News

Bei Paramount+ gibt es demnächst eine „Zorro“-Serie mit dem französischen Superstar Jean Dujardin in der Hauptrolle. Hier kommt schon der erste Teaser-Trailer, der durchaus schönes „Oss 117″-Flair andeutet.

Paramount+ enthüllt den Teaser-Trailer für die neue, mit Spannung erwartete Serie „Zorro“ mit Oscar-Preisträger Jean Dujardin („The Artist“) in der Hauptrolle. Die Serie wird im Laufe dieses Jahres auf Paramount+ Premiere feiern.

Zur Handlung: Im Jahr 1821 wird Don Diego de la Vega Bürgermeister von Los Angeles, um die Stadt zu modernisieren. Doch Los Angeles gerät durch die Geldgier des örtlichen Geschäftsmannes Don Emmanuel in finanzielle Schwierigkeiten und Diegos Macht als Bürgermeister reicht nicht aus, um diese Missstände zu bekämpfen. Doch Diego lebt ein Doppelleben: Als Zorro hat er seine Identität seit 20 Jahren nicht mehr genutzt; aber nun hat er keine andere Wahl: Zum Wohle der Allgemeinheit muss er als Zorro zurückzukehren. Allerdings hat er Schwierigkeiten, seine doppelte Identität als Zorro und als Bürgermeister zu vereinbaren,...

Italian state broadcaster Rai’s new world sales arm is gaining traction in Cannes — following its soft launch in Berlin — with four new titles on its slate, including veteran auteur Roberto Andò’s historical drama “The Blunder” starring Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”).

In “The Blunder,” which is currently shooting in Sicily, Servillo plays a Sicilian colonel at the head of a ragtag unit trying to outsmart the enemy during the 1860 battle led by Giuseppe Garibaldi that resulted in the unification of Italy.

“The Blunder,” which also stars popular Sicilian comic duo Salvatore Ficarra and Valentino Picone, is produced by Tramp Limited and Bibi Film with Rai Cinema and Medusa, in collaboration with Netflix.

Other titles added during Cannes on the Rai Cinema International Distribution slate include – as previously announced – “Of Dogs and Men,” the upcoming drama by Israeli director Dani Rosenberg (“The Death of Cinema and My Father Too...

Paramount+ and France Télévisions have confirmed their pact on upcoming, working-titled series Zorro starring Oscar-winning actor Jean Dujardin as the iconic masked vigilante.

The partners revealed a first image of The Artist actor Dujardin in the role in a release and said the show will launch later this year on Paramount+ before being broadcast on France Télévisions.

Paramount+ has also acquired rights for the UK, Italy, Germany and Latin America. France tv distribution is handling sales for all other territories.

News of Dujardin’s and Paramount+’s involvement in the show broke in the French media late last year but today’s release was the partners’ first official confirmation of their co-production and distribution deal.

The new show is set in 1821 and sees Don Diego de la Vega/Zorro become mayor of Los Angeles to improve his beloved city.

However, the city is facing financial trouble due to a local...

Paramount+ has boarded “Zorro” (working title), an adventure comedy series starring Jean Dujardin, the Oscar-winning actor of “The Artist,” as the iconic character of Diego de la Vega.

Created by Benjamin Charbit (“Gagarine”) and Noé Debré (“Dheepan”), the anticipated show was bought by Paramount+ for France, the U.K., Italy, Germany and Latin America.

In the eight-part series, Dujardin stars opposite well-known Italian comedian Salvatore Ficarra, and French actors, including Audrey Dana, André Dussollier, Eric Elmosnino and Grégory Gadebois. The show will premiere on Paramount+ before rolling out on the pubcaster France Télévisions.

The series unfolds in 1821 as Don Diego de la Vega becomes mayor of Los Angeles and has to face off a corrupt businessman, Don Emmanuel.

Marc Dujardin’s Le Collectif 64 and Julien Seul at Bien Sûr Productions are producing the series which is penned by Charbit, Debré and Emmanuel Poulain-Arnaud (“Le Test”). It’s directed by Jean-Baptiste Saurel...

Italy’s Taormina Film Festival kicks off its 69th edition Friday evening against the backdrop of its landmark Teatro Antico amphitheatre with a “Pavarotti Forever” benefit event headlined by Placido Domingo and Vittorio Grigolo.

It’s not the typical opening for a film festival, but it is in keeping with the eclectic programming of incoming artistic director Barrett Wissman, whose interview with Deadline on his plans for the festival can be read here.

Much is riding on the edition, with Wissman being brought in to raise its local and international profile after a turbulent decade, which was compounded by the Covid pandemic.

