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Exclusive: A biopic devoted to legendary Italian Rome, Open City and The Rose Tattoo actress Anna Magnani is in development at Indiana Production, the Milan and Rome-based company behind Netflix’s upcoming period drama The Leopard.

Entitled Anna, the production will be directed by Alessio Cremonini (On My Skin), who is also co-writing the screenplay with actress Olivia Magnani, grand-daughter of the late actress and daughter of her only son Luca Magnani.

The feature will focus on Magnani in a pivotal period of her life between the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the actress’s son was coming of age and she was embracing a new role as a mother in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1962 drama Mamma Roma.

Filming for Anna is scheduled to begin in 2025, with casting in the early stages for the role of Magnani and the many other famous figures from Italy’s film and artistic...

Pierfrancesco Favino as submarine Commander Salvatore Todaro in Edoardo De Angelis’s intense and humanistic Comandante

Edoardo De Angelis’s Comandante, starring Pierfrancesco Favino, was the Opening Night selection of the 23rd edition of Cinecittà and Film at Lincoln Center’s exceptional program, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema in New York. Other highlights included Ginevra Elkann’s I Told You So; Giorgio Diritti’s Lubo (Franz Rogowski); Roberta Torre’s In the Mirror (Mi Fanno Male I Capelli with Alba Rohrwacher mirroring Monica Vitti); Piero Messina’s Another End; Stefano Sollima’s Adagio; Laura Luchetti’s The Beautiful Summer; Nanni Moretti’s A Brighter Tomorrow (Il Sol Dell’Avvenire with Nanni, Margherita Buy,...

Pierfrancesco Favino as submarine Commander Salvatore Todaro in Edoardo De Angelis’s intense and humanistic Comandante

Edoardo De Angelis’s Comandante, starring Pierfrancesco Favino, was the Opening Night selection of the 23rd edition of Cinecittà and Film at Lincoln Center’s exceptional program, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema in New York. Other highlights included Ginevra Elkann’s I Told You So; Giorgio Diritti’s Lubo (Franz Rogowski); Roberta Torre’s In the Mirror (Mi Fanno Male I Capelli with Alba Rohrwacher mirroring Monica Vitti); Piero Messina’s Another End; Stefano Sollima’s Adagio; Laura Luchetti’s The Beautiful Summer; Nanni Moretti’s A Brighter Tomorrow (Il Sol Dell’Avvenire with Nanni, Margherita Buy,...

Edoardo De Angelis’s The War Machine (Comandante), starring the commanding Pierfrancesco Favino, opened the 23rd edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema in New York and the Venice Film Festival. Photo: courtesy of Cinecittà

Edoardo De Angelis’s The War Machine; Roberta Torre’s In the Mirror (Mi Fanno Male I Capelli with Alba Rohrwacher mirroring Monica Vitti); Piero Messina’s Another End; Stefano Sollima’s Adagio; Laura Luchetti’s The Beautiful Summer; Nanni Moretti’s A Brighter Tomorrow; Paola Cortellesi’s There’s Still Tomorrow; Alain Parroni’s An Endless Sunday; Ginevra Elkann’s I Told You So; Giorgio Diritti’s Lubo...

Italy’s True Colours has unveiled a raft of sales on its slate including a US deal for Laura Luchetti’s The Beautiful Summer and a UK and Ireland acquisition of Edoardo de Angelis’ Venice opener Comandante.

Film Movement has taken North American rights to 1938-set romance drama The Beautiful Summer, which world premiered last year in the Piazza Grande at the Locarno Film Festival. The film has also sold to Scene and Sound for South Korea and Zeta Film for Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, adding to previously announced international deals last year.

Meanwhile, Bulldog Film Distribution has taken...

Matteo Garrone’s Oscar-nominated drama Io Capitano triumphed in Italy’s David di Donatello film awards on Friday evening, winning best film and best director.

The film about the trials and tribulations of two Senegalese teenagers as they try to make it to Europe via the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean Sea, also won best producer for companies Archimede, Rai cinema, Pathé and Tarantula as well as best sound, special effects, cinematography and editing.

Io Capitano premiered at the Venice Film Festival last September, where it won best director for Garrone and the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor for Seydou Sarr.

The movie went on to enjoy a buzzy awards season, securing a Golden Globe nomination for best non-English language film and an Academy Award nomination for best international film.

“This film tells the stories of those who are not listened to,” said Garrone, on receiving the best director award.

The champagne may be flowing at the kickoff for the 27th Annual Sonoma International Film Festival – for more reasons than one.

This year’s event in California’s wine country will open with the U.S. premiere of Widow Clicquot, directed by Thomas Napper, a narrative feature about the Grande Dame of Champagne. Actress Haley Bennett stars in the titular role of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot, “who against all odds advanced her late husband’s techniques to create the recipe for modern-day champagne.”

Siff, running from March 20-24, will showcase 43 narrative features, 16 documentary features, and 48 short films representing more than 25 countries, according to a release.

