News

Alberto Barbera presided over a lengthy press conference Tuesday morning, when he announced the stacked lineup for this year’s Venice Film Festival, which runs August 27-September 6.

The lineup is expansive, with big names and arthouse darlings sprinkled across the festival’s strands, even including the shorts program.

High-profile titles include Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, starring Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny. Roberts leads the cast as a college professor who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star student (Edebiri) levels an accusation against one of her colleagues (Garfield), and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come into the light. The film will screen Out of Competition on Guadagnino and Amazon MGM Studios’ request, Barbera explained during the presser.

Elsewhere, in Competition we have Jay Kelly, the latest film Noah Baumbach has made for Netflix. The...

Roughly a year after its launch, Italian state broadcaster Rai’s new sales unit for film is at Cannes with its first full-fledged slate headlined by surreal Western “Heads or Tails” starring John C. Reilly as Buffalo Bill during his stay in Italy that is launching in Un Certain Regard.

The Rai Cinema International Distribution slate also includes a new under-the-radar doc by prominent Russian documentary filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky, known for “Gunda” and “Aquarela.” Kossakovsky is now making another ecology-themed doc titled “Tears for Firs” in collaboration with Italian botanist Stefano Mancuso, a pioneer in the plant neurobiology movement who has written several best-selling books including “Tree Stories.” “It’s about the entire life cycle of trees and the correlation between plant life and the life of our planet,” said Rai Cinema chief Paolo Del Brocco.

“Tears for First” is being produced by Rome-based Be Water Film with Rai Cinema.

Maura Delpero’s Italian WW2 drama Vermiglio won best film at the 70th David Di Donatello awards, Italy’s version of the Oscars, held at Rome’s historic Cinecittà film studio on Wednesday night. Delpero also took best directing honors en route to a 7-trophy sweep.

The film, which had its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival last year, beat out the two award frontrunners, Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope, a sumptuous, occasionally surreal tribute to his hometown of Naples, and Andrea Segre’s The Great Ambition, a political biopic about Italian Communist Party leader Enrico Berlinguer, which lead the pack going into the David awards with 15 nominations each. Parthenope went away empty-handed, but The Great Ambition took two awards: Best actor for Elio Germano, who play Berlinguer, and best editing for Jacopo Quadri.

Tecla Insolia won best actress for her starring role in Nicolangelo Gelormini’s Sicilian...

Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope, the director’s sumptuous, occasionally surreal tribute to his hometown of Naples, and Andrea Segre’s The Great Ambition, a political biopic about Italian Communist Party leader Enrico Berlinguer, are the frontrunners for this year’s David Di Donatello awards, Italy’s version of the Oscars.

Parthenope and The Great Ambition picked up 15 nominations each, including for best film and best director. In the best film category, they will face up against Maura Delpero’s Italian WW2 drama Vermiglio and Valeria Golino and Nicolangelo Gelormini’s L’arte della gioia (The Art of Joy), which received 14 nominations each, and the Francesca Comencini-directed drama The Time It Takes, which received four nominations. Other multiple nominees include Margherita Vicario’s debut feature Gloria!, about women musicians at a Church-run establishment in early-1800s Italy, which scored nine nominations, and Francesco Costabile’s crime thriller Familia, with eight.

In the best international film category,...

Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope and Andrea Segre’s The Great Ambition have taken the lead at the nomination stage for Italy’s upcoming 70th David di Donatello awards.

The titles have secured 15 nominations each including for best film and director.

Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio and Valeria Golino and Nicolangelo Gelormini’s The Art Of Joy received 14 nominations each, followed by Gloria! and Familia with nine and eight nominations respectively.

Sorrentino’s Parthenope, following a woman from her birth in 1950 to the current day against the backdrop of Naples, world premiered in Cannes.

Biopic The Great Ambition stars Elio Germano as 1970s and 1980s left-wing political leader Enrico Berlinguer, who nearly led the Communist party into power.

Vermiglio world premiered in Venice where it won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize and went on to be Italy’s 2025 Oscars submission. Set in a remote mountain village in 1944, the drama revolves around...

French-Moroccan multi-hyphenate Roschdy Zem (“Days of Glory,” “The Innocent”) and Italy’s Barbara Ronchi (“Kidnapped”) are set to star in psychological drama “Elisa — Io la volevo uccidere” by Italian director Leonardo Di Costanzo.

