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Exclusive: Wild Bunch production house Bim Produzione is readying a TV series adaptation of Fumettibrutti (Uglycomic), a popular Italian graphic novel trilogy about the life of a young transgender woman.

The show won the Wiftmi Award today at Mia in Rome after Bim boss Riccardo Russo presented it in the drama category of the Co-Production Market and Pitching Forum this week. ‘Fumettibrutti’ is the professional name of cartoonist and activist Josephine Yole Signorelli.

The eight-episode first series will include live-action scenes and others animated in the style of the trilogy. It is planned to Yole’s life from her adolescence in Catania, Sicily, through to the publication of her first novel, when she had transitioned and was realizing an ambition to become a cartoonist. It will not follow a linear storyline, and will see the lead character reflecting on herself, her transition from a teenage boy named P. in devoutly...

Rocco Siffredi’s Thoughts on Netflix’s Supersex ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

When it comes to making shows inspired or based on real-life personalities, no one can beat Netflix. From documentaries to movies and web shows, the streaming platform has brought to life the stories of people who have inspired or shocked everyone with their actions and behaviour. The latest addition to their library is Supersex, an Italian adult drama series inspired by the life of adult star Rocco Siffredi.

The Netflix series was written by Francesca Manieri. Francesca directed the show with Francesca Mazzoleni and Matteo Rovere. The official Netflix synopsis reads, “Inspired by true events, this is the story of how Rocco Siffredi escaped a humble life and emerged as the world’s greatest adult movie star.”

Ever since Supersex was released, netizens haven’t stopped talking about it. The explicit content in it has baffled everyone. However, in an interview last year,...

The Berlin Film Festival today unveiled further titles for the 2024 edition of its Berlinale Special Presentations sidebar section alongside its classics program. Scroll down for the full list of titles announced today.

Highlights from the latest drop of Specials titles include Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, a feature documentary about influential British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger narrated by Killers of the Flower Moon filmmaker Martin Scorsese. The feature is directed by David Hinton and features rare archival material from the personal collections of Powell, Pressburger, and Scorsese.

Love Lies Bleeding, the latest feature from British filmmaker Rose Glass will debut in the Specials program. The feature stars Kristen Stewart alongside Katy O’Brian. A short synopsis describes the pic as “a romance fueled by ego, desire, and the American Dream.” The film will arrive at Berlin following it’s debut at Sundance.

Abel Ferrara is...

Netflix has dropped its first key art and several new images for Supersex, the hotly anticipated biographical series on Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi.

Alessandro Borghi, star of Netflix’s mafia drama series Suburra and 2022 Cannes jury prize winner The Eight Mountains, plays Rocco in the fictionalized take on the porn actor’s life. The seven-episode series — created and written by Francesca Manieri, Lorenzo Mieli for Fremantle-owned The Apartment and Matteo Rovere for Banijay’s Groenlandia — will bow on Netflix worldwide March 6, 2024. Rovere, Francesco Carrozzini and Francesca Mazzoleni are directing.

Netflix has said the series is “freely inspired” by Siffredi’s life and career, as well as from direct testimony from Siffredi. Supersex plans to tell the soup-to-nuts story of Rocco from his childhood and family origins through his “relationship with love” that led him to pursue a career in porn.

Jasmine Trinca plays Lucia, a fictional female character who...

Netflix has set a March 6 premiere date for “Supersex,” the series freely inspired by the real life of global porn star Rocco Siffredi, who has more than 1,500 hardcore films to his name.

The series is created and written by prominent Italian screenwriter Francesca Manieri who is known to be a militant feminist. It is described in promotional materials as a profound story that runs through Siffredi’s life since childhood and looks at his family, “his relationship with love” and how “Rocco Tano — a simple guy from Ortona [a small town in central Italy] — became Rocco Siffredi, the most famous pornstar in the world.”

“Supersex” directors are Matteo Rovere (“Romulus”), Francesco Carrozzini (“The Hanging Sun”) and Francesca Mazzoleni (“Punta Sacra”).

At the center of “Supersex” – which is being produced by Lorenzo Mieli’s The Apartment, a Fremantle company, and Groenlandia, which is part of the Banijay group – are unknown aspects of the Italian porn star, who...