Maya Hawke in ‘Wildcat’

The festival’s Centerpiece Film is Wildcat, directed by Ethan Hawke and starring his daughter Maya Hawke as renowned Southern Gothic author Flannery O’Connor. The Closing Night Film is Luc Besson’s crime drama Dogman, starring Caleb Landry Jones. A Closing Night...

Last Feb. 14, actress Valentina Bellè walked the red carpet at the Critics Choice Awards for The Good Mothers, the Disney+ series directed by Julian Jarrold and Elisa Amoruso that was nominated for best foreign series after bowing last year in Berlin, where it won the fest’s first Berlinale Series Award. And it is to Berlin that the 31-year-old Bellè will return this year, chosen as the Italian face of European Shooting Stars, an annual award given to up-and-coming talent.

“I am extremely honored,” Bellè says. “I can’t wait to meet my wonderful colleagues from all over Europe, all these incredible talents. And I can’t wait to be in Berlin to exchange ideas and experiences. And to find out where it all started for them.”

Her beginning took place on the stage of her elementary school’s theater. “A confined space in which to abandon the idea of yourself for a while,...

The Skip City International D-Cinema Festival 2024 will celebrate its 21st edition from July 13th (Sat) to 21st (Sun), 2024 for 9 days at Skip City, which is an integrated institution for digital cinema production.

(See: https://www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en/)

Submission period: January 31st, 2024 (Wed) – March 1st, 2024 (Fri)

Skip City International D-Cinema Festival remains committed to discovering and nurturing new talent, with the aim of helping these filmmakers seize new business opportunities that have arisen in the changing landscape of the film industry. Now calling for works (60 min. or longer) that have been shot digitally and must be the director's 1st, 2nd, or 3rd feature film from all over the world for the International Competition section.

Call for entries for the International Competition!!

Entry Deadline: Must be received by March 1st, 2024 (Fri)

Submit via FilmFreeway

https://filmfreeway.com/Skipcityinternationald-CinemaFESTIVAL (Online registration / Free)

All nominated films in competition categories are eligible for the Festival Organizers awards.

Toni Servillo, who played Roman socialite Jep Gambardella in Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning “The Great Beauty,” will star in a drama about Cosa Nostra boss Matteo Messina Denaro, dubbed “the last godfather” directed by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza (“Sicilian Ghost Story”).

Also starring in the hotly-anticipated drama titled “Iddu” – which means “Him” in Sicilian dialect – is Italian A-list actor Elio Germano, winner of a Cannes best actor prize for Daniele Luchetti’s “Our Life” in 2010 and more recently of Italy’s 2021 David di Donatello Award for Giorgio Diritti’s “Hidden Away.”

The roles respectively being played by Servillo and Elio Germano are being kept under wraps.

After being on the run for three decades, Messina Denaro was arrested in mid-January 2023 outside an upscale medical facility in Palermo, where he had been undergoing cancer treatment for a year under false identity. The top mafioso, convicted of masterminding some of Italy...

European Film Promotion has revealed the 10 emerging actors who will take part in the 27th edition of European Shooting Stars program, which promotes European acting talent. Past Shooting Stars have included Carey Mulligan, Alicia Vikander, Maisie Williams and Riz Ahmed.

From Feb. 16-19, the actors will be presented to the international press and industry, and the German public at the Berlin Film Festival. One of the highlights will be the Shooting Stars Awards Ceremony on Feb. 19 at the Berlinale Palast.

The Shooting Stars for 2024 are Belgium’s Thibaud Dooms, Bulgaria’s Margarita Stoykova, France’s Suzy Bemba, Georgia’s Salome Demuria, Germany’s Katharina Stark, Ireland’s Éanna Hardwicke, Italy’s Valentina Bellè, Lithuania’s Džiugas Grinys, Poland’s Kamila Urzędowska and Sweden’s Asta Kamma August.

The jury that selected the actors comprised of Austrian director, screenwriter and producer Barbara Albert, Lithuanian producer Živilė Gallego, Irish actor Moe Dunford,...

10-strong line-up includes Italian actress Valentina Bellè and Irish actor Éanna Hardwicke.

European Film Promotion (Efp) has revealed the ten young European talents selected for the 27th edition of European Shooting Stars, its initiative to showcase promising on-screen talent from the continent.

Efp has selected seven actresses and three actors who will be presented to international press, industry, and the public during the 2024 Berlin Film Festival.

The line-up includes Italian actress Valentina Bellè who starred in two competition films at Venice this year: Michael Mann’s Ferrari and Lubo by Giorgio Diritti. She also plays the leading role in Disney + series The Good Mother,...

The Cinema Heritage festival announces the 9 films in the International Competition after more than 500 films were viewed. Costa Gavras and Cristian Mungiu will be the guests of honour on the closing night.

Eva Peydro, Barbara Lorey de Lacharrière and Philip Cheah, who make up the Selection Committee for the first edition of the Cinema Heritage festival, have viewed 500 films from 56 different countries and are presenting the finalists.