Topping the bill over the first weekend is the Italian premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny in the presence of Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Mads Mikkelsen. It’s the first time a major Disney production has touched down at the festival since Inside Out in 2015. Indiana Jones,...

Roberto Andò with Anne-Katrin Titze: “I am rehearsing a new play in Naples. It’s a play by Colm Tóibín.”

Toni Servillo (star of Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning The Great Beauty) plays Luigi Pirandello (winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize for literature) in Roberto Andò’s enchanted Strangeness, which is as gracefully far away from a biopic as it gets. The two men the famous author incognito encounters, both undertakers and madly involved in local theatre, are played by the popular Italian comedy team Ficarra e Picone (Salvatore Ficarra as Sebastiano Vella and Valentino Picone as Onofrio Principato).

Luigi Pirandello (Toni Servillo) with Sebastiano Vella (Salvatore Ficarra) and Onofrio Principato (Valentino Picone) in Roberto Andò’s Strangeness

I first met Roberto Andò the morning before Long Live Freedom (Viva La Libertà), starring Toni Servillo, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Valerio Mastandrea was screened at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Cinecittà...

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,...

Framed! A Sicilian Murder Mystery (Incastrati) is an Italian series directed by and starring Salvatore Ficarra and Valentino Picone.

Framed! A Sicilian Murder Mystery begins its second season with this seventies tone and with these characters that are far-removed from Hollywood clichés. A different sense of humor, local, but certainly refreshing and charming, very tender.

About the Series

If you haven’t seen it, give it a fair chance because the series has a special touch, very Italian, a very made-for-tv style, and with a great sense of cinematic irony.

A retro series that finds its rhythm in this story where everything is mixed together and where almost anything goes to entertain us for a while.

A series that achieves what it sets out to do: to take us back in time, in situations, characters, setting and photographic style.

It doesn’t aim to do absolutely anything else.

It’s like going back and,...

Italian sales company True Colours has taken international distribution rights to Roberto Andò’s “La Stranezza” (“Strangeness”), toplining Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”) as the Nobel-prize-winning playwright Luigi Pirandello.

This tragicomic period piece about how Pirandello found inspiration to write his masterpiece “Six Characters in Search of an Author” will launch from the Rome Film Festival and concurrently have its market premiere at the Eternal City’s upcoming Mia Market, which runs Oct. 11-15.

Starring alongside Servillo are popular Sicilian comedy duo Salvo Ficarra and Valentino Picone, who are known in Italy as Ficarra and Picone.

“Strangeness” is set in 1921, the year when Pirandello returned to Sicily for the 80th birthday of his mentor, famous novelist and playwright Giovanni Verga.

Upon arriving in the city of Agrigento, the playwright becomes captured by a world populated by strange personalities, ghostly visions, distant memories and melancholy apparitions, all of which inspire him to write “Six Characters,...

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar continued its dominance at the Italian box office, holding onto its top spot for the second week in a row. The sci-fi epic took in $4.2 million from 511,325 admissions. Andiamo a quel paese from Medusa Films held on to the number two position with $3.34 million. The Italian comedy premiered at the Rome Film Festival in September and has proven to be a hit with local audiences. Directed by and starring two comedians from Palermo, Salvatore Ficarra and Valentino Picone, the film follows two unemployed men who set up a sting operation

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Name and focus changes for every section, which are now all competitive, resulting in the festival’s structure being “slimmer’.

The ninth Rome Film Festival (Oct 16-25) has revealed a diverse line-up including the Italian premieres for potential awards contenders including David Fincher’s Gone Girl. the world premiere of Takashi Miike’s As the Gods Will and Burhan Qurbani’s We are Young, We are Strong and European premiere of Oren Moverman’s Time Out of Mind, Toronto hit Still Alice and Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet.

This year for the first time the award-winners in each section of the programme will be decided by the audience on the basis of votes cast after the screenings.

Each section has changed name and focus for 2014 and are all competitive, resulting in the festival’s structure being “slimmer’.

Italian comedies Soap Opera and Andiamo a Quel Paese bookend the line-up.

Full line-up

Cinema D’Oggi

World premiere

• Angely...

The 71st Venice Film Festival announced its lineup this morning, highlighted by films from American directors, including David Gordon Green, Barry Levinson, Peter Bogdanovich, Lisa Cholodenko, Andrew Niccol, and James Franco. As had been previously announced, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, starring Michael Keaton and many others, will be the opening film when the festival begins on Aug. 27.

Click below for the entire list of 55 films playing in Venice.

Competition

The Cut, directed by Fatih Akin

Starring Tahar Rahim, Akin Gazi, Simon Abkarian, George Georgiou

A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence, directed by Roy Andersson

Starring Holger Andersson,...