Zem, who is one of France’s most bankable actors, will play a compassionate criminologist named Alaoui, whose life intersects with a young woman named Elisa, played by Ronchi. Elisa comes from a middle class family and has been in prison for 10 years for brutally killing her sister.

Rounding off the cast is Diego Ribon (“Doc”), who plays Elisa’s father.

Shooting is set to start March 1 on “Elisa — Io la volevo uccidere,” which is the film’s Italian working title and translates as “Elisa — I Wanted to Kill Her.”

Carlo Cresto-Dina and Manuela Melissano are producing “Elisa” via Cresto-Dina’s Tempesta shingle with backing from Italy’s Rai Cinema. The film is being co-produced with Michela Pini...

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 “Trains of Happiness,” or Treni della Felicità, emerged as a moving symbol of postwar perseverance in Italy. The Italian Communist Party launched this effort in the late 1940s to rescue children from the devastation of a war-torn society.

Over 70,000 children from impoverished Southern Italy were given the chance for a better life in the more opulent North due to the program’s humanitarian and practical goals. It’s a survival story with Dickensian overtones, where the promise of warmth, food, and education is called like a siren song. However, irony abounds; many families were originally dubious, believing their children might be pawns in a political game or worse.

The film depicts a civilization dealing with the memories of war against the backdrop of Naples in 1946. Poverty and disease are pervasive, casting long shadows over the lives of its residents. The significance of this milieu cannot be emphasized; it captures...

The Children’s Train is a one-of-a-kind story set in Italy post the Second World War. The entirety of Europe was in shambles, and Italy was one of the many countries that was facing rampant poverty as there was a lack of jobs and food in several parts of the country. Southern Italy was massively hit by these difficulties, and it’s this scenario The Children’s Train is based on. The children and their mothers play a major role in the film. These are the characters that make the film interesting and emotional at the same time.

Spoilers Ahead

Amerigo

Christian Cervone, the child actor, portrays the role of an eight-year-old Amerigo, who was born in Naples to Antoinette. From childhood he and his mother have had a complicated relationship. He is aware his father is in America seeking fortune while Amerigo and his mother are barely scraping by because of...

“The Children’s Train” is an Italian movie directed by Cristina Comencini. With Barbara Ronchi and Serena Rossi.

“The Children’s Train,” a film set in post-World War II Italy, has made its way to Netflix. The story unfolds across two regions of Italy: a small town near Modena in the north and Naples in the south, highlighting the stark contrasts between these areas in the aftermath of the conflict.

The narrative centers on Amerigo, a young boy from Naples who is sent north to live with a communist family for a period. During his stay, Amerigo experiences a joyful time with the local community and forms a bond with his foster mother, Denna. However, his eventual return to Naples forces him to confront the harsh realities of his hometown and his relationship with his birth mother, Antonietta.

Based on Viola Ardone’s novel, this Netflix offering presents a simple yet touching...

Set in 1940s Italy, “The Children’s Train” (Original title: Il treno dei bambini) is a tragic tearjerker now streaming on Netflix. Co-written by director Cristina Comencini, the film is based on Viola Ardone’s eponymous book. The story follows seven-year-old Amerigo, a boy from a struggling family in war-torn Naples, navigating life amidst poverty and conflict. Subsequently, his single mother makes a difficult decision to send him to the greener pastures in the North to protect his life. Christian Cervone stars as the young kid while Serena Rossi plays his mother. Barbara Ronchi plays the woman whose family adopts him.

Spoilers Ahead

The Children’s Train Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

Set in the 1940s, Cristina Comencini’s “The Children’s Train” (Il treno dei bambini) follows a young boy from Naples being sent to the Northern part of the country to lead a better life, growing up to be an accomplished musician.

Netflix presented its first international showcase yesterday with a look at what is coming down down the pike. Below is a preview of what’s on deck for feature films. Of note, was the title announcement and treatment of the Japanese movie Bullet Train Explosion. Also made a official was Troll 2, the sequel to the streamer’s most watched non-English language film from Norway. Roar Uthaug returns to the director’s chair.

Also of note, the streamer dated the Mexican movie Los Dos Hemisferios de Lucca from Marina Chenillo for Jan. 31 next year.