The International Competition comprises 9 films:

– The Winter Within by Aamir Bashir India, France, Qatar / 2022 / Paris Premiere

– The Echo by Tatiana Huezo Mexico, Germany / 2023 / French premiere

– Muyeres by Marta Lallana Spain / 2023 / Paris Premiere

– Behind The Haystacks by Asimina Proedrou Greece, Germany, Macedonia / 2022 / French premiere

– The Promised Land by Nikolaj Arcel Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany / 2023 / French premiere

– Lubo by Giorgio Diritti Italy, Switzerland / 2023 /French premiere

– The Land Where Winds Stood Still by Ardak Amirkulov Kazakhstan / 2023 / French premiere

– Esimde (This Is What I Remember) by Aktan Arym Kubat...

Valladolid International Film Week’s Independent Film Market saw Spanish distributors showcase acquired films to local streamers, TV networks and exhibitors.

Merci, Valladolid International Film Week’s Independent Film Market, enjoyed a 20% rise in the number of professionals attending this year.

Merci, which ran from October 25-27, provides an opportunity for Spanish independent distributors to meet with platforms, TV networks and distributors, and to show them selection of their recent acquisitions.

Among the 24 titles being screened by distributors at Merci Valladolid this year were Tran Anh Hung’s The Pot Au Feu, Ken Loach’s The Old Oak, Aki Kaurismäki...

Italian sales agent reports sales for summer festival slate.

Italy’s True Colours has unveiled sales on a string of its summer festival titles including Venice competition films Lubo and Comandante as well as Locarno world premiere The Beautiful Summer.

Edoardo de Angelis’s WWII drama Comandante, which opened Venice, has secured distribution in Japan with Aya Pro, in Spain with Alfa Pictures, in Portugal with Outsider Films, in former Yugoslavia with Stars Media, in Bulgaria with Beta Film and in Australia/New Zealand with Palace Films. Starring Pierfrancesco Favino, the co-production between Indigo Film, ‘O Groove and Trump Limited...

We came, we saw, we conquered. Our Nicholas Bell was in review overdrive assessing the entire competition and much more. We’ll still have film reviews to populate the site and this page in the near future, but for the time being here is a handy quick link to the wealth of richness (and some rubbish) selections that made up all sections of the Lido this year.

Competition:

Adagio – Stefano Sollima [Review]

La Bête – Bertrand Bonello [Review]

Comandante – Edoardo De Angelis [Review]

Dogman – Luc Besson [Review]

El Conde – Pablo Larraín [Review]

Enea – Pietro Castellitto [Review]

Evil Does Not Exist – Ryusuke Hamaguchi [Review]

Ferrari – Michael Mann [Review]

Finalmente l’alba – Saverio Costanzo [Review]

Green Border – Agnieszka Holland [Review]

Holly – Fien Troch [Review]

Io capitano – Matteo Garrone [Review]

The Killer – David Fincher [Review]

Lubo – Giorgio Diritti [Review]

Maestro – Bradley Cooper [Review]

Memory – Michel Franco [Review]

Origin – Ava DuVernay [Review]

Hors-saison – Stéphane Brizé [Review]

Poor Things – Yorgos Lanthimos [Review]

Priscilla – Sofia Coppola [Review]

The Promised Land – Nikolaj Arcel [Review]

The Theory of Everything – Timm Kröger [Review]

Woman Of…...

Vuelta Group is a joint venture from Scanbox, SquareOne and Playtime.

Recently launched European studio Vuelta has added Italy’s Indiana Production and France’s Pan to its ever-expanding footprint on the continent.

The groups join the all-new private equity-funded joint venture’s current team encompassing Nordic film company Scanbox, German distributor SquareOne and French powerhouse sales force Playtime.

Film and TV production house Indiana, founded by Fabrizio Donvito and Marco Cohen, is behind Giorgio Diritti’s Venice competitor Lubo and Netflix series The Leopard and Unwanted. They also produced Paolo Virzi’s Human Capital and The First Beautiful Thing,...

Italy’s Indiana Production – which has just become part of pan-European studio Vuelta Group – is staying true to its roots with production kicking off this month on gender swap movie “Romeo is Juliet,” directed by quality comedy specialist Giovanni Veronesi, just as the company expands its horizons.

This latest title in Indiana’s slate stars A-lister Sergio Castellitto and Pilar Fogliati (“Romantiche”) who plays an actress named Vittoria who after being brutally rejected by a cynical stage director when she auditions to play Juliet in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” decides to reinvent herself as a man to audition for Romeo and gets the part. The film’s lead actors and director are pictured above.

“Romeo is Juliet” is being produced by Indiana, co-produced by Capri Entertainment, and will be distributed in Italian theatres by Vision Distribution. The movie will start production in September.

Founded in 2005, Indiana over the ensuing...

Vuelta Group, the rising European film studio which recently launched with the high profile acquisitions of France’s Playtime, Germany’s SquareOne and Scandinavia’s Scanbox, is expanding its footprint in Italy and France.

