News

Italy’s PiperFilm has sold North America rights for Giulia Louise Steigerwalt’sVenice competition title Diva Futurato Breaking Glass Pictures.

A fictional biopic about the birth of Italy’s porn industry in the 1980s and 90s, the film centres on Italian pornography pioneer Riccardo Schicchi and his agency Diva Futura whose stars included Cicciolina, the Hungarian-Italian porn star, member of parliament and former wife of Jeff Koons, as well as Moana Pozzi and Eva Henger.

The film stars Pietro Castellitto, Barbara Ronchi, Denise Capezza, Tesa Litvan and Lidija Kordic.

Diva Futura is produced by Banijay’s Groenlandia and PiperFilm with...

The stars were out en masse for the 2024 Lacma Art+Film Gala held at Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Saturday night (November 2) in Los Angeles.

Kim Kardashian, Laura Dern, Andrew Garfield and Blake Lively were among the A-listers in attendance at the annual event, which brings together notable figures from art, film, fashion and entertainment.

Keep reading to find out more…

The gala’s proceeds “go toward underwriting Lacma’s initiative to make film more central to the museum’s curatorial programming, while also funding Lacma’s broader mission. This includes exhibitions, acquisitions, and educational programming, in addition to screenings that explore the intersection of art and film.”

This year’s event honored “artist Simone Leigh, whose multifaceted practice situates questions of Black female-identified subjectivity at the center of contemporary art discourse, along with the visionary auteur Baz Luhrmann.”

Keep scrolling below to see all of the stars...

The 2024 Venice Film Festival kicked off August 28 with the long-awaited Tim Burton-Michael Keaton sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opening the 81th edition, which runs through September 7 on the Lido. Deadline is on the ground to watch all the key films.

The lineup for the world’s oldest fest also includes world premieres of Todd Phillips’ Joaquin Phoenix-Lady Gaga pic Joker: Folie à Deux, Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, Pablo Larrain’s Maria Callas biopic Maria starring Angelina Jolie and new works from the likes of Alfonso Cuarón, Walter Salles, Harmony Korine, Thomas Vinterberg, Brady Corbet, Takeshi Kitano, Claude Lelouch, Errol Morris and others.

Below is a compilation of our reviews from the fest, which last year awarded its Golden Lion for best film to Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, starring Emma Stone, who went on the win the Best Actress Oscar. Isabelle Huppert heads the competition jury this year.

Porn king Riccardo Schicchi was, according to Giulia Louise Steigerwalt’s bubbly, shallow “Diva Futura,” named after Schicchi’s now-defunct multimedia adult-entertainment enterprise, a really sweet guy. Moreover, the film insists, his vision for pornography was similarly wholesome: a means to liberate prudish late-20th century Italian society by celebrating the beauty of women as he saw it — with the dazzled, goofy gaze of the permanent adolescent peering through an uncurtained bedroom window.

But what may have been charmingly unworldly in a man becomes disingenuously simplistic in a film that refuses to really look into the forces that propelled his giddy rise and blameless fall, just as Schicchi, gifted a peeping-Tom telescope by his porn-positive dad as a kid, could look away when the women were clothed, or the curtains were closed.

Confusingly, and with no real reason, the movie hops about in time, so we begin in the middle...

Harking back to a simpler, more innocent time, when porn stars got elected to Parliament and the “sexual revolution” was still shiny and new, the comic-tragic feature Diva Futura pays tribute to the Italian adult entertainment empire of the same name and the colorful characters who founded and worked for it. Comparisons to Paul Thomas Anderson’s similarly themed Boogie Nights (1997) will be inevitable and probably not flatter the much messier, less bravura Diva Futura. Nevertheless, writer-director Giulia Louise Steigerwalt’s (Settembre) sophomore effort definitely has its moments and some standout performances.

Moreover, most of the characters met here — such as La Cicciolina (Lidija Kordic), aka Ilona Staller, the porn-star politician, and her tragic fellow star Moana Pozzi (Denise Capezza) — correspond to real-life figures. Only insiders from that time will know exactly how much of this movie (and the memoir by Debora Attanasio on which it’s based) is true.

There are two kinds of pornography, according to movie mythology. One kind is sordid, exploitative, and supported by shady money and even shadier characters. Then there is the cuddly, family kind, as fluffy and innocently randy as a burrow full of bunnies, that flourished on video before the horrible internet spoiled everything and made porn rapey. Italian director Giulia Louise Steigerwalt’s Diva Futura returns us to this Eden of sex tapes and strippers in a scattergun biopic of Riccardo Schicchi, impresario of club, talent farm and film production house Diva Futura. You can decide how much to believe.