Not made official by the streamer was a part two to their widely watched shark movie of 102.3M viewers, Under Paris, from director Xavier Gens and starring Oscar nominated The Artist actress, Bérénice Bejo.

Related: Shah Rukh Khan & Netflix Ready Series Set In Bollywood Film Industry

Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria announced the slate at...

"He forgot everything up North, even his mom." Netflix has unveiled the official trailer for The Children's Train, a story set in Italy right after World War II about kids being sent to the north of the country. Based on Viola Ardone's bestselling novel "Il Treno dei Bambini" being turned into a grand feature film. Set in the the cities of Naples and Modena just after WWII, The Children's Train follows the life of Amerigo Speranza, a seven-year-old boy who sets off on an extraordinary journey. It explore themes such as poverty, resilience, and humanity, offering an insight exciting and profound of an Italy marked by war but full of hope. With a star-studded cast featuring Serena Rossi, Barbara Ronchi, Stefano Accorsi, & Christian Cervone, and directed by the celebrated filmmaker Cristina Comencini, the film promises a poignant & emotional journey. We posted the teaser trailer earlier in 2024, now the official...

Little remains known today of Josef Mysliveček, an 18th-century composer who found immense fame and success in Italy during his lifetime. Born in what is now the Czech Republic, Mysliveček crafted magnificent operas that entranced Italian audiences, placing him among the most renowned musical talents of his time. Yet somehow, within just a few generations, his name and music were lost to the winds of history.

Director Petr Václav seeks to change that with his film Il Boemo. More than just tell Mysliveček’s story, Václav wants to resurrect the composer’s legacy and introduce new audiences to his beautiful compositions. No small task, pulling a virtually forgotten figure out of obscurity.

Through dramatizing Mysliveček’s journey from poverty to prominence and back again, does the film truly do justice to its subject? More importantly, does it accomplish what matters most—sparking modern interest in this talented man’s long-silent musical works?...

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,...

The 81st Venice International Film Festival has announced the opening night films for its Horizons and Horizons Extra competition sections.

Nonostante, the second feature from Italian director Valerio Mastandrea (2018’s Ride) will open the Horizons competition section on August 28. The Horizons Extra competition section will kick off on August 29 with September 5, Tim Fehlbaum’s historical drama about the 1972 Munich Olympics starring Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro and Ben Chaplin.

September 5 focuses on a sports broadcasting team who suddenly find themselves covering a hostage crisis when the Palestinian militant organization Black September infiltrates the Olympic Village, kills two members of the Israeli Olympic team, and takes the other nine hostage. The Teacher’s Lounge breakout Leonie Benesch also co-stars. Fehlbaum is best known for his sci-fi features Hell (2011) and The Colony (2021).

September 5 was produced by BerghausWöbke Filmproduktion and Projected Picture Works, in co-production with Constantin Film and Erf Edgar Reitz Filmproduktion. Fehlbaum,...

A searing historical drama set in mid-19th century Bologna, and a TIFF award winning coming-of-age story open in limited release. The fascination with female conductors continues in doc Maestra. Netflix starts a small run with Richard Linklater comedy Hit Man. A24’s I Saw TV Glow is steady on under 400 screens. Evil Does Not Exist from Sideshow/Janus Films pops up to 138 runs.

Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara, which premiered at Cannes a year ago (see Deadline review) opens in NYC at Film at Lincoln Center and the Quad Cinema, expanding to LA and top 10 markets next week. Based on the true story of a six-year-old Jewish boy in Bologna abducted in 1858 by the all-powerful Catholic Church and its menacing grand inquisitor in the city after a former housekeeper’s dubious claim to have secretly baptized him as a baby.

He was rushed secretly to...

"This will create new tensions." Cohen Media Group has unveiled an official US trailer for the Italian dramatic thriller now titled (in full) Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara. This premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival last year under the shorter title Rapito. This is legendary Italian director Marco Bellocchio's period drama, depicting a scandalous & captivating true story. It also played at TIFF, New York, Mill Valley, and AFI Fest last year. This grand, historical fresco depicts the true story of a young Jewish child who, in mid-19th century Bologna, was abducted from his family by the church on the Pope's orders. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby, and the papal law is unquestionable: he must now receive a Catholic education. Edgardo's parents, distraught, will do anything to get their son back. Supported by public opinion and the international Jewish community,...