Spearheaded by media finance veterans (and childhood friends) Jerome Levy and David Atlan-Jackson, Vuelta has bought Indiana Production, a leading Italian company founded by Fabrizio Donvito and Marco Cohen, which had Giorgio Diritti’s “Lubo” playing in competition at Venice and just teased its big-budget Netflix series project “The Leopard” and Sky’s “Unwanted.”

Vuelta has also taken a stake in France’s Pan (formerly called Pan-Europeenne), the well-established production and distribution banner headed by Nathalie Gastaldo, Philippe Godeau and Camille Gentet, whose credits include the hit franchises “Largo Winch” and “Legendaries.”

Vuelta bowed last year with more $100 million provided by a U.S. private equity firm and has now diversified its backing through its European partners.

Franz Rogowski further cemented his status as one of Europe’s most chameleonic and adventurous screen actors with his highwire turn this year as a narcissistic film director in Ira Sachs’ Passages, the agent of chaos at the center of a love triangle that spins out of control. The German actor again brings searing magnetism to Lubo, playing a member of midcentury Switzerland’s nomadic Yenish community, whose family and peaceful existence are torn from him by national authorities in what amounts to an ethnic cleansing campaign. Here, however, it’s the sprawling novelistic material that slips out of director Giorgio Diritti’s control.

Inspired by Mario Cavatore’s 2004 novel Il Seminatore but nudged far too often into melodrama in Diritti and Fredo Valla’s baggy screenplay, the film’s historical jumping-off point is eminently worthy of large-canvas treatment. But after a compelling first hour, the director can’t seem...

Clean, green Switzerland, land of chocolate, cuckoo clocks and direct democracy, is revealed to have a history of racial abuse as ugly as any other in Giorgio Diritti’s rolling epic Lubo, showing in competition at the Venice Film Festival. German actor Franz Rogowski plays the title character, a street performer and paterfamilias who is part of Switzerland’s community of Jenisch, a nomadic people originating in Germany. Lubo’s story is a dramatically terrible one – his wife is killed in a spat with heavy-handed police and his children are taken away, all while he is being marched off to serve time in the army – but it speaks to the truth.

Nobody knows exactly how many Jenisch children were taken from their families by Swiss authorities, but the current estimate is 2000. Lubo opens during the Second World War. Between the 1930s and 1973, when the practice was officially dropped, these children...

In Giorgio Diritti’s film “Lubo,” based on Mario Cavatore’s novel “Il seminatore,” Franz Rogowski seduces as Lubo, a Yenish traveling performer, father and husband, who has to join the Swiss army in 1939. He is one hell of a charmer, although his passion has dark undertones.

“Our take is more playful, but the book put more emphasis on the fact that this man impregnated over 100 women in Zurich. He wanted to make sure his people would survive,” says Rogowski.

In the film, Lubo finds out that while he was away, his wife died trying to save their children, taken away in accordance with the infamous national “re-education” program for “Children of the Road.”

“He is a passionate man. But it’s also his revenge, in a way,” he adds.

“Many people have been describing my acting as very physical and my roles as ‘experimental,’ and I have been exploring sexuality before.

Children of a Lesser God: Diritti Highlights Swiss War Crimes in Prolonged Drama

The actual history being explored in Giorgio Diritti’s three-hour drama Lubo is fascinating, and on paper would promise to be an exceptionally agonizing and important recuperation of victimization in Switzerland during WWII (especially as it’s balanced on the shoulders of Franz Rogowski). Unfortunately, Diritti’s penchant for old fashioned storytelling drifts a bit languorously across a twenty year time period in Mario Cavatore and Freda Valla’s somewhat standard script. As a member of the nomadic Jenisch population in 1939, Grisons, Rogowski excels as a father hopelessly searching for his abducted children, relocated by officials set on exterminating his people through sinister eugenics programs while the Nazis’ rampage billows hatred across the border.…...

For around half of the entire last century, there was a semi-official policy enacted by the Swiss state to forcibly separate the children of “itinerant” parents from their families. The program, known as “Kinder der Landstrasse” (“Children of the Road”), was ostensibly designed for the protection of such children from the perils of vagrancy and criminality which the state imagined rife among the traveller population. In retrospect, of course, the practise, which was discontinued in the 1970s, has been revealed for what it actually was: an unjustifiably cruel abrogation of the human rights of various minority populations, among them the Yenish, the group to which Franz Rogowski’s Lubo Moser, the focus of Giorgio Diritti’s sprawling, overlong “Lubo,” belongs. Nobody could deny that such a historical injustice merits a moving and epic cinematic investigation. It’s just a shame that while the three-hour-long “Lubo” probably contains that very film,...

Production in Italy has boomed in recent years, and so too have budgets and international investment.

Cast an eye over the titles vying for a Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival and one thing stands out – the number of Italian films in the main competition.

Six of the 23 films in the main competition are Italian, an increase from the usual three Italian titles that are programmed in the section. While the step change could be a result of the writers and actors’ strikes leading to fewer US productions making the trip to Venice, each of the selected...