As a boy in the 1960s, Schicchi tells his new secretary Debora (Barbara Ronchi) that he never grasped the first principles of machismo. Bullied by other little boys, by day he enjoyed giggling with the girls at school. By night, his father would lend him his binoculars to spy on women through their windows,...

Italy’s Cinecittà Studios, which have been undergoing a radical overhaul since 2021, recently released their fiscal 2023 results, which saw the Rome-based facilities turn a profit for the second year in a row after bleeding red ink for years.

The iconic studios are being managed by Nicola Maccanico, a former Warner Bros. and Sky Italia senior exec who last year lured big shoots such as Roland Emmerich’s gladiator series “Those About to Die” starring Anthony Hopkins and Netflix’s period soap “The Decameron” to the government-run “City of Cinema.” Last year, the studios were able to maintain a 70% occupancy level despite the impact of the Hollywood strikes and are on track to keep that level this year with several big Hollywood shoots coming soon, though NDAs are keeping details under wraps.

Below, Maccanico speaks to Variety about how he’s navigating Cinecittà’s revamp and what the prospects are going forward.

Prominent Italian producers Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Mieli are exiting their Fremantle-owned companies — Wildside and The Apartment, respectively — in an industry shakeup expected to lead them to jointly form a new independent scripted content outfit.

Gianani and Mieli co-founded Wildside in 2009 and turned it into the powerhouse behind major global dramas such as Rai/HBO’s “The Young Pope” and “My Brilliant Friend,” to name a few. Wildside was aquired by Fremantle in 2015.

Mieli subsequently went his own way and set up The Apartment in 2020 under the Fremantle umbrella. Recent The Apartment titles include Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” and Pablo Larrain’s upcoming Angelina-starrer “Maria” about iconic soprano Maria Callas, amid a rich international slate.

A Fremantle Italy spokesperson confirmed the ongoing exits of the two top producers, adding that the separations are not acrimonious and that Fremantle is discussing “the ways in which we will will continue to work together.

Franz Rogowski plays a Nazi ringmaster in a deluded blend of magical realism, gratuitous violence and sentimentality

What better way to start the new year with what will surely be remembered as one of its worst films. This mashup of magical realism, gratuitous violence and sentimentality is an atrocity in filmic form. It’s only a bit offensive for its appropriation of the Holocaust as a dramatic engine. What really stirs revulsion is the film’s smug delusions of quality, a self-belief so strong that it has the gall to take two hours and 21 minutes to unfurl itself to the end. Everyone who whined about Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon being too long should be strapped to a chair, like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange, and forced to watch this in order to understand the difference between a film that’s long because it has a...

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…...

The upcoming film ‘Stolen’, which stars Abhishek Banerjee in the lead, has been chosen under the Feature Film Competition Category at the Zurich Film Festival this year. The film will be screened alongside the likes of notable international features, including Saudi Arabian feature ‘Mandoob’ by Ali Kalthami, US director Chloe Domont’s ‘Fair Play’ and Pietro Castellitto’s ‘Enea’, among others.

The 19th edition of the Zurich Film Festival will be held from September 28 to October 8, 2023, with ‘Stolen’, directed by Karan Tejpal, scheduled to screen on September 29 at the festival.

The film follows the story of a five-month-old baby being abducted from her mother, and this incident draws the attention of brothers Gautam and Raman, leading them to face various challenges that test their relationships and convictions. The film also stars Shubham and Mia Maelzer in key roles.

Sharing his thoughts on ‘Stolen’ being screened at the Zurich Film Festival this year,...

The upcoming film ‘Stolen’, which stars Abhishek Banerjee in the lead, has been chosen under the Feature Film Competition Category at the Zurich Film Festival this year. The film will be screened alongside the likes of notable international features, including Saudi Arabian feature ‘Mandoob’ by Ali Kalthami, US director Chloe Domont’s ‘Fair Play’ and Pietro Castellitto’s ‘Enea’, among others.

The 19th edition of the Zurich Film Festival will be held from September 28 to October 8, 2023, with ‘Stolen’, directed by Karan Tejpal, scheduled to screen on September 29 at the festival.

The film follows the story of a five-month-old baby being abducted from her mother, and this incident draws the attention of brothers Gautam and Raman, leading them to face various challenges that test their relationships and convictions. The film also stars Shubham and Mia Maelzer in key roles.

Sharing his thoughts on ‘Stolen’ being screened at the Zurich Film Festival this year,...

Swiss festival programmes 148 films for this year’s edition.

The Zurich Film Festival (Zff) has unveiled a line-up of 148 films for its 2023 edition which takes place from September 28 to October 8.

