido (Filippo Timi) is a taciturn security guard and a veteran of Italy’s speed-dating scene. Sonia (Kseniya Rappoport) is a taciturn maid making her first foray into the blind dating pool. He’s an ex-cop; she has an unspoken criminal background. True love seems to be peeking around the corner until a robbery leaves Guido dead and Sonia with the fragment of a bullet in her head. Soon Sonia starts seeing Guido everywhere – on security cameras at work, in her apartment, on the street.

To make matters worse a creepy hotel resident, Bruno (Fausto Russo Alesi), takes a liking to her,...

The Double Hour is a well-crafted thriller from Italy, holding our attention, while often keeping us guessing as we get plunged into the cold. The exhilarating second act of the film is the equivalent of waking up in a bathtub full of ice with your kidney missing. To say that nothing is what it seems assumes you are looking for the truth. The Double Hour is as temporarily deceptive as its title implies.

Sonia (Kseniya Rappoport) is a Slovenian immigrant who works as a chambermaid at the type of hotel Dominique Strauss-Kahn would stay at. After witnessing a suicide, she takes to the speed-dating scene (this is precisely what I mean about the rapid transitions that plunge us in cold). While at an event she meets Guido (Filippo Timi), a former police officer who is a star in the speed-dating scene. In ritual he takes women home and refuses to give them his number.

Heartbeats (15)

(Xavier Dolan, 2010, Can) Xavier Dolan, Monia Chokri, Niels Schnieder, Anne Dorval. 101 mins.

He's young (22), talented, he directs, writes, produces and acts: don't you hate Xavier Dolan already? Those green with envy will find plenty to object to about the French-Canadian's second movie, not least the fact that it's rather good. It's a love triangle for our times: at its apex a charming Adonis who becomes the covert object of desire for two friends, a guy and a girl. Like its characters, it's not quite as sophisticated as it wants to be, but it's honest, accomplished and recklessly romantic.

The Hangover Part II (15)

(Todd Phillips, 2011, Us) Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms. 102 mins.

The location is different (Bangkok – or at least the movie version) but this sequel to the hit amnesiac prenuptial buddy comedy takes no risks with formula or cast (even Mr Chow is back). The adult humour, though,...