News

“Very beautiful and very challenging.” Those are the first two words that director Stefano Sollima uses to describe his upcoming, four-part Netflix crime series Il Mostro, which has just finished filming. Created by Leonardo Fasoli and Sollima (who also co-produced with Lorenzo Mieli), and produced by The Apartment — a Fremantle company — and AlterEgo Productions, this is a series that has faced titanic challenges. Sollima is no stranger to the crime genre, having directed the so-called Romanzo Criminale (criminal Rome trilogy) — Acab (All Cops Are Bastards), Suburra and Adagio — as well as Soldado the 2018 sequel to Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario, and Senza Rimorso (Without Remorse), the 2021 thriller co-written by Taylor Sheridan and based on the book by Tom Clancy. This is all in addition to being the showrunner on the seminal Italian crime series Gomorra and ZeroZeroZero, his ambitious series based on Roberto Saviano’s book about the international drug trade.

“Suburræterna” is a series directed by Ciro D’Emilio and Alessandro Tonda. It stars Giacomo Ferrara, Filippo Nigro, and Carlotta Antonelli. It is based on the novel by Carlo Bonini and Giancarlo De Cataldo.

Sequel to “Suburra: Blood on Rome”, this series takes us to Ostia, where several criminal organizations vie for control of the city of Rome. The series explores all levels of corruption, from the lowest criminals to the world of politics, in a city where little seems to have changed since the Roman Empire.

Suburræterna Series Review

If “Suburra: Blood on Rome” was a major success, this sequel undoubtedly draws from the narrative elements that made the first season so popular: an intrigue that reflects corruption at all levels, and with a touch of Shakespeare and a lot of corruption from the Roman Empire, it provides us with an incredibly entertaining continuation.

Many of the main characters return,...

Sky Studios is developing prequels to “Gomorrah” and “Crime Novel,” the two widely exported Sky Italia original crime series that are considered Italian TV milestones.

News that Sky and ITV-owned production company Cattleya are looking to reboot these two shows with origin stories was announced as Sky Italia celebrates its 20th anniversary with a big bash in Rome.

Sky Italia first ventured into Italian TV production in 2008 with “Romanzo Criminale,” as “Crime Novel” is known in Italian, which is centered around a real Roman heroin-dealing gang. Besides being a hit in Italy, the story also traveled widely. “Gomorrah” (pictured above), which is based on Roberto Saviano’s bestselling Neapolitan mob exposé, launched in 2014. From the outset, this gritty show brought audiences inside the belly of the real Neapolitan criminal underworld, thanks in part to being shot almost entirely in the actual places it portrays. Besides attaining megahit status in Italy,...

Sky Studios is developing prequel series to Gomorrah and Romanzo Criminale.

The pair of shows are widely regarded to be two of the most successful Italian TV series of all time.

Inspired by Roberto Saviano’s bestseller, the untitled Gomorrah prequel from ITV Studios-backed Cattleya will spotlight the criminal rise of boss Pietro Savastano, from when he was a kid on the streets to becoming the most important and ruthless boss in Naples. Leonardo Fasoli and Maddalena Ravagli will once again work on the screenplay.

Gomorrah ran for five seasons on Sky between 2014 and 2021, totalling 58 episodes, while a 2008 film of the same name was loosely based on the book. The TV show starred the likes of Marco D’Amore, Salvatore Esposito and Fortunato Cerlino.

Meanwhile, Romanzo Criminale – La serie will focus on the years before the rise of the Banda della Magliana criminal organization, as recounted in the two seasons of the original series,...

Exclusive: Emmy winner Tom Fontana is set to write and Oscar and Emmy winner Oliver Stone is set to direct the pilot of Dolce Vita, a period drama series set in 1950s Rome, for Entertainment One and Italian-based Mediaset Group and Martha De Laurentiis’ De Laurentiis Company.