The festival’s Focus Competition – which showcases feature films and documentaries from Germany, Austria and Switzerland - has six world premieres. They include Swiss films The Driven One by Piet Baumgartner, a long-term study of students at the elite university Hsg St. Gallen, and road movie Return To Alexandria by Zurich-based Tamer Ruggli, which stars Nadine Labaki and Fanny Ardant.

Scroll down for Focus and Feature Film Competition line-up

Other...

Updated with latest: The Venice Film Festival began August 30 with opening-night movie Comandante, an Italian World War II drama, kicking off a lineup for the venerable fest’s 80th edition that includes world premieres of Michael Mann’s Ferrari, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, David Fincher’s The Killer, Ava DuVernay’s Origins, and new films from lightning-rod directors Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Luc Besson.

Deadline is on the ground to watch all the key films. Below is a compilation of our reviews from the fest, which last year awarded Laura Poitras’ documentary All The Beauty and the Bloodshed its Golden Lion for best film.

Click on the film titles below to read the reviews in full, and keep checking back as we add more movies throughout the fest, which runs through September 9.

Adagio

Section: Competition

Director: Stefano Sollima

Cast: Pierfrancesco Favino,...

Your staying power with Pietro Castellitto’s genre-adjacent non-thriller Enea will depend on your appetite for well-heeled Romans blathering on tirelessly about the encroaching emptiness inside them. An overlong, windy film that purports to investigate the hypocrisy, shallowness and moral decay of wealthy Italians but feels too embedded in that world to have much bite, this is a soulless bit of self-indulgence that seems far too pleased with itself. It’s full of flashy technique and ostentatious stylistic flourishes but has almost nothing of note to say about the supposed burdens of privilege.

The writer-director-lead actor’s father, Sergio Castellitto, among his many screen credits starred for three seasons in the psychotherapist role on the Italian version of In Treatment. That provides a winking in-joke for domestic audiences in his casting here as another shrink, Celeste, the title character’s despondent father, who generally has his head too deep in books to look at life.

Italian hotshot Pietro Castellitto is in competition in Venice with his second feature “Enea,” in which he also stars as the titular character, a young Roman sushi restaurant owner and cocaine dealer whose best friend Valentino just got his license as an airplane pilot. There is a lot going on in this fresh and frenzied film lensed by ace cinematographer Radek Ladczuk (“The Babadook”).

“Enea” is produced by Lorenzo Mieli’s the Apartment, which is a Fremantle company, and Luca Guadagnino’s Frenesy. Vision Distribution is handling world sales.

Castellitto spoke to Variety about what drew him to make what he calls a gangster movie without the gangster bits.

This seems like a very personal film. Is it?

I would say it’s basically a movie about the desire to feel alive. What moves Enea is the need to feel life pulsing within him. There is this tragic paradox that...

Deal or No Deal: Castellitto Distracted by Design in Drug Pusher Drama

Director Pietro Castellitto embarks on a familial affair with sophomore film Enea, in which he stars as the lead alongside his real life father, actor/director Sergio Castellitto as members of a wealthy Italian family who become involved in a drug money feud. Taking slight inspiration from Virgil’s Aeneid, a young man nearing thirty finds his aimlessness interrupted when a novel opportunity lands in his lap to sell twenty kilos of cocaine for a local king pin.

Despite being an inviting screen presence, Castellitto can’t quite decide on a cohesive approach to the material, introducing shards of themes and characters about intergenerational differences and the suffocating ennui of the present all chaotically introduced before the narrative finally starts to take shape.…...

“I feel like there’s a sort of mouth over the city, ready to eat us up,” says Enea, sophisticated young nightclubber, tennis champion and coke dealer; if anyone is trying to swallow the Eternal City whole, it’s Enea himself. The son of intellectuals – his mother hosts a television chat show about literature; his father is a psychoanalyst – the inexhaustible Enea scoots and toots between the city’s most exclusive sports club, the city’s most exclusive parties and, even more thrillingly, rendezvous with the criminal classes, homespun proletarians to a man. “You need to marry Eva, have a child with her, make her happy. If you have no one to kiss, you go crazy,” advises Giordano (Adamo Dionisi), pusher and family man, when he learns that playboy Enea has acquired a girlfriend. Whatever. In his line of work and with the company he keeps, Giordano isn’t going to last that long.

About 20 minutes pass in “Enea” before someone asks the young, handsome, splendidly attired title character what he does for a living, during which time audiences are likely to be wondering the same thing. This, to be fair, is not a negligent omission in writer-director-star Pietro Castellitto’s script, which tells us early on that Enea, the elder son of a wealthy Roman family, ostensibly manages a high-end sushi restaurant, atop an assortment of more underhand dealings. What he actually does, however, is a question less easily answered in this slickly mounted but stultifying portrait of privilege and ennui among Italy’s silver-spoon set, which feels more empathy for its pampered, spiraling protagonist than most viewers are likely to muster.