“Mubi Podcast: Voci Italiane Contemporanee" is the debut podcast from Mubi Italia, produced in partnership with audio media company Chora Media. It is inspired by the series Italian Voices of Today, now showing on Mubi Italia. Each episode presents an open conversation about contemporary Italian cinema, with guests coming from the worlds of art, music, and wider culture. They will speak with our host, journalist and film critic Gianmaria Tammaro, about their stories—both personal and professional—and their relationship with cinema, to show how apparently different forms of art interact between themselves, creating the unexpected and unique voices of today.This week's episode features:Francesca Mazzoleni: one of the most beloved directors of her generation. With her first film, That’s Life, based on the novel by Sofia Viscardi, she made one of the most distinctive attempts in Italian contemporary cinema to depict the true lives of young adults.

“While the Green Grass Grows” by Peter Mettler won the Grand Prix of the International Feature Film Competition at the 54th edition of Visions du Réel, in Nyon, Switzerland, on Friday.

The Swiss-Canadian director was competing with an unusual project: made in the form of a diary filmed from 2019 to 2021, “While the Green Grass Grows” is in fact a series of seven episodes with a total duration of about 11 hours. It was the finished parts one and six of the series, totalling 166 minutes, that were unveiled in world premiere at Visions du Réel and running for the Grand Prix.

The whole project was also presented in the Work-in-Progress section in order to find other financing and distribution platforms to finalize the remaining parts, which have already been widely edited. This is the second time that Mettler has won the Grand Prix at Visions du Réel, after his victory in 2002 with “Gambling,...

31 doc projects took part in VdR-Industry.

Visions du Réel has unveiled the winning documentary projects that took part in its annual industry programme.

Headed for the first time by Sophie Bourdon, VdR-Industry hosted 1,600 professionals from nearly 80 countries, a similar number to the record 2022 edition. The programme comprised 31 documentary projects from 32 countries.

Scroll down for full list of winners

The vision sud est Jury award, worth Chf 10,000 in cash, for the best project from the South or from Eastern Europe (excluding EU members) went to The Days I Would Like to Forget, an observational doc about the Russia and Ukraine conflict,...

A group of Ukrainian filmmakers have won the top industry award at Swiss international documentary film festival Visions du Réel with their project “The Days I Would Like to Forget,” divided into three chapters, each of which will explore a different phenomenon of war.

Filmmakers Alina Gorlova, Maksym Nakonechnyi, Simon Mozgovyi and Yelizaveta Smith of independent Ukrainian production company Tabor were awarded the Vision du Sud Est prize, handed out to the best project from the South or Eastern Europe.

Running alongside Visions du Réel, the festival’s industry event brought together some 1,600 professionals from nearly 80 countries, in line with last year’s record numbers.

A total of 31 projects were presented in the key forums – VdR–Pitching, VdR–Work in Progress (Wip) and VdR–Rough Cut Lab, alongside the VdR–Development Lab – that run April 24 through April 27 in Nyon, Switzerland.

Representing her colleague filmmakers who are shooting in Ukraine, Gorlova...

Edition runs April 23-27.

Swiss documentary festival Visions du Réel has unveiled the industry projects to be pitched and presented at its 2023 edition, taking place April 23-27.

This year’s selection includes Latvian filmmaker Laila Pakalnina whose new project Cat On My Mind will participate in VdR-Pitching. Pakalnina’s Ausma (2015) and In The Mirror (2020) played in competition at the Blak Nights Tallinn International Film festival while her shorts have screened at Berlin and Cannes.

Also participating in VdR-Pitching is Italy-us filmmaker Mo Scarpelli with her new project Faith about two young girls who live together in an abandoned classroom. Her...

The life of global porn icon Rocco Siffredi is the subject of a new Netflix original series titled ‘Supersex’, which has started shooting in Rome.

The seven-episode drama is freely inspired by the real life of Siffredi, who has more than 1,500 hardcore films to his name. But, in an interesting career twist, Siffredi has also shot two arthouse pics, Catherine Breillat’s ‘Romance’ and ‘Anatomy of Hell’. His Budapest-based Rocco Siffredi Prods. is a porn industry powerhouse.