Created and written by Fornata, Dolce Vita is inspired by Stephen Gundle’s 2011 novel Death and Dolce Vita: The Dark Side of Rome in the 1950s, for which eOne acquired the television rights. The true crime novel investigates the murder scandal that rocked Italy and portrays the Rome of romance, luxury, and glamour–as well as a city of carnal crimes, sex, drugs, corruption, and cover-ups.

The series is not related to Federico Fellini’s acclaimed 1960s feature La Dolce Vita, which explored the same decade in Rome from a very different perspective.

Stone is set to helm the pilot in his narrative TV series directing debut.

If there isn’t enough political scandal happening right here at home for you, then perhaps you’ll want to check out “Suburra,” Netflix’s first Italian original series from the same production company behind “Gomorrah.” Based on Giancarlo De Cataldo and Carlo Bonini’s novel and the Netflix film of the same name about a real scandal that emerged recently in Rome, “Suburra” continues the story of the corrupt forces in the Italian capital and the battle over a seaside town developed into a gambling paradise.

Continue reading ‘Suburra’ Trailer & Clips: Corruption Is Everywhere In Netflix’s First Italian Original Series at The Playlist.

The strand will be bookended by Alice Lowe’s Prevenge and Xander Robin’s Are We Not Cats [pictured].Scroll down for line-up

The Venice International Film Festival’s (Aug 31 - Sept 10) 2016 Critics’ Week line-up has been revealed.

The independent section of the festival – dedicated to features from debut directors – includes seven titles from five continents.

Opening the strand with be UK director Alice Lowe’s Prevenge (out of competition), which stars Lowe as a pregnant woman on a killing spree and will have its world premiere at the festival.

Lowe was co-writer and co-star of Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers. The film is a Western Edge Pictures/Gennaker production and was shot in Wales last year.

Closing will be Xander Robin’s Are We Not Cats, which was one of three genre titles to screen as a work-in-progress at the Cannes Marche this year as part of an inaugural partnership between genre market Frontières and the Cannes Film Festival...

Ahead of its official lineup being released last week (and amid rumors of what said lineup will consist of), the Venice Film Festival has announced the filmmakers and actors who will be on jury duty beginning late next month. Laurie Anderson, Gemma Arterton, Giancarlo De Cataldo, Nina Hoss, Chiara Mastroianni, Joshua Oppenheimer, Lorenzo Vigas and Zhao Wei will be heading the Competition jury alongside Sam Mendes, who’s serving as president this year.

Read More: Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Arrival’ and Tom Ford’s ‘Nocturnal Animals’ Are ‘Virtually Assured’ to Premiere at the Venice Film Festival

Heading the Orizzonti section, meanwhile, is French director Robert Guédiguian. He’ll be joined by J. Hoberman, Nelly Karim, Valentina Lodovini, Moon So-ri, José Maria (Chema) Prado and Chaitanya Tamhane. Kim Rossi Stuart is leading the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film — Lion of the Future jury with Rosa Bosch, Brady Corbet,...

Round-up of key drama deals struck at Mipcom, which is going ahead despite deadly storms.

Mipcom 2015 (Oct 5-8) is going ahead despite a severe storm causing major flooding in the Cannes area.

The storms struck the south of France on Saturday night, causing widespread flooding across the country and leaving 16 people dead.

At Mipcom, the opening night red carpet was cancelled due to the weather but the rest of the market will go on as planned, organisers said.

Despite the incelement weather deals high-end drama remains in high-demand. Below is a round-up of key deals:

The Last Panthers

SundanceTV has acquired Us broadcasting rights to The Last Panthers, the six-hour crime drama that was the opening night screening at this year’s Mipcom, with a plan to air in spring.

Starring Samantha Morton, Tahar Rahim, Goran Bogdan and John Hurt, the programme was commissioned by the UK’s Sky Atlantic and France’s Canal Plus. Studiocanal and Sky...

Round-up of key television deals struck at Mipcom.

Mipcom 2015, the TV market currently being held in Cannes (Oct 5-8), is going ahead despite a severe storm causing major flooding in the area.