Marco Bellocchio is the 84-year-old Italian director behind films like “Fists in the Pocket” from 1965, “Vincere” from 2009, and “Devil in the Flesh” from 1986. His strict Catholic upbringing has led him to make films that take a critical eye toward the Church, condemning its politics and documented history of abuse. Now, he is taking the Church to task once again with his latest film, “Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara,” out May 24 from Cohen Media Group. Watch the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, below.

Here’s the official synopsis: “In 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education. Edgardo’s parents, distraught, will do...

Matteo Garrone’s refugee drama Io Capitano, an Oscar nominee this year for Italy in the best international feature category, was the big winner of this year’s 2024 David Di Donatello Awards, Italy’s equivalent to the Oscars, winning best film and director for Garrone.

Io Capitano also picked up prizes for best cinematography, editing, sound, and visual effects.

Paola Cortellesi’s There’s Still Tomorrow, a black-and-white feminist dramedy that became the top-grossing film in Italy last year, won Cortellesi the Donatello honors for best actress, directorial debut, and original script for the screenplay she co-wrote with Furio Andreotti and Giulia Calenda.

“I want to thank those who gave me the opportunity to write this role as I wanted it,” she said, accepting her actress honor.

Cortellesi’s film, a dramedy about an abused woman in post-wwii Rome that manages to combine serious social drama with situational comedy, sight gags and even a musical number,...

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.

"Sometimes those who let you go love you more... than those who hold you back." Netflix has revealed a quick teaser trailer for The Children's Train, an upcoming adaptation set in Italy right after World War II about kids being sent away. Based on Viola Ardone's bestselling novel "Il Treno dei Bambini" turned into a grand feature film. Set in the the city of Naples just after WWII, The Children's Train follows the life of Amerigo Speranza, a seven-year-old boy who sets off on an extraordinary journey. It explore themes such as poverty, resilience, and humanity, offering an insight exciting and profound of an Italy marked by war but full of hope. With a star-studded cast featuring Serena Rossi, Barbara Ronchi, Stefano Accorsi, and Christian Cervone, and directed by the celebrated filmmaker Cristina Comencini, the film promises a poignant & emotional journey. The story is about a group of children...

Comencini’s feature credits include Venice competition titles ’Don’t Tell’ (2005) and ’When The Night’ (2011).

Netflix has added two original features and two scripted series to its Italian slate.

The slate includes the latest film from Italian director and screenwriter Cristina Comencini, whose feature credits include Venice competition titles Don’t Tell (2005) and When The Night (2011). Produced by Palomar, Il Treno Dei Bambini, is based on the book by Viola Ardone and is billed as a journey through the misery but also the generosity witnessed in postwar Italy, as seen through the eyes of a child torn between two mothers.

The feature is written by Furio Andreotti,...

Netflix’s next Italian originals will be pairs of series and feature films from the likes of Stefano Mordini, Alessandro Genovesi and Cristina Comencini.

The projects were unveiled at a See What’s Next event in Rome today, in front of several stars, directors and stars.

Tinny Andreatta, Vice President of Italian Content at Netflix, said the orders showed the streamer remains “committed to our investment in Italy and Italian stories with conviction, continuing our long-term commitment to the country and its creative community.” Netflix opened an Italian office in May last year.

Namely, pics are Cristina Comencini’s Il Treno dei Bambini and Fabbricante di Lacrime from director Alessandro Genovesi. TV shows comprise Storia della mia Famiglia and Adorazione.

Il Treno dei Bambini is based on Viola Ardone’s bestselling novel pf the same name and is billed as as an “epic and poignant film” set in post-war Italy...

Marco Bellocchio excels at grand gestures. The Italian title of the filmmaker’s latest, Kidnapped, appears on screen in large, blood-red letters, like the screaming headline of a tabloid news article. Yet it’s placed over a deceptively serene scene, circa the late-1850s, of servant woman Anna Morisi (Aurora Camatti) strolling into a store across the street from her Bologna-residing employers, the Jewish Mortara family. The clashing juxtaposition of words and images is apt, for none of the characters suspects that history is about to be made.

The Mortara case is one of the most egregious stains on the legacy of the Catholic Church. It captured the world’s attention at a particularly fraught moment, right as the Papal States (occupied Italian territories that had for centuries been under the direct rule of successive popes) were close to permanent dissolution, and global antisemitism was on a genocidal rise.

In...