Three years ago, Castellitto premiered his directorial debut “The Predators” in Venice’s Horizons sidebar, winning the section’s screenplay prize. A dark comedy examining social disparity in the Italian capital,...

Fremantle kicked off its presence at the Venice Film Festival with a bang this year with the announcement of its new €150M ($162.7M) Scripted Fund forged in partnership with Israel-based Ibi Investment House.

The fund is reserved exclusively for select projects being developed by Fremantle’s stable of scripted drama companies, which include UK’s Dancing Ledge and Element Pictures, Italy’s The Apartment, Wildside and Lux Vide, as well as The Immigrant, specialized in Latin America and Spanish content.

First projects backed by the fund include previously announced feature Maria, the high-profile Maria Callas biopic, starring Angelina Jolie and directed by Pablo Larraín, who is at Venice this year with Augusto Pinochet dark comedy/horror El Conde.

Two newly unveiled series will also benefit: the four-part thriller Generation Loss, written by Bridgerton’s Sarah Dollard, and six-part revenge thriller Shelter, to which Jeremy Webb is attached to direct.

Fremantle is not involved in Larrain’s Netflix-backed El Conde but is present instead with five other Golden Lion contenders, including Yorgos Lanthimos’ buzzed about Poor Things, Stefano Sollima’s well-reviewed Adagio, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, Salvatore Costanzo’s 1950s Cinecittà drama Finally Dawn, and Pietro Castellitto’s Enea

In a sign of a growing presence in the film world, the company is basing itself out of a vast beachfront villa just down the road from the festival’s main hub for the first time this year.

Deadline sat down with top Fremantle execs, Group COO and CEO Continental Europe Andrea Scrosati and CEO Global Drama Christian Vesper, in the peace of its lawned garden to discuss the genesis and implications of the new scripted fund.

Deadline: How did Fremantle connect with Ibi Investment House?

Scrosati: It came to us through our CEO in Israel Guy Hameiri, who is also going to be the CEO of the fund. He runs our company there [Abot Hameiri), which we initially invested in and then bought out two years ago.

He came to me around like nine months ago, saying that the leadership in Ibi was interested in finding a way to invest in scripted content. Together, we developed this model that I think is pretty new.

Deadline: What do you mean by new? There are other funds in existence investing in scripted content.

Andrea Scrosati: I think the interesting component here is that it’s a financial institution partnering with a content production company. The projects can only come from Fremantle. So that’s the intriguing component, for us. Then, this fund will fully finance those projects, which is also rare, especially for TV. To have a self-funded studio kind of model on drama is slightly rare. And then Fremantle will go out and sell.

Deadline: What encouraged you to go down this route?

Scrosati: It’s coherent with our strategic positioning. Talent has a lot of opportunity choices… but to super simplify, there are two key potential choices. One, talent signs a deal with a big direct-to-consumer operation. It’s an absolutely a fine choice. But obviously, what happens is that the talent then has to deliver results that are coherent with the platform that needs to sell the subscriptions.

Our approach to talent is different. We say, ‘We’re going to focus on your project, we’re going to support your project, we’re going to potentially finance or risk on your project, and then we’re going to find the right home for your project, because not every project is okay for every place.’ This new device helps us with this strategic positioning.

There is a tactical component because of where the market is today. Big traditional buyers didn’t stop buying but are for sure on a slower kind of pace. We strongly believe that good content has a future. I’m very positive about where the market is going to be in three or four years from today. In every market there’s growth, and then an adjustment.

The problem with where the market is today is that there are great opportunities, sometimes that involve great talent, but they have a time component and you risk not doing those projects if you’re waiting for the green light from Apple, Disney, Netflix, or Amazon.

Deadline: If the commissioning contraction hadn’t happened would you still have gone down this route?

Scrosati: Yes, for the strategic reason I mentioned.

Christian Vesper: Not Maria, because Maria is a film and starts very soon. And that was a different calculation. But for the two TV shows that we discuss in the [press] release, part of the consideration there was we believe in the projects. We know there’s a market for them but the talent attached has a discrete window, and so much of our business model has been based on how we bring in talent. How do we service our talent? Our job is to help them get their shows made and on the air. And this gives us one more powerful tool for doing that.

Deadline: Will the new fund change the way you deal with the broadcasters and streamers ?