The storms struck the South of France on Saturday night, causing widespread flooding across the country and leaving 16 people dead.

At Mipcom, the opening night red carpet was cancelled due to the weather but the rest of the festival will go on as planned, the organisers said.

Below is a round-up of key deals inked at the festival to date:

The Last Panthers

SundanceTV have acquired Us broadcasting rights to The Last Panthers, the six-hour crime drama that was the opening night screening at this year’s Mipcom, with a plan to air in spring. Starring Samantha Morton, Tahar Rahim, Goran Bogdan and John Hurt, the programme was commissioned by the UK’s Sky Atlantic and France’s Canal Plus. Studiocanal and Sky...

Exclusive: Film to market premiere at Toronto.

Paris-based Indie Sales has secured sales on Stefano Sollima’s Rome-set organised crime thriller Suburra.

The film has sold to Benelux (Lumiere), Germany and Austria (Koch Films) and Switzerland (Praesens Films).

Sollima previously directed most of the episodes of hit TV series Gomorrah, which sold to more than 100 territories including the Us, where it was acquired by The Weinstein Company.

Other credits include the 2012 film A.C.A.B., about a squad of riot police in Rome, and TV series Romanzo Criminale.

Indie Sales, which will market premiere the high-octane Suburra at a private screening today (Sept 12), is also reporting strong interest from Australia and the UK.

“Stefano Sollima is an amazing director and the actors are great” said Indie Sales chief Nicolas Eschbach.

The film is based on a novel of the same name by Giancarlo De Cataldo and Carlo Bonini, painting a nebulous web of corruption interlinking politicians, the Vatican...

Sky Arts has announced that it will air the critically acclaimed Italian drama Romanzo Criminale. The series, which is set in 1970s Rome, focuses on the beginnings of the modern Mafia and the various gangs and criminals working in the Italian capital at the time. The drama follows a character known as The Lebanese, who hopes to become one of the top criminals in the city. He gets involved with a number of brutal crimes and begins working with corrupt officials. Meanwhile, young police officer Nicola Scialoja - who has avoided corruption - is hoping to stop the criminal activity on the streets of Rome. Sky Arts promised that the drama will feature murders, kidnappings, a bombing, drugs and gambling. Romanzo Criminale, which means "crime novel" in English, is based on a novel by Italian judge Giancarlo De Cataldo. (more)...

The Rome Film Festival, which runs Oct. 28-Nov. 5, will pay tribute to Ugo Tognazzi on the 20th anniversary of his death with the world premiere of "Ritratto di mio padre" (Portrait of My Father), a documentary by his daughter Maria Sole Tognazzi.

In addition, every film in competition in the fest's various sections will be preceded by a montage of Tognazzi's greatest performances spanning his entire career.

 

The fest will also screen the actor's son Ricky Tognazzi's new film "Il padre e lo strainer," based on the novel of the same name by Giancarlo De Cataldo and starring Alessandro Gassman and Ksenia Rappoport.

Rome -- The Rome International Film Festival said Thursday it would honor the late director and actor Ugo Tognazzi at its next edition, with a tribute that will include the premiere of "Il padre e lo straniero" ("The Father and the Foreigner"), directed by Tognazzi's son Ricky Tognazzi.

The film, based on a novel from Giancarlo de Cataldo, stars Alessandro Gasman and Ksenia Rappoport in the lead roles.

The homage will take place on the 20th anniversary of the death of the elder Tognazzi, who the festival referred to as one of the "leading Italian actors of the 20th century."

In a prolific 40-year career, Tognazzi was featured in more than 150 films and television dramas. He is best known for winning the Best Actor prize in Cannes in 1981 for the title role in "La tragedia di un uomo ridicolo" ("The Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man"), and for his 1967 Golden Globe...