Following the announcement of the North American acquisition by Cohen Media, The Match Factory has revealed further sales in key territories for Marco Bellocchio’s Cannes Competition title “Kidnapped.”

The film adapts the true story of the kidnapping of the young Jewish boy Edgardo Mortara, starring Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi, Enea Sala and Leonardo Maltese.

The film has its release secured in the following territories: U.K. and Ireland (Curzon), Australia and New Zealand (Palace Entertainment), Japan (Fine Films), Latin America (Cine Video y TV), Spain (Vertigo Films), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Switzerland (Agora Films), Poland (Best Film), Portugal (Alambique), Greece and Cyprus (Rosebud.21), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Aerofilms), Ex-Yugoslavia (McF Megacom), Hungary (Vertigo Media), Baltics (Kino Pavasaris), Bulgaria (Art Fest), Israel (United King Video), Ukraine (Traffic Films), Taiwan (Light Year Images) and Indonesia (Falcon Pictures). Further territories are in negotiation.

The film is a production by Ibc Movie...

At a spry 83-years-old, director Marco Bellocchio is about 18 months the junior to last year’s Cannes acclaimed octogenarian, “Eo” prizewinner Jerzy Skolimowski, though the Italian maestro’s latest film has a much creakier feel. That’s hardly a fatal flaw, as Bellochio’s Cannes-premiering “Kidnapped” offers the comforting pleasures of a cracking tale well told, a handsome tour of Old World locales and a throwback mix of Big Themes served on heaping platters.

The story certainly lends itself to such heft, as it follows the true tale of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish boy confiscated from his family by the all-powerful church and raised to be a priest. What pushed the local authorities to turn up unannounced one night — making demands of a Jewish family that would echo persecutions past and to come – becomes clear when church police set their sight on a 6-year-old boy and tell his parents, “Someone betrayed you.

Solid, stately and — like the collapsing Papal States of the Italian Peninsula in the late 1800s — just a little too tradition-bound for its own good, Marco Bellocchio’s “Kidnapped,” based on a 19th-century case of religious abduction, opens with an eavesdrop. Anna (Aurora Camatti), the Catholic servant to the Jewish Mortara family of Bologna, pauses on the stairs after a tryst and spies her employers, Momolo Mortara (Fausto Russo Alesi) and his wife Marianna (Barbara Ronchi), murmuring a blessing in Hebrew over their newborn baby boy. It is not clear yet why the sight should make her stop in her tracks, but over the course of over two sedate but mostly absorbing hours, the veteran director follows its repercussions with a singleminded, narrow dedication that sits strangely at odds with the film’s immaculately expansive production design.

Six years later, the Mortara family has itself expanded greatly. The boy, Edgardo...

At 83 years-old, Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio has been on a hot streak these past years, with the success both at home and abroad of his 2019 Sicilian mafia epic, The Traitor, and his first ever TV miniseries, Exterior, Night, playing well around Europe.

His latest feature — the 31st in a prolific career that began at age 24 with his breakout drama, Fists in the Pocket — is probably not his greatest, but that’s not really a put-down in a filmography filled with memorable work, including other recent movies like Vincere and Good Morning, Night.

Kidnapped (Rapito), a period piece about a Jewish boy taken away from his family to live in the Vatican in 1858, may not be on par with those titles, but it’s still an engaging and somewhat fascinating film, telling a true story that probes historic Italian antisemitism and the follies of the Catholic church.

Filled with the director...

Belgian directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s Italian-language drama The Eight Mountains and veteran Marco Bellocchio’s Exterior Night topped the 68th edition of Italy’s David di Donatello Awards on Wednesday evening.

The Eight Mountains won best film as well as best non-original screenplay, photography and sound.

Based on the novel of the same name by Paolo Cognetti, it stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as two men from different backgrounds who form a life-long bond during summers spent together as children in a remote mountain village.

The film world premiered in Competition at Cannes last year where it co-won the Jury Prize. Read the Deadline review here.

It is the second time in the history of the awards that a film by non-Italian directors has clinched the best film prize.

The last time was in 1971 when the Dino de Laurentiis-produced epic Waterloo by Russian director Sergei Bonderchuk,...

“The Eight Mountains,” Belgian directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s Italian-language drama about friendship, mountains and growing up, scored the top prize at Italy’s 68th David di Donatello Awards.