When Franz Rogowski tries to pinpoint the moment he went from being a struggling unknown to an in-demand art house star — the 37-year-old German actor is still basking in critical acclaim for his performances in Ira Sachs’ Passages alongside Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos, as well

as Giacomo Abbruzzese’s Berlin festival sleeper Disco Boy and will be walking the Lido red carpet with Giorgio Diritti’s Venice competition title Lubo — he goes back to Berlin 2018.

“That was the year I had a double pack: Two films in competition, with [Christian Petzold’s] Transit and [Thomas Stuber’s] In the Aisles,” says Rogowski, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter via a shaky Zoom connection from France, where he’s spending a few days after wrapping his latest, Bird from American Honey director Andrea Arnold.

“I was also one of the European Shooting Stars that year. So it was a bit of a turning point.

La BêteCOMPETITIONComandante (Edoardo De Angelis)The Promised Land (Nikolaj Arcel)Dogman (Luc Besson) La Bête (Bertrand Bonello) Hors-Saison (Stéphane Brizé) Enea (Pietro Castellitto) Maestro (Bradley Cooper)Priscilla (Sofia Coppola)Finalmente L’Alba (Saverio Costanzo)Lubo (Giorgio Diritti) Origin (Ava DuVernay) The Killer (David Fincher)Memory (Michel Franco)Io capitano (Matteo Garrone)Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)The Green Border (Agnieszka Holland)The Theory of Everything (Timm Kröger)Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)El conde (Pablo Larrain)Ferrari (Michael Mann)Adagio (Stefano Sollima)Woman OfHolly (Fien Troch)Out Of COMPETITIONFictionSociety of the Snow (J.A. Bayona)Coup de Chance (Woody Allen)The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Wes Anderson)The Penitent (Luca Barbareschi)L’Ordine Del Tempo (Liliana Cavani)Vivants (Alix Delaporte)Welcome to Paradise (Leonardo di Constanzo)Daaaaaali! (Quentin Dupieux)The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (William Friedkin)Making of (Cedric Kahn)Aggro Dr1ft (Harmony Korine)Hitman (Richard Linklater)The Palace (Roman Polanski...

The Venice Film Festival celebration is getting closer, and despite the current strikes at Hollywood, some really anticipated titles will be shown to attendees. With many productions halted, both for cinema and television, many studios are considering pushing some of their next releases back, since actors won't be able to promote their upcoming projects.

But the acclaimed Italian festival is just around the corner, and the situation across the ocean won't stop the organization to include some amazing movies within its lineup, with a long list of celebrated filmmakers set to appear to present their art.

Luca Guadagnino's upcoming sport comedy Challengers, which was recently pushed back, is one of the big loses that the 80th celebration of the Venice Film Festival had this year, but since the lineup was already closed when the SAG-AFTRA strike began, most of the titles expected to be featured will be present.

Lido red carpets may be star-deprived this year, but that didn’t stop the Venice Film Festival from arranging a gorgeous constellation of new movies from supernova directors. (The full lineup is here.)

The SAG-AFTRA strike work stoppage means, of course, that competition directors like Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”), David Fincher (“The Killer”), Sofia Coppola (“Priscilla”), Ava DuVernay, Saverio Costanzo (“Finalmente L’Alba”), and Michel Franco (“Memory”) will have to do the talking at press conferences and attend step-and-repeats without their actors, if they’re willing. It’s tricky for multihyphenates like Bradley Cooper, who directs and stars as Leonard Bernstein in Netflix’s “Maestro;” IndieWire hears he will sit this festival out.

Among the Venice film stars who will not be waving to the paparazzi from water taxis are Emma Stone, Margaret Qualley, Carey Mulligan, Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz, Jacob Elordi, Aunjanue Ellis, Lily James, Joe Keery,...

The Venice Film Festival sails on in Italy — even with much of Hollywood at a standstill.

The annual cinema celebration hosted by La Biennale di Venezia and directed by Alberto Barbera runs from August 30 through September 9. Despite already having lost Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” from its opening night slot due to its SAG-AFTRA talent including star Zendaya being unable to accompany the world premiere due to strike work stoppage orders, Venice has plenty of movie goodness in store for its 80th edition.

Competition highlights include Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro,” Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” David Fincher’s “The Killer,” Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things,” Ava DuVernay’s “Origin,” Luc Besson’s “Dogman,” Michel Franco’s “Memory,” Pablo Larrain’s “El Conde,” and many more. Out of competition, Venice will screen new films from Harmony Korine, Richard Linklater, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Roman Polanski, and William Friedkin.

Two movies whose directors are likely to draw protests, Woody Allen’s French-language “Coup de Chance” and Roman Polanski’s “The Palace,” will make their world premieres at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival, Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera and La Biennale di Venezia president Roberto Cicutto announced at a Tuesday morning press conference.

Both films will screen out of competition, though they’ll likely draw an inordinate amount of attention at a festival that has assembled a robust lineup of major filmmakers even as it struggles with the effects of the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.