BERLIN -- This Italian gangster movie is based on a novel titled "Crime Novel" (Romanzo Criminale). So why not call this "Crime Movie"? Because even though the story reputedly portrays a real gang of street punks that did rise to some power in Rome from 1977-92, the movie feels totally generic. We've seen all these moves before -- all these massacres, betrayals, drug deals and double crosses, the intrepid police inspector, great whore, merciless leader and the falling out among gang members once delusions of grandeur or grasps at respectability go to their tiny brains.

Truth be told, when moviemakers go up against Coppola or Scorsese, they need charismatic characters and a wicked story line. Alas, Michele Placido and writers Giancarlo De Cataldo, Stefano Rulli and Sandro Petraglia, adapting De Cataldo's novel, are stuck with cruel characters and crude action that provoke little excitement.

Warner Bros. Pictures is one of the producers of "Crime Novel", but there probably isn't too much domestic coin to be made from the film. It should do well in action markets and could turn up at a festival here or there.

On the plus side, Placido does give audiences juicy action and superficial though lively characters. He even has an eye for tourist sights. A clandestine meeting takes place in front of the ancient Forum. A girl brings her gangster date to an old church to admire its Caravaggio. A guy gets knifed to death on the Spanish Steps. You half expect a bloody body to get dumped into the Trevi Fountain.

These gangsters come from the streets and never really clean up their act. As kids, they joyride in a stolen car through a police blockade and over a cop, an act that lands several in prison. They emerge as hardened criminals, each with his own criminal moniker.

Lebanese (a scruffy-bearded Pierfrancesco Favino) is the natural born leader, uncompromising in his brutality but untutored in the subtleties of dealing with Mafia dons, terrorists or the Secret Service. Ice (handsome Kim Rossi Stuart) actually has smoothness, as he comes from wealth. He eventually tires of the whole criminal experience, perhaps because of his love for Roberta (beautiful Jasmine Trinca), an innocent art lover unaware of her boyfriend's occupation.

Dandy (the equally handsome Claudio Santamaria) also longs to be "normal," but that doesn't mean dropping Rome's greatest prostitute, Patrizia (sultry Anna Mouglalis), as his lover. He even sets her up with her own luxury bordello.

The police are absorbed in a battle with homegrown terrorists during this time, so it falls to Capt. Scialoja (Stefano Accorsi) to dog the gang's every step for years. In doing so, he forms an ambiguous relationship with Patrizia; indeed he may be her only lover to actually love her.

The film interweaves the gang's activities with major events in recent Italian history, especially the Red Brigade terror. The film hints that the gang may have crossed over into working with terrorists, but this is never completely clear.

Eventually, the endless killings and emotional face-offs between the gang members as they predictably fall out become numbingly repetitive. So muddled is the action that one can be excused for missing a plot point or misidentifying a character.

Luca Bigazzi's camera is fluid and alive to the action. Nicoletta Taranta's stylish period costumes and Paola Comencini's sets are magazine-quality. A score of pop hits of the era and Paolo Buonvino's lush, ominous music put plenty of flavors into these Roman rumblings. But as one Mafia don says, there have been too many killings by this rudderless gang and " 'too much' is the enemy of fairness." That is an apt criticism of this movie, too.

CRIME NOVEL

Cattleya/Warner Bros. Pictures

Credits:

Director: Michele Placido

Screenwriters: Stefano Rulli, Sandro Petraglia, Giancarlo De Cataldo

Based on the novel by: Giancarlo De Cataldo

Producers: Riccardo Tozzi, Giovanni Stabilini, Marco Chimenz

Director of photography: Luca Bigazzi

Production designer: Paola Comencini

Music: Paolo Buonvino

Costumes: Nicoletta Taranta

Editor: Esmeralda Calabria

Cast:

Ice: Kim Rossi Stuart

Patrizia: Anna Mouglalis

Lebanese: Pierfrancesco Favino

Dandy: Claudio Santamaria

Scialoja: Stefano Accorsi

Black: Riccardo Scamarcio

Roberta: Jasmine Trinca

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 153 minutes...