Besides winning best picture, the film also scooped statuettes for best non-original screenplay, photography and sound.

Given that the directors are not Italian, it was a particularly significant victory for “Mountains,” which was praised as “quietly magnificent” by Variety critic Jessica Kiang. The film, which is currently playing well on the U.S. arthouse circuit, tracks the decades-long friendship between two Italian boys named Pietro and Bruno — one from the city, the other a shepherd boy from the Alps.

“It’s pretty incredible,” commented a visibly moved Van Groeningen. “Two Belgians who win this prize in Italy for an Italian movie.” “Thank you for this declaration of love,” added Vandermeersch, his partner in life. “We love Italy very much.

Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer for Marco Bellocchio’s “Kidnapped” (Rapito), which has its world premiere in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film starts in 1858 in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, when the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education.

Edgardo’s parents, distraught, will do anything to get their son back. Supported by public opinion and the international Jewish community, the Mortaras’ struggle quickly takes a political dimension. But the Church and the Pope will not agree to return the child, to consolidate an increasingly wavering power.

The film stars Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi, Enea Sala (as the...

Still Time (Era ora) is an Italian film directed by Alessandro Aronadio starring Edoardo Leo, Barbara Ronchi and Mario Sgueglia.

An Italian film that starts out as a “romantic comedy”, and that threatens to dive into middle-aged drama and ends up turning it into Groundhog Day with a man trapped in a time he… can no longer remember.

An interesting premise about turning back time in the genre of movies that turn back time… with a much more sentimental than comedic approach.

About the Movie

If you are in the mood for a movie about watching life go by, this is a good opportunity to let yourself be imbued with nostalgia, and search – like Proust – for time lost in an amount of time that is much shorter than the French author’s novel.

As for the film, good performances, especially by Edoardo Leo, who knows how to compose the different...

Netflix has acquired global rights to Italian rom-com “Era Ora” (“Still Time”), marking a rare instance in which an Italian comedy is set to gain worldwide visibility.

“Still Time” is directed by Alessandro Aronadio, a Los Angeles Film School graduate whose first work “One Life, Maybe Two” launched from Berlin’s Panorama section.

The comedy stars Edoardo Leo (“Perfect Strangers”) as a workaholic named Dante who is perpetually late to everything important, and Barbara Ronchi (soon to be seen in Marco Bellocchio’s “La Conversione”) as his girlfriend Alice. The twist comes when Dante winds up leaping ahead a year in his life every few hours, just as he wants to slow down.

After showing up hours late for his 40th birthday party, Dante wakes up the next day and it’s already the day of his 41st birthday and Alice is four months pregnant. Then, upon waking up again,...

La conversione

The true story has put the fear of god in the directors who consider making it, but finally, it was Italian maestro Marco Bellocchio who took on the project on a person who goes by the name of Edgardo Mortara. An almost three-plus month shoot in Bologna and Rome, Marco Bellocchio co-wrote with Susanna Nicchiarelli, this is the true-life drama set in 1858. La Conversione stars Paolo Pierobon, Barbara Ronchi, Fausto Russo Alesi, Filippo Timi, Fabrizio Gifuni, Enea Sala, playing Mortara as a child, and Leonardo Maltese, playing Mortara as an older boy.…...

The Czech composer who inspired Mozart is the subject of Il Boemo, a handsome period biopic that premiered in competition at the San Sebastian Film Festival. Written and directed by Petr Vaclav (Marian), it’s an entertaining insight into Josef Mysliveček’s music and his hedonistic lifestyle, with an operatic running time of 140 minutes. While the film is mostly in Italian, it’s the Czech entry for the International Feature race at the Academy Awards and should attract an audience of mature music lovers.

Czech actor and musician Vojtěch Dyk puts in a dashing performance as the musician who became a celebrated composer in 18th century Italy, and was all but forgotten by a history that celebrated the younger Mozart. But there’s no doubting the talent of the man nicknamed “Il Boemo,” as the film’s many musical scenes attest.

Photo Gallery: Past International Feature Film Oscar Winners

We...