Films booked for the Venice main competition include Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro”; Yorgos Lanthimos’ sci-fi drama “Poor Things”; Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla Presley film “Priscilla”; Michael Mann’s auto-racing film “Ferrari”; Ava DuVernay’s “Origin,” with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Niecy Nash-Betts and Vera Farmiga; and David Fincher’s “The Killer,” with Michael Fassbender.

On the heels of yesterday’s TIFF announcement, the first major fall festival of the season––Venice International Film Festival––is unveiling its lineup. Taking place August 30-September 9, the competition jury this year is chaired by Damien Chazelle.

Highlights include new films from David Fincher, Michael Mann, Wes Anderson, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Sofia Coppola, Bradley Cooper, Bertrand Bonello, Frederick Wiseman, Roman Polanski, William Friedkin, Ava DuVernay, Harmony Korine, Richard Linklater, Woody Allen, and more.

Competition

Adagio; dir. Stefano Sollima

The Beast; dir. Bertrand Bonello

Io Capitano; dir. Matteo Garrone

Comandante; dir. Edoardo de Angelis

El Conde; dir. Pablo Larraín

Die Theorie von Allem; dir. Timm Kröger

Dogman; dir. Luc Besson

Enea; dir. Pietro Castellitto

Evil Does Not Exist; dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Ferrari; dir. Michael Mann

Finalmente L’Alba; dir. Saverio Costanzo

Green Border; dir. Agnieszka Holland

Holly; dir. Fien Troch

Hors-Saison; dir. Stéphane Brizé

The Killer; dir. David Fincher

Lubo; dir. Giorgio Diritti

The Promised Land; dir.

New films by top U.S. directors including David Fincher, Sofia Coppola, Ava DuVernay, Michael Mann, Bradley Cooper and Wes Anderson will be launching from the Venice Film Festival alongside a robust roster of European, Latin American and Asian auteurs, in a clear sign that disruption caused by two ongoing labor strikes in Hollywood is less than some expected.

Though Venice was forced a few days ago to pull its originally planned opener, Zendaya-starrer “Challengers,” due to promotional complications from the SAG-AFTRA strike, the fest’s complete lineup, announced on Tuesday, has certainly not suffered a mass exodus of Hollywood titles. On the contrary, the Lido’s firepower as an awards season pistol seems to have outgunned the probable scarcity of stars that will be on the red carpet for U.S. films, though even this aspect remains to be seen.

“This past week has been a bit turbulent...

Includes films from David Fincher, Sofia Coppola, Ava DuVernay, Yorgos Lanthimos, Bradley Cooper and Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

Venice Film Festival announced the programme for its 80th edition, including a 23-strong Competition with new films from David Fincher, Sofia Coppola, Ava DuVernay, Yorgos Lanthimos, Bradley Cooper and Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

Scroll down for full line-up

The selection was announced by festival president Roberto Cicutto and artistic director Alberto Barbera. The SAG-AFTRA strike in the US has had a “quite modest” impact on the selection according to Barbera, who was forced to pull Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers as the opening film over the weekend due to the strike.

This year’s selection will be announced at 11:00 Cest (10:00 BST) by Roberto Cicutto and Alberto Barbera.

The line-up for the 80th Venice International Film Festival (August 30-September 9) will be revealed this morning at 11:00 Cest (10:00 BST) by festival president Roberto Cicutto and artistic director Alberto Barbera

The press conference will be live-streamed below, and this page will be updated with the films as they are announced.

Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers was originally set to open the festival but was pulled by MGM amid the actors’ strike. It was replaced by Edoardo De Angelis’ Comandante.

The closing film...

Laetitia Casta will soon appear on the big screen as the former wife of an abusive southern Italian man whom she is accused of murdering in the thriller “A Dark Story,” directed by Italy’s Leonardo D’Agostini.

In “Dark Story” the French star, whose recent credits include “The Crusade” directed by her husband Louis Garrel, plays Carla (first look image above), the ex-wife of Vito Semeraro, a banker who beat her when they were together and is the father of her three children. She is accused of murdering him a few years after they split up.

Italian sales company True Colours is launching sales in Cannes on this psychological noir that marks the sophomore feature by D’Agostini whose 2019 debut drama “The Champion” – a soccer dramedy about a young male soccer star and a shy academic who becomes his tutor – sold widely via the same outfit. Andrea Carpenzano stars in “Dark Story” alongside Casta.

Franz Rogowski stars in the film which is based on real events.

Italy’s True Colours is launching pre-sales at the EFM of Giorgio Diritti’s Italian-Swiss co-production Lubo, starring Franz Rogowski, for which it has acquired worldwide rights.

Now in post, Lubo is set on the eve of Second World War. Rogowski stars as a young Caucasian man of nomadic ethnicity called to serve in the Swiss army to defend the border with Austria from the threat of the Nazi army who hears his children have been taken away by the authorities and his wife killed in the scuffle.

Franz Rogowski stars in the film which is based on real events.

Italy’s True Colours is launching pre-sales at the EFM of Giorgio Diritti’s Italian-Swiss production Lubo, starring Franz Rogowski, for which it has acquired worldwide rights.