Siffredi was also the subject of the documentary ‘Rocco’, directed by French duo Thierry Demaiziere and Alban Teurlai, which screened at the 2016 Venice Film Festival.

At the centre of ‘Supersex’, which is being produced by The Apartment, a Fremantle company and Groenlandia, which is part of the Banijay group, are unknown aspects of the Italian porn star, who is being played by Italian A-lister Alessandro Borghi (‘The Eight Mountains’).

The series is created...

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Netflix has greenlit a new Italian series, Supersex, based on the life and career of notorious Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi, aka “Buttman.”

Alessandro Borghi, star of Netflix’s mafia drama series Suburra and 2022 Cannes jury prize winner The Eight Mountains, will play the lead character. Jasmine Trinca, Adriano Giannini co-star with Saul Nanni playing the protagonist as a young man.

Netflix said the seven-episode series would be “freely inspired” by Siffredi’s life and career, as well as from direct testimony from Siffredi. Supersex plans to tell the soup-to-nuts story of Rocco from his childhood and family origins through his “relationship with love” that led him to pursue a career in porn. Created and written by Francesca Manieri, the series is directed by Matteo Rovere, Francesco Carrozzini and Francesca Mazzoleni.

“Supersex is the story of a man who takes seven episodes and...

Netflix has unwrapped its latest Italian series, Supersex.

Produced by Fremantle producer The Apartment and Banijay-owned Groenlandia, it is inspired by the real life of European pornstar Rocco Siffredi. The seven-episode show will be available on Netflix globally in 2023.

Here’s the synopsis: “At the center of the story are unpublished aspects of the pornstar, a profound story that runs through his life since childhood. His family, his origins, his relationship with love, the starting point and the context that led him to embark on his path in pornography.”

Alessandro Borghi will play Rocco Siffredi, and also stars Jasmine Trinca, Adriano Giannini and Saul Nanni in the roles of Lucia, Tommaso and Rocco as a young man, respectively.

Francesca Manieri is creator and writer, with Matteo Rovere, Francesco Carrozzini and Francesca Mazzoleni the directors.

Manieri said: “Supersex is the story of a man who takes seven episodes and 350 minutes to say ‘I love you,...

ITV has revealed a first look at “Romulus 2,” the second season of Cattleya’s innovative Rome origins skein enacted in archaic Latin.

The outfit is also launching global sales on the series, which has just wrapped shooting and is being touted as more “fast paced and in your face” than the first instalment, as Lisa Perrin, the company’s chief of international productions, puts it.

The first season of the lavish Sky Italy original produced by Sky and Cattleya — which is owned by ITV Studios — in collaboration with show runner Matteo Rovere’s Groenlandia shingle, has now attained cult status, if not stellar ratings, in Italy. It won this year’s Silver Ribbon prize given by Italy’s critics for best Italian series made for the international market.

The second serving of “Romulus” — for which there is not yet a firm Italian launch date on Sky — has several new young...

Italy’s David di Donatello Awards historically have been dominated by men in the key best picture, film, and producer categories. And this year is no exception.

All told, out of a total of 145 movies vying for the top Italian film prizes 17 are directed by women, which amounts to a mere 12%.

Women account for roughly 30% of the 1,578 voters for the Davids, which throughout their 66-year history have never seen a woman score the best director statuette. And that percentage marks a definite improvement over past editions.

Sadly significant fact: Lina Wertmuller – who in 1975 became the first woman nominated for a best director Oscar for “Seven Beauties” – has never been nominated for a David. That says a lot. Though Wertmuller was honored with a career David in 2010.

On the bright side, this year there are two women directors (out of five competing) in all of the prizes’ main categories.

Susanna Nicchiarelli’s “Miss Marx,...

Since True Colours launched in 2015, it has rapidly doubled the size of its lineups to roughly 20 titles per year, while continuing to carefully curate distribution strategies for each film and made lots of global inroads.

The company is known among Italian producers for transparency and providing rapid sales reports, while foreign buyers like working with execs “because they always make things easy,” says Nicolas Zumaglini, head of content at prominent Latin American distributor Telefilms, who notes that “they have definitely helped spread Italian cinema in the region.” As for True Colours giving cinema Italiano more global reach, the most poignant recent example is “Il Testimone Invisibile” (“The Invisible Witness”), a remake of Spanish thriller (“Contratiempo”), directed by Italy’s Stefano Mordini. “Invisible Witness” is the European title that’s scored the highest gross at the Chinese box office, roughly $5 million, since movie theaters re-opened in China post-pandemic.