At the height of his career, Czech-born composer Josef Mysliveček was the most prolific and sought-after figure in Italian opera, bound for immortal celebrity. Nearly three centuries later, his name isn’t forgotten to classical music scholars, but neither does it have anything approaching household status; the facts and records of his personal life, meanwhile, have largely been lost to history. Via a blend of free narrative speculation and exacting musical presentation, Petr Vaclav’s stately, sumptuous biopic “Il Boemo” seeks to restore a degree of iconic status to a talent latterly overshadowed by relative 18th-century contemporaries, albeit not with much swagger or modernity of its own: This is costume drama of a traditional, ornately brocaded stripe, a classical music lesson for classicists.

That’s not likely to do “Il Boemo” any harm as it further travels the festival circuit following its world premiere in San Sebastian’s main competition,...

Shooting has begun in Roccabianca in the province of Parma, Italy, on Marco Bellocchio’s new film, “La Conversione” (The Conversion), inspired by the story of Edgardo Mortara, the Jewish child who in 1858 was removed from his family to be raised as a Catholic in the custody of Pope Pius IX. Bellocchio is pictured, above, on set in Roccabianca this week.

“La Conversione” stars Paolo Pierobon, Barbara Ronchi, Fausto Russo Alesi, Filippo Timi, Fabrizio Gifuni, Enea Sala, playing Mortara as a child, and Leonardo Maltese, playing Mortara as an older boy.

The film is an IBCmovie and Kavac Film production with Rai Cinema, with the support of the Emilia Romagna region and its film commission, in co-production with Ad Vitam Production in France, and Match Factory Productions in Germany. It is produced by Beppe Caschetto and Simone Gattoni.

The screenplay is by Bellocchio and Susanna Nicchiarelli, with the collaboration of Edoardo Albinati and Daniela Ceselli,...

The year is sometime in the near future, apparently, and society has collapsed for vague reasons. Well, some of it has. Some of it hasn’t. Or maybe it only has if you squint really hard.

The Italian post-apocalyptic coming-of-age crime drama “Mondocane” is big on attitude but very short on details, presenting a world of violent gangs and oppressive police against a backdrop that’s so similar to what’s going on today, and so unexplored in all its sci-fi trappings, that one can’t help but wonder why it’s set in the future at all.

Dennis Protopapa, in his feature film debut, plays the title character, Pietro, who quickly earns the name “Dogworld” after he torches a pet shop to earn his place in a gang called “The Ants.” He’s grown up by the seashore with his best friend Cristian, and if you thought “Dogworld” was an unfortunate nom de guerre,...

Sometimes it can be a little sad to watch a director blatantly make a bid for mainstream American acceptance (or rather future Marvel gig), and in the case of Mondocane (Italian for Dogworld) this couldn’t be more apparent. What seemed an exciting prospect, a potential throwback to trashy Italian post-apocalyptic films (or just a bleak arthouse sci-fi), Alessandro Celli’s feature debut rather feels like minor adjustments to an ’80s Amblin fantasy film above all––a few more blatant references to child molestation notwithstanding. Though perhaps having children as the protagonists should’ve been the tip-off to what flavor of sci-fi adventure we’d be getting, one still replete with sleek nighttime motorcycle chases and gunfire to feel just “modern” or “adult” enough.

A brief title crawl informs us the Italian town of Taranto is now a wasteland devastated by climate change, a power plant blotting the skyline and barbed wire guarding the borders.

The stakes at the center of “Mondocane” aren’t without importance or tragedy: two boys search in the rubble of civilization for wealth, safety, and friendship. Owing to the lineage began by “Lord of the Flies,” this dreary and distant tale, backgrounded by glittering seas and abandoned buildings, should follow in the footsteps of Kim Nguyen’s harrowing film “War Witch” or Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s shocking “Johnny Mad Dog” — two movies about wayward children navigating harsh environments rendered harsher due to their age. But

In his narrative debut feature, Celli and co-writer Antonio Leotti have clearly taken all of the notes: The messianic leader who’s far less virtuous than he appears to be is there, as are the common initiations requiring children to lose their humanity and innocence to harden them. There’s even the girl who comes between two friends. Those familiar pieces, however, are shaken up and jumbled,...