Now in post, Lubo is set on the eve of Second World War, Rogowski stars as a young Caucasian man of nomadic ethnicity called to serve in the Swiss army to defend the border with Austria from the threat of the Nazi army who hears his children have been taken away by the authorities and his wife killed in the scuffle.

We are happy to announce that the Skip City International D-Cinema Festival 2023 will celebrate its 20th anniversary edition from July 15th (Sat) to 23th (Sun), 2023 for 9 days at Skip City, which is an integrated institution for digital cinema production

(See: https://www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en/)

Submission period: January 25th, 2023 (Wed) – March 1st, 2023 (Wed)

We remain committed to discovering and nurturing new talent, with the aim of helping these filmmakers seize new business opportunities that have arisen in the changing landscape of the film industry. Now we call for works (60 min. or longer) that have been shot digitally and must be the director’s 1st, 2nd, or 3rd feature film from all over the world for the International Competition section.

Call for entries for the International Competition!!

Entry Deadline: Must be received by March 1st, 2023 (Wed)

Submit via FilmFreeway

https://filmfreeway.com/Skipcityinternationald-CinemaFESTIVAL (Online registration / Free)

Our International Competition welcomes you!

Prominent arthouse sales company The Match Factory has closed multiple sales on Italian auteur Gianni Amelio’s Venice competition title “Lord of the Ants” ahead of its Venice premiere on Tuesday.

The Match Factory has sealed deals on Amelio’s latest work – which is a biopic of Italian poet, playwright and director Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968 due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law – that will ensure the film’s theatrical release in Australia/New Zealand (Palace Films); Japan (Zazie Films); Spain (Surtsey Films); Sweden (TriArt Film) and Greece (Ama Films). Further deals are in negotiation, the company said.

Braibanti was convicted after a complaint from his partner’s father, who later forced his son to be treated with electroconvulsive therapy in an ill-conceived attempt to rid him of his homosexuality. The Fascist-era law that punished Braibanti, which made it a crime to lead innocent or unwary people “morally” astray,...

At 81, Italian horror maestro Dario Argento is busier than ever.

The director of a string of cult chiller classics starting in the 1970s, including “The Bird With the Crystal Plumage,” “Suspiria” and “Deep Red,” was at Cannes last July with his acting debut in Gaspar Noe’s “Vortex,” about a pair of old lovers. Argento was also celebrated last year with a new book by Italian critic Steve Della Casa and a retro at New York’s Lincoln Center. This spring he’s set to be honored with a big show at Italy’s National Museum of Cinema in Turin.

More significantly, having returned to the director’s chair after a decade, Argento is back with “Dark Glasses,” which he describes as a classic thriller, or giallo, as the violent crime genre is known in Italy.

“Dark Glasses,” which is set in present-day Rome, screens on Feb. 11 as a Berlinale Special Gala,...

“Paper & Glue,” the feature-length documentary that follows French artist Jr as he plasters his provocative large-scale images of people in such places as the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the U.S.-Mexico border wall and a California supermax prison, has won the top prize at Uruguay’s inaugural arts film festival, Arca, which wrapped on Friday, Jan. 14. The prize is a bespoke sculpture by celebrated Uruguayan artist and festival host Pablo Atchugarry, valued at 60,000 euros.

“By exploring the great capacity of art to challenge perspectives and unite communities, [“Paper & Glue”] highlights the power of art and the work of the artist, which makes visible and gives voice to those who do not have it,” the festival’s jury commented.

Special mentions were also awarded to “La Intención del Colibri,” the feature debut of Uruguayan filmmaker Sergio de León, which chronicles the love story between late artist Ulises Beisso and his partner Juan Arrospide,...

Italian auteur Gianni Amelio (“Open Doors”) will shoot a biopic of Italian poet, playwright and director Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968 due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law. The Match Factory has boarded the pic and is launching international sales in Cannes.

Amelio is best-known for the Oscar-nominated “Open Doors” (1990) and also “Stolen Children,” which won the 1992 Cannes Grand Prix, as well as “Hammamet,” a portrait of disgraced late Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi’s final years in Tunisia.

Braibanti was convicted after a complaint from his partner’s father, who later forced his son to be treated with electroconvulsive therapy in an ill-conceived attempt to rid him of his homosexuality. The Fascist-era law that punished Braibanti, which made it a crime to lead innocent or unwary people “morally” astray, was repealed in 1981.

Amelio’s new film, titled “Il signore delle formiche,” which translates as “The Ants Man,” features an...

Non-fiction film strategist and documentary filmmaker directed Cesar’s Last Fast.

The International Documentary Association (IDA) has appointed Richard Ray Perez executive director to replace the outgoing Simon Kilmurry, who announced last year that he was stepping down.

Perez is a non-fiction film strategist and documentary filmmaker (Cesar’s Last Fast) who most recently served as director of acquisitions and distribution strategies at GBH | World Channel where he curated and acquired documentaries for the platform’s three original series.

Prior to World Channel, he was director of creative partnerships at Sundance Institute where he led artist-based filmmaking programmes including Stories of Change,...