Scrosati: The buyers are our partners. These shows will go to a client or a streamer. The fund is simply a way to accelerate the production time schedule. The buyer will be able to access a product when it is actually already in production or is already produced.

Vesper: One of our best clients in the UK is struggling now with some of their bigger shows. Even if they’ve greenlit them, they can’t find the financing for the rest of the budget. This is partly to step into that void. The networks, the linears and the public broadcasters, they’re struggling to fulfill all their programming needs with the resources they have and this provides yet one more avenue to do that.

Deadline: Can the fund be accessed by all the companies producing scripted content under the Fremantle umbrella?

Scrosati: Yes, as you can see with the first three projects. One of them is taking place in Israel, one in in UK, and one is a Chilean-Italian co-production, shot in Hungary. It’s going to be fantastically global.

Deadline: You have set yourselves the target of a €3B turnover by 2025. Do you think that’s realistic? And why have you set yourself this goal?

Scrosati: The goal was set by our shareholders… I’ve worked for a few different shareholders over the course of my career. The thing I’ve found incredibly strong is that Bertelsmann and Rtl have set a goal but have also given us all the support and instruments to reach that goal. It is a very ambitious goal because obviously the company was doing a very different number three years ago, but again they have given us all the support.

One thing, which is really important to say, is that the growth we have done in the last few years has been a been a mix of M&a and organic growth. This growth is not simply because we are acquiring companies, but rather because we are diversifying and creating a business portfolio. An example of this, is that five years ago, we were delivering two movies a year, and last year, we delivered 17, and with the exception of Element, which is an acquisition, all these movies come from companies that were already part of Fremantle.

Vesper: When I joined the company, Wildside was already a crucial part of the company, and I’ve been here six years now and the growth there is all organic and extraordinary.

Scrosati: The M&a we’ve done is all part of strategic plans. It’s been about acquiring companies that were best in class in a sector where we were not present. Element is a fantastic example of that. We did not have an English language, movie production company. Or, best in class in potentially growing regions where we were not present. We invested in Latin American company The Immigrant a few years ago when it was a start-up. It now has three productions on the go and its first movie Adolfo won the Generation 14 Plus prize in Berlin.

Vesper: One of our companies in England, Dancing Ledge, is hitting it out of the park in terms of the number of series they have on BBC and all the platforms. Like The Immigrant, we invested in them when they had done nothing. It’s not like we’re buying revenue. A lot of the M&a is investment in the future.

Deadline: Do you plan to keep up the pace of scripted company acquisitions of the last three years, or is that calming down?

Scrosati: In line with what we were just saying, If there is something that is coherent with our growth, in areas where we’re still not present, or there is a company or creative team that we really think has potential, we will still invest. The other component is the cultural element. We are a big company but we’re very lean. The scripted management team is basically in front of you. The only way it can work is if we see can see an element where it will work intellectually and culturally.

Deadline: Do you have further growth plans for scripted in the U.S.?

Scrosati: It’s our first territory. The company’s core business is still the entertainment and unscripted business and the U.S. is a massive territory for us for that. In addition, Dante di Loreto is leading the scripted team and has a lot going on.

Vesper: We have a show, Fellow Travellers, coming out on Paramount+ at the end of September. It’s a big mini-series with Matt Bomer, Jonathan Bailey and Allison Williams, that was developed with Showtime and that we produced for them. Six-part, gorgeous, about the gay panic in the CIA in the 50s. We also produced two seasons of Mosquito Coast for Apple.

We have a number of big shows that we’re about to announce. What’s interesting is that we have a couple of projects that the U.S. have set up to shoot here (Europe), and vice versa. We’re trying to make sure that our European producers have the resources in the U.S., and the other way round. We’re constantly strategizing about this, it’s important for us to continue to build that business in the U.S..

It might be too early to call it, but The Hollywood Reporter Roma may have given the best party of the 80th Venice Film Festival.

THR Roma, the first European edition of The Hollywood Reporter, threw a starry and glam but also surprisingly chill bash Sunday night at their festival villa, a stone’s throw from The Excelsior Hotel on the Lido. THR Roma had its official launch, in Rome, in April but the Venice bash marked its international coming out, and the group used the occasion to present its first stand-alone print edition (more on that later).

There were shades of Pablo Sorrentino’s famed party sequence in The Great Beauty as a who’s who of the Italian film and fashion industries — among them the cast of Venice festival opener Comandante, including Italian superstar Pierfrancesco Favino and director Edoardo De Angelis, Adagio filmmaker Stefano Sollima, and Valentino’s...

Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera is adamant about his decision to place six Italian movies in this year’s 23-title festival lineup. “Nobody accused the French of chauvinism because they had seven French films in competition in Cannes this year,” Barbera quipped to a snarky Italian reporter when the Venice lineup was announced in July, though he did concede, “It’s true that in the past I have not done this.” Indeed, Barbera’s previous limit on Italian movies in competition for the Golden Lion was five titles last year, which some local critics considered a stretch.

More importantly, the Venice chief pointed out that he presently sees Cinema Italiano at a particularly favorable juncture largely thanks to the fact that Italians are making movies with bigger budgets, “which means greater quality and the ability to compete in international markets, and to travel beyond our borders,” he said.

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...

Luca Guadagnino is putting a brave face on the sudden pulling last month of new movie Challengers from the prestigious opening slot of the Venice Film Festival, after the actors’ strike grounded its U.S. cast led by Zendaya.

The Venice regular – who won its Best Director award in 2022 for Bones And All, having also premiered A Bigger Splash and Suspiria in Competition; I Am Love in Orizzonti and first feature The Protagonists in the now defunct New Territories sidebar – considers the festival his “home” and will still be out in force on the Lido.

The Oscar-nominated Call Me By Your Name director and producer is attending with two productions made under his Frenesy Film Company banner: short animated documentary The Meatseller and Italian actor Pietro Castellitto’s feature directorial debut Enea in Competition.

“You know Venezia is my home and I will be there with the short and feature in competition…...

Being an independent producer was never easy. But these days, it’s near impossible. Even before the dual writers and actors strikes, changes in the international film and TV market had made life tough for the indies. Old models of art house moviemaking have been ravaged by a combination of decline in the specialty box office, the collapse of ancillary revenue for home entertainment and TV licensing, and the more recent pullback by streaming companies, who have begun to back fewer, and more mainstream, movies.

But one indie production company has gone from making just a handful of movies a year to dozens, finding a way to turn the turbulent new reality into a business model for making cutting-edge art house cinema that, shockingly, can actually turn a profit. It’s the company behind five of the most hotly anticipated titles at the Venice Film Festival this year: Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things,...

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.

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.

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...

Exclusive: Vmi Releasing has picked up North American rights to the fantastical WWII drama Freaks vs. the Reich (formerly Freaks Out), which won eight awards at the Venice Film Festival in 2021, including the Grafetta d’Oro for Best Film, and went on to land six David di Donatello Awards from the Academy of Italian Cinema the following year. The second feature from director Gabriele Mainetti (They Call Me Jeeg) will bow in theaters and on digital on April 28th.

Related Story Roadside Attractions Acquires Emerson Brothers Drama ‘Dreamin’ Wild’ With Casey Affleck, Noah Jupe & Zooey Deschanel Related Story Vmi Releasing Taps 'Skinamarink' Exec Producer Jonathan Barkan As Head Of U.S. Distribution Related Story Michael Madsen Horror Gets North America Deal; Toronto Music Biz Pic Adds Cast; Carmen Aguirre Memoir Optioned — North America Briefs

The film set in 1943 Rome opens on an artisanal circus owned by elderly magician,...

Italy’s Cinecittà studios have returned to profit one year ahead of the schedule set in its 2022 to 2026 industrial plan, aimed at returning the facility to its former glory as a major international filming hub.

It is the first time the complex’s results have been in the black since it was taken back under state control in 2017, after being run into the ground under private ownership for more than two decades.

Parent body Cinecittà S.p.A announced a $1.9 million (1.8 million euros) net profit for 2022, and a doubling of turnover to $42.3 million (39 million euros) against 2021, mainly on the back of a raft of bookings for the facilities.

The company said the complex had been booked to above 75% capacity in 2022, against 31% in 2021, a trend that has continued into 2023.

Detailing the $42 million turnover, Cinecittà S.p.A said $37.4 million (34.5 million euros) was related to the soundstages, venues, and set designs, with...

Winter is coming, but not at Netflix, as the streamer will be launching its reality show “Summer Job” – produced by Banijay Italia – before the end of the year.

“I am proud, because it’s an original show made for Italy,” said Tinny Andreatta, VP of content for Italy, at Mia Market on Wednesday.

Netflix has been eager to expand its unscripted content.

“We know our members love it. It’s a really exciting and growing area for us,” added Larry Tanz, VP of content for Emea. Mentioning some recent successes from “Young, Famous & African” to “I Am Georgina,” both coming back for a second season, as well as new Spanish offering “Who Likes My Follower?”

Docu-series are also having a moment, it was stated, with the launch of Mark Lewis’ “Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi” already generating controversy.

“It’s a very sensitive show,” noted Andreatta.

“When we...

"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,...