The True Colours...

Experimental doc section Paradocs has also added 11 titles.

The European premiere of Sam Pollard’s MLK/FBI, and Victor Kossakovsky’s buzzy Berlin title Gunda are among the 18 titles selected for the Masters section at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.

The festival has added 47 titles in total to the programme for its 2020 edition, which will take place both in cinemas in Amsterdam, and online.

Looking at the US government surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King, MLK/FBI premiered at Toronto last month, and will be distributed by IFC Films in the US. Gunda follows the daily life of a pig,...

Leading documentary festival Idfa has added 47 films to its program, which run as part of its Masters, Paradocs and Best of Fests sections.

In the Masters section, Idfa has selected 18 titles from today’s auteurs of documentary cinema. In “Irradiated,” winner of the Berlinale Documentary Award, Rithy Panh “contemplates the image of human suffering throughout history in a revolutionary film that approaches cinematic installation,” according to a statement from the festival.

In “Gunda,” Victor Kossakovsky “intimately examines our relationship with animals as he invites audiences to fall in love with the titular character, a wonderful mother pig.” “Paris Caligrammes” sees Ulrike Ottinger “curate a rich archival history of 1960s Paris,” in which the director features alongside the great artists, thinkers and revolutionaries of the day.

Dieudo Hamadi’s “Downstream to Kinshasa” pays tribute to the survivors of the Six-Day War in Hamadi’s native Congo, “finding poetry in stories of human resilience.

The Italian film and TV industry was on a roll when the pandemic hit the country particularly hard. It’s now starting to bounce back as movie theaters reopen and productions prepare to shoot, while the Venice Film Festival, set to physically take place in September, may become a symbol of the global entertainment industry recovery effort.

Besides the festival, Venice in September is expected to host Tom Cruise on the Grand Canal as Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible 7” is scheduled to restart filming — one of roughly 40 shoots, which includes 17 feature films, 19 TV series and some shorts — that ground to a halt in March when Italy went into lockdown.

Since March, the Italian government has been quite supportive of the entertainment industry, providing a roughly $145 million aid package for exhibitors, distributors and producers. And Netflix and Italy’s film commissions have launched a fund to provide short-term emergency support to...

The Italian film and TV industry was on a roll when the pandemic hit the country particularly hard. It’s now starting to bounce back as movie theaters reopen and productions prepare to shoot, while the Venice Film Festival, set to physically take place in September, may become a symbol of the global entertainment industry recovery effort.

Besides the festival, Venice in September is expected to host Tom Cruise on the Grand Canal as Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible 7” is scheduled to restart filming — one of roughly 40 shoots, which includes 17 feature films, 19 TV series and some shorts — that ground to a halt in March when Italy went into lockdown.

Since March, the Italian government has been quite supportive of the entertainment industry, providing a roughly $145 million aid package for exhibitors, distributors and producers. And Netflix and Italy’s film commissions have launched a fund to provide short-term emergency support to...

Joining Italian director Francesca Mazzoleni’s film on the podium is the Finnish offering Anerca, Breath of Life by Markku and Johannes Lehmuskallio. Despite unfolding entirely online, the 51st edition of the Visions du Réel Festival has managed to retain its characteristic convivial feel: the 134 films featuring in the various sections (and representing the larger part of the original selection) were viewed online 60,500 times, most of them reaching their capacity of 500 (virtual) viewers. The masterclasses delivered by Claire Denis (Maître du Réel 2020), Petra Costa and Peter Mettler were particularly well received and hugely exciting, despite the technical limitations and physical distance between participants. From Paris to Brazil and then north to Toronto, this year’s three guests of honour managed to share their experiences with the public, with the moderators (Emilie Bujès and Lionel Baier for Denis’s session) and with students from Ecal and Head, displaying great generosity...

“There are audiences in remote places that we wouldn’t have imagined would’ve been interested.”

Visions du Réel artistic director Emilie Bujès said attracting new audiences has been the highlight of the 2020 online edition (April 17 - May 2), as the festival handed out its prizes on Sunday.