"We weren't meant to be here. We're Ants or have you forgotten?" Kino Lorber has revealed an official US trailer for a film from Italy titled Mondocane, which premiered at Critics Week at the Venice Film Festival last year. The title translates to Dogworld in English, describing this "proto-cyberpunk" post-apocalyptic film set in a city called Taranto. In the near future, Taranto is a ghost town surrounded by barbed wire that no one, not even the police, dares to enter. The poorest are left fighting for survival, while gangs compete for territory. Two 13-year-old orphans, who grew up together, dream of joining one of the gangs. "Recalling everything from Mad Max to Lord of the Flies to City of God, director Alessandro Celli's thrilling feature debut is a stylish post-apocalyptic vision and an inspiring testament to the power of friendship in an unjust world." This stars Dennis Protopapa, Giuliano Soprano,...

The screenwriter’s debut film starring Barbara Ronchi, Fabrizio Bentivoglio and Thony is produced by Lynn, Groenlandia’s new division dedicated to projects directed by women. Filming wrapped last week on Settembre, the first feature film to be directed by Giulia Steigerwalt, which has now entered into post-production. Based upon the 2019 short film of the same name which was written and directed by Steigerwalt herself, the film stars Barbara Ronchi, Fabrizio Bentivoglio and Thony in lead roles and tells the ironic and emotional tale of an adolescent’s sentimental education. Penned in its entirety by the director, Settembre tells the story of 14-year-old Maria who comes to the attention of Cristian, a boy she’s always had a crush on, following the school summer holidays. Via...

Italy’s period of combatting terrorism from the late 1960s to the late ’80s, known as the “Years of Lead,” remains a richly-mined topic in cinema, more successfully processed on screen than through any of the official bodies charged with accountability. Digging into his personal trauma from that era, director Claudio Noce (“The Ice Forest”) takes some of the basic facts from the attempted assassination in 1976 of his father, a deputy police chief, and aims to process how that affected him and his family. “Padrenostro,” or “Our Father,” is , at its best when it sticks to the tense rapport within a family terrified they’ll be targeted again. The subject together with the fine ensemble cast will likely see strong interest at home, but any kind of significant travel is unlikely apart from Italian showcases.

Noce was two years old when the attack occurred, old enough for him to feel...

The old adage about babies having babies gets markedly grown-up treatment in “Sole,” a crisp, reserved debut feature from Italian writer-director Carlo Sironi that examines the concept of parental instinct from an unusual point of view: that of a directionless young man play-acting the role of fatherhood, and finding himself unexpectedly broody in the process. An Italian-Polish co-production in which both nationalities feel narratively and spiritually integral to proceedings, Sironi’s film effectively blends the warm-blooded emotional stakes of classic Italian melodrama with the cooler, more rigorous language of new Eastern European cinema. It’s a head-turning hybrid that, while a little over-studied in parts, will travel well on the festival circuit, and is sure to feature prominently in new-director showcases.

Besides its more substantial virtues, “Sole” is surely notable for being among the bluest films ever committed to the screen — literally, that is, as Sironi bathes the screen in more shades of sky,...

Sole

Director Carlo Sironi makes his directorial debut with Sole, a project which was selected for several notable initiatives during its development, including Residence de la Cinefondation at Cannes, the Script Station in Berlin, the Sundance Mediterranean Lab and TorinoFilmLab, where it won a Production Award. An Italian-Polish production through Rai Cinema, Kino Produzioni and Lava Films, the film stars Sandra Drzymalska opposite newcomer Claudio Segaluscio with a supporting cast of Barbara Ronchi, Bruno Buzzi, Marco Felli, Vitaliano Trevisan, and Orietta Notari. His short film Cargo (2012) was part of the Venice Film Festival.

Gist: Frittering away his days on slot machines, everything changes for Ermanno when Lena turns up in Italy trying to sell her baby and start life afresh.…...

Title: Fai Bei Sogni (Sweet Dreams) Director: Marco Bellocchio Starring: Valerio Mastrandrea, Barbara Ronchi, Nicolò Cabras, Guido Caprino, Bérénice Bejo, Pier Giorgio Belloccio, Dario Dal Pero, Dylan Ferrario, Emanuelle Devos Massimo Gramellini is one of Italy’s most prominent journalists and writers. In 2012 he published the autobiographical book ‘Fai Bei Sogni,’ where he retraced his inner journey while growing up, to overcome the grief and sense of abandonment felt ever since he was nine years old, caused by the death of his mother. Director Marco Bellocchio ? who encompassed a wide range of genres and subjects during his 50-year career, conquering worldwide audiences, festivals and prestigious retrospectives (such as the [ Read More ]

The post Fai Bei Sogni (Sweet Dreams) Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.