Gabriele Mainetti’s Freaks Out, co-written with Nicola Guaglianone, starring Franz Rogowski, Aurora Giovinazzo, Pietro Castellitto, Giancarlo Martini, Claudio Santamaria, and Giorgio Tirabassi opens Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s 21st edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema

Giuseppe Bonito’s A Girl Returned; Paolo Taviani’s Leonora Addio (The Demise Of Luigi Pirandello); Laura Bispuri’s The Peacock’s Paradise (Il Paradiso Del Pavone) starring Dominique Sanda, Alba Rohrwacher, Carlo Cerciello, and Maya Sansa; Chiara Bellosi’s Swing Ride (Calcinculo) with Gaia Di Pietro and Andrea Carpenzano; Nanni Moretti’s Three Floors with Margherita Buy, Adriano Giannini, Elena Lietti, Riccardo Scamarcio, Paolo Graziosi, and Rohrwacher, and Gabriele Mainetti’s Freaks Out, co-written with Nicola Guaglianone, starring Franz Rogowski, Aurora Giovinazzo, Pietro Castellitto, Giancarlo Martini, Claudio Santamaria, and Giorgio Tirabassi are six highlights of Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s 21st edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.

He also revealed a slate of new Italian film and TV projects, including Elena Ferrante’s ‘The Lying Life Of Adults’

Netflix’s founder and co-ceo Reed Hastings opened the streaming platform’s Rome office today and unveiled a slate of Italian films and series, including a series adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s most recent novel ’The Lying Life Of Adults’ that will star Valeria Golino. Fandango is producing and Edoardo De Angelis will direct.

During the event it was revealed the number of Italian subscribers is “nearly five million,” according to the company. This is up on the four...

He also revealed a slate of new Italian film and TV projects, including Elena Ferrante’s ‘The Lying Life Of Adults’

Netflix’s founder and co-ceo Reed Hastings opened the streaming platform’s Rome office today and unveiled a slate of Italian films and series, including a series adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s most recent novel ’The Lying Life Of Adults’ that will star Valeria Golino. Fandango is producing and Edoardo De Angelis will direct.

During the event it was revealed the number of Italian subscribers is “nearly five million,” according to the company. This is up on the four...

Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God” and Gabriele Mainetti’s “Freaks Out” lead the pack at the David di Donatello Awards this year with 16 nominations each.

Here’s the complete list of nominees:

Picture

“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Leonardo Di Costanzo

“The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino

“Ennio,” Giuseppe Tornatore

“Freaks Out,” Gabriele Mainetti

“Qui Rido Io” (The King of Laughter), Mario Martone

Director

“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Leonardo Di Costanzo

“The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino

“Ennio,” Giuseppe Tornatore

“Freaks Out,” Gabriele Mainetti

“Qui Rido Io” (The King of Laughter), Mario Martone

Debut Director

“The Bad Poet,” Gianluca Jodice

“Maternal,” Maura Delpero

“Small Body,” Laura Samani

“Re Granchio” (The Legend of King Crab), Alessio Rigo De Righi, Matteo Zoppis

“Una Femmina” (The Code of Silence), Francesco Constabile

Producer

“A Chiara,” Jon Coplon, Paolo Carpignano, Ryan Zacarias, Jonas Carpignano (Stayblack Productions) — Rai Cinema

“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Carlo Cresto...

No one can accuse Freaks Out of lacking shock value. This historical fantasy drama directed by Gabriele Mainetti indulges in every conceivable twist and corny antic to tell the story of four circus performers in Nazi-occupied Rome. Unfortunately, they don’t pay off, and instead end up turning this lengthy flick into a mostly gimmicky slog.

The film opens in 1943 and Matilde, Cencio, Fulvio and Mario, four circus performers, are putting on a routine show. First up is Cencio (Pietro Castellitto), a lanky platinum-blond boy who can control insects (except bees because they annoy him); then comes Mario (Giancarlo Martini), a ...

No one can accuse Freaks Out of lacking shock value. This historical fantasy drama directed by Gabriele Mainetti indulges in every conceivable twist and corny antic to tell the story of four circus performers in Nazi-occupied Rome. Unfortunately, they don’t pay off, and instead end up turning this lengthy flick into a mostly gimmicky slog.

The film opens in 1943 and Matilde, Cencio, Fulvio and Mario, four circus performers, are putting on a routine show. First up is Cencio (Pietro Castellitto), a lanky platinum-blond boy who can control insects (except bees because they annoy him); then comes Mario (Giancarlo Martini), a ...