She said “there are still some feelings of sadness” over having to move the entire event online following the coronavirus shutdow but also ”some excitement because we’ve realised that there are audiences in remote places in Switzerland that we wouldn’t have imagined would’ve been interested”.

“There is this potential to...

Francesca Mazzoleni’s “Puntasacra,” Francisco Bermejo’s “The Other One” and Nick Brandestini’s “Sapelo” scooped the top prizes in the three major sections at Switzerland’s Visions du Réel prize ceremony Sunday night, held online as the whole of the documentary festival.

Major plaudits in the festival’s main International Feature Film Competition also went to Markku Lehmuskallio and Johannes Lehmuskallios “Anerca, Breath of Life,” Afsaneh Salari’s “The Silhouettes,” Mo Scarpelli’s “El Father Plays Himself” and José Permar’s “Off the Road.”

The Audience Award, one of the key prizes for distributors,was nabbed by Chines-German feature “Mirror Mirror on the Wall.”

Acquired by Italy’s True Colours for world sales, “Puntasacra” won Visions du Réel’s top Sesterce d’Or la Mobilière for a doc feature that portrays the resilient inhabitants of the last triangle of habitable land at the mouth of the Italy’s Tiber...

True Colours, a top Italian sales agent, has acquired world sales rights to “Puntasacra,” one of 14 feature-length documentaries selected for main international competition at Switzerland’s prestigious – and now online – Visions du Réel Festival in Nyon.

The deal, one of the most important to go down on a title at Vision du Réel reteams True Colours with “Puntasacra” director Francesca Mazzoleni after the sales agents handled sales on her 2017 fiction feature debut, “That’s Life” (Succede).

Produced by Alessandro Greco at Morel Film, “Puntasacra” portrays the inhabitants of the last triangle of habitable land at the mouth of the Tiber, Punta Sacra, and the community of its Idroscalo di Ostia through protagonist Franca’s all-female family, which drives the stories in the film of a community which saw half of its houses destroyed in a fire in 2010. Now only a few hundred families remain, a communist on the verge if extinction,...

Claire Denis, Petra Costa and Peter Mettler to give online masterclasses.

Swiss documentary festival Visions de Réel, which was to have taken place from April 24 to May 2 in the lakeside town of Nyon, has revealed details of the online format it has developed to replace the physical event which was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Visions du Réel 2020 will not take place at the Place du Réel, in the cinemas, in the tent and in the bar, in Nyon,” said artistic director Émilie Bujès, referring to the event’s traditional festival and industry hubs. “But it will resolutely be held on the internet,...

Claire Denis, Petra Costa and Peter Mettler to give online masterclasses.

Swiss documentary festival Visions de Réel, which was to have taken place from April 24 to May 2 in the lakeside town of Nyon, has revealed details of the online format it has developed to replace the physical event which was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Visions du Réel 2020 will not take place at the Place du Réel, in the cinemas, in the tent and in the bar, in Nyon,” said artistic director Émilie Bujès, referring to the event’s traditional festival and industry hubs. “But it will resolutely be held on the internet,...

New roll of comedies includes Valerio Attansio’s directorial debut ‘The Handyman’.

A little over two years after launching, True Colours has grown into one of the most important Italian sales companies.

This year, the company headed by former Rai Com exec Catia Rossi brings a strong line-up to the Cannes market, headlined by Valeria Golino’s second directorial outing Euforia, which is playing in Un Certain Regard. The film stars Riccardo Scamarcio and Valerio Mastandrea as two brothers at odds who are forced to live together in Rome for a few months.

True Colours is also kickstarting sales on a pair of new comedies.

New roll of comedies includes Valerio Attansio’s directorial debut ‘The Handyman’.

A little over two years after launching, True Colours has grown into one of the most important Italian sales companies.

This year, the company headed by former Rai Com exec Catia Rossi brings a strong line-up to the Cannes market, headlined by Valeria Golino’s second directorial outing Euphoria, which is playing in Un Certain Regard. The film stars Riccardo Scamarcio and Valerio Mastandrea as two brothers at odds who are forced to live together in Rome for a few months.

True Colours is also kickstarting sales on a pair of new comedies.