Italy’s David di Donatello Winners

Winners have been crowned for the 21 David di Donatello awards, the Italian film awards ceremony. Hidden Away, Giorgio Diritti’s drama about Italian painter Antonio Ligabue, won Best Film and Director. Sophia Loren picked up best lead actress for The Life Ahead, while Elio Germano picked up best actor for Hidden Away. Sam Mendes’ 1917 scooped best foreign film. Special awards were presented to Monica Bellucci Targhe, Diego Abatantuono and Sandra Milo. You can see the full list of winners here.

Netflix Greenlights Norwegian Sci-Fi Comedy

Netflix has greenlit Blasted, a Norwegian comedy sci-fi directed by Martin Sofiedal. The script from Emanuel Nordrum follows a bachelor party that stumbles into an alien invasion. Project comes from Are Heidenstrøm (The Wave) at Miso Film. Starring are Axel Bøyum and Fredrik Skogsrud. Netflix is planning to release in 2022.

Erik Poppe To Helm Quisling Feature

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Other winners include Italian star Sophia Loren and two Netflix features.

Giorgio Diritti’s Hidden Away was the big winner at Italy’s David di Donatello awards on Tuesday (May 11), winning seven awards including best picture, best director and lead actor for Elio Germano.

The drama, which chronicles the difficult life of Italian painter Antonio Ligabue, is produced by Palomar with Rai Cinema, and premiered at the 2020 Berlinale, where Elio Germano won the Silver Bear for best actor. The film, which was the frontrunner going into the night with 15 nominations, also picked up prizes for cinematography, hair artist and sound.

Giorgio Diritti’s biopic “Hidden Away,” about crazed primitivist painter Antonio Ligabue, was the big winner at Italy’s 66th David di Donatello Awards, the country’s top film prizes.

The Davids were held with an in-person ceremony aired from two venues amid a strong spirit of restart as Italian movie theaters gradually begin to reopen.

“Hidden Away,” which was the frontrunner with 15 nominations, scored seven statuettes including best picture, director and actor honors won by Elio Germano who tackles “the fiendishly difficult role” of the self-taught artist “with customary gusto,” as Variety critic Jay Weissberg noted in his review.

The best actress statuette went to Sophia Loren for her role as Madame Rosa, a former prostitute and Holocaust survivor, in Netflix Original “The Life Ahead,” directed by her son Edoardo Ponti. The Italian icon’s return to the big screen after a decade had been snubbed by the Oscars earlier this year.

Italy’s 66th David di Donatello Awards are set to celebrate on May 11 a year of resilience for Cinema Italiano that also looks likely to germinate some creative renewal, just as Italian movie theaters start to reopen and production is booming.

Giorgio Diritti’s biopic “Hidden Away,” about crazed primitivist painter Antonio Ligabue, Gianni Amelio’s wistful “Hammamet,” which reconstructs the Tunisian self-exile of scandal-plagued Italian leader Bettino Craxi, and dark drama “Bad Tales” by the D’Innocenzo Brothers lead the crowded field for Italy’s equivalent of the Oscars, with no clear frontrunner.

Significantly, “Hidden Away,” which scooped 15 nominations, and “Bad Tales,” which scored 13, both star actor Elio Germano. And Germano also plays the lead in another standout title in the Davids race, Netflix Italian Original “The Incredible Story of Rose Island,” which landed 11 noms, including one for the pic’s producer, multihyphenate Matteo Rovere, whose Groenlandia Group is having a banner year.

Giorgio Diritti’s biopic of an obscure artist “Hidden Away,” Gianni Amelio’s “Hammamet,” about scandal plagued Italian leader Bettino Craxi, and dark drama “Bad Tales” by the D’Innocenzo Brothers lead the race for Italy’s David di Donatello Awards, the country’s top film prizes, for which this year there is no clear frontrunner.

Interestingly, “Hidden Away,” which scooped 15 nominations, and “Bad Tales,” which tallied 13 noms, both star actor Elio Germano. Germano also stars in another film in the Davids race, Netflix Italian Original “The Incredible Story of Rose Island,” which scooped 11 nominations, including one for Matteo Rovere, its producer.

During a virtual press conference Piera Detassis, who heads the David nods, underlined the strong presence this year of women directors, citing Susanna Nicchiarelli’s “Miss Marx,” a biopic of Karl Marx’s proto-feminist daughter Eleanor, and also Emma Dante’s Sicily-set “The Macaluso Sisters,” that are both nominated for film and director.

Other winners included ‘Undine’ actress Paula Beer and documentary ‘Collective’.

Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round swept the European Film Awards on Saturday (December 12), winning four awards including best film, director, screenplay and actor for Mads Mikkelsen.

Scroll down for full list of winners

Accepting the best screenplay prize via video link, sat alongside co-writer Tobias Lindholm, Danish filmmaker Vinterberg said: “In a time of confinement, financial crisis and death, our attempt to make a life-affirming film has somehow succeeded.”

Best actor winner Mikkelsen dedicated his award to “a shining light who is not here anymore”, Ida Vinterberg – the daughter of...