In the pantheon of notoriously unavailable films, Jerry Lewis’ “The Day the Clown Cried” occupies a special plinth: Its outline — a circus clown is imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp where he cheers up Jewish children before being forced to lead them to their doom — makes it one of the few movies to have been suppressed purely on the grounds of “yikes.” It is perhaps unfair to compare it with “Freaks Out,” the second film from Italian director Gabriele Mainetti (“They Call Me Jeeg”), though given that Mainetti’s film also involves circus performers, Nazis and a train full of Jewish people being transported to the camps, quite which film the comparison is unfair to is up for debate. After all, Lewis’ boondoggle didn’t have in it a psychotic, ether-addicted, six-fingered, “Sieg Heil!”-ing pianist who can see into the future, and a whole host of references to, of all things,...

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.

Movie theaters started to gradually reopen in Italy on Monday, serving up Oscar-winning titles such as “Minari” and “Mank” in a fraction of the country’s venues, just as Covid-19 restrictions begin to ease.

For the moment, it’s a few mostly arthouse venues in Italy’s biggest cities that are becoming active again, while Italian multiplexes remain closed until mid-May when Uci Cinemas, which is the country’s top exhibitor, has announced they will be back in business.

The cinema re-openings are allowed to go ahead on the basis of pre-ordered ticketing, distanced seating, obligatory mask-wearing inside the venues, and no popcorn.

Italy’s gradual easing of restrictions also sees museums reopening to visitors, with reservations required. Restaurants and bars in most Italian regions are allowed to serve people at outdoor tables for both lunch and dinner, although Italy’s 10 p.m. curfew remains in effect at present, though...

Italian producer Domenico Procacci, whose Fandango shingle is developing Elena Ferrante’s “The Lying Life of Adults” for Netflix, has several new films in the pipeline, including chiller “Pantafa” toplining Kasia Smutniak (“Devils”) as a strong-willed mother trying to protect her haunted young daughter.

“Pantafa,” which takes its cue from an ancient Italian legend involving an evil spirit that stifles women in their sleep, has just ended principal photography. Pic is directed by Emanuele Scaringi, who has long worked with Fandango in various guises: as writer, creative producer (“Bangla”), and director of graphic novel adaptation “The Armadillo’s Prophecy,” Scaringi’s feature film debut that went to Venice. He also directed TV crime series “L’Alligatore” for Rai.

“Fandango has never made a horror film in 30 years [of our existence] because I’m personally neither a big fan [of this genre] nor an expert,” Procacci tells Variety. But Scarigni “really believed in this project, so I went with it,...

As Italy’s film and TV industry forges ahead after bearing the brunt of the pandemic in 2020, the Filming Italy — Los Angeles fest, which is a bridgehead between Italy and Hollywood, is pulling out all the stops to drive and promote the country’s restart effort.

After Filming Italy miraculously managed to hold its sister shindig as a physical edition on the island of Sardinia last summer, the upcoming March 18-21 Los Angeles event will be mostly online. But going virtual has just prompted Italian marketing guru Tiziana Rocca, a longtime Italian industry promoter, to double her efforts.

This year the former Taormina Film Festival general manager is serving up twice the number of titles — a selection of more than 50 features, TV skeins, docs and shorts — and a marathon medley of 25 master classes, starting with Edoardo Ponti, director of Oscar-buzzed Sophia Loren-starrer “The Life Ahead,” in conversation with Diane Warren,...

Twenty-eight year old newcomer Pietro Castellitto debuts with this assured, sharply scripted black comedy about class, wildly different families and the individuals that comprise them. It was frankly shocking to learn the Director of this film is so young, as the talent onboard, the sophistication of the script and the style throughout indicate veteran-status skill. Normally Directors cut their teeth with short films but Pietro’s experience stems from his eight or so acting roles, including in The Predators, where he plays an unhinged intern. Other characters include a grifter that visits both worlds, a Director whose life is on the rocks, and a Doctor who saves a gangster's mother. Just some of the outlandish, well realised madcap ensemble drawn into this web. The Predators is...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Sunday announced new measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 that fall short of a total lockdown, but include shuttering the country’s movie theaters starting on Monday through Nov. 24, barring further complications.

Though the government’s decision was expected – as coronavirus infections in Italy rose on Sunday to a new daily record of 21,273 infections and 128 deaths – the country’s exhibitors organization Anec immediately protested the forced closures of cinemas, firing off an open letter to the prime minister voicing their “disapproval” and underlining the move’s “devastating impact” for their business.

The new measures announced on Sunday also involve closing live theaters, gaming halls and gyms outright, while bars and restaurants must close after 6Pm. A nightly curfew will also be in place.

Italy, which was initially the European country hit hardest by the pandemic, and the first to go into lockdown in March,...