News

Netflix’s latest European originals include scripted series out of Italy and Germany, another Too Hot to Handle remake and a doc on German soccer player Lukas Podolski.

Italian drama Motor Valley will follow a trio working for a famous racing car team and their journey to the Italian Gran Turismo Championship, while dark German miniseries Die Falle comes from the co-creator of Dear Child (Liebes Kind), Isabel Kleefeld. Poldi, meanwhile, explores the life of German World Cup winner Podolski as he reaches the end of his soccer career.

Synopsis for Motor Valley reads: “Arturo, Elena and Blu have lost almost everything in their lives, but one thing still lights them up: the love for cars and adrenaline. Elena, a young member of the Dionisi family, owner of a famous motorsport team, must regain a role in the family business, now in the hands of her brother; she hires Blu,...

“Forest,” an Italian eco-themed animation film about deforestation, has scored some strong pre-sales for Rome-based True Colours at the Cannes Marché du film.

The still-in-production 3-D animation feature – the protagonist of which is a young mushroom named Fey – has been picked up for roughly 20 territories by Top Film Distribution which will distribute “Forest” in Ukraine, Cis, the Baltics, and Eastern European countries including former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Poland, Czech and Slovak Republics, Romania, and Hungary.

Helmed by Luca Della Grotta and Francesco Dafano, the film is produced by Italy’s Al One, the same team that previously spawned 2020 similarly themed animation feature “Trash” that sold in more than 30 countries.

“Forest” – which is the first animation title on the True Colours slate and a rare case of an Italian animation feature film – was presented last year as an in-development project at specialized co-production platforms including Cartoon Movie in the French city of Bordeaux.

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

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

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

Lyda Patitucci, whose first feature “Like Sheep Among Wolves” is launching from the Rotterdam Film Festival’s Harbor section, represents a rare case of an Italian female filmmaker who cut her teeth in the genre movie trenches.

Her extensive experience prior to her debut comprises being a second unit director, specialized in action scenes, on films such as Matteo Rovere’s drag race drama “Italian Race” and on Rovere’s non conventional ancient Rome origins epic “The First King.” Patitucci has also directed several episodes of supernatural Netflix Italian original series “Curon.”

In “Like Sheep Among Wolves,” the protagonist is an intrepid female undercover police agent named Vera who infiltrates a dangerous Serbian syndicate in Rome’s criminal underworld and wins the trust of its kingpins. All seems to be going right in the leadup to her big bust until – just as she is about to set up the gang...

Danish filmmaker Karoline Lyngbye’s first feature ’Superposition’ and the debut from Dutch filmmaker Aaron Rookus’ ’Goodbye Stranger’ will also world premiere.

International Film Festival Rotterdam has added a slew of world premieres including Palestinian filmmaker Muayad Alayan’s A House In Jerusalem and a combined yet different experience of controversial Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl’s diptych Rimini and Sparta, titled Wicked Games Rimini Sparta.

A House In Jerusalem is a project formerly presented at IFFR’s co-production market CineMart, and will premiere in the Limelight section. A House In Jerusalem is a drama centring on a girl forced to...

Shooting is underway on “Woken,” a psychological thriller set on a remote island in the North Sea starring Erin Kellyman (“Solo: A Star Wars Story”) and Maxine Peake (“Funny Cow”).

The pic is being directed by first-time Irish director Alan Friel who previously worked with Peake on his prize-winning 2017 short “Cake.”

Cameras are rolling in Fanore Beach, Ireland, on “Woken,” which is being lead-produced by Ireland’s Fantastic Films. Fantastic has partnered on the pic with Italy’s Propaganda, the Rome-based indie shingle that is ramping up production and moving into the genre pics space.

“Woken,” which is also written by Friel, is set against a post-apocalyptic scenario in which the isle provides a safe haven from a pandemic that has decimated earth. The pic sees the protagonist Anna (Kellyman) wake up pregnant and unable to remember who her husband is. Nor does Anna recognize Helen and Peter who are...

This supernatural drama directed by Fabio Mollo and Lyda Patitucci boasts an exceptional setting and a captivating plot, but the results are mixed. If you want to get an idea of how powerful the setting of an audiovisual work can be, we give you Curon, Netflix’s new Italian original series, available from today in 190 countries around the world, courtesy of the global streaming platform. The driving force of the story, in this mystery-thriller-paranormal seven-parter series directed by Fabio Mollo and Lyda Patitucci (once Matteo Rovere second unit director), is an old church bell tower rising out of a lake, a ghostly and evocative image which stays with the viewer throughout. The series’ location is a real-life place found in Curon Venosta, in Italy’s Alto Adige region, where an old town encircled by mountains was flooded by an artificial dam, with only this...

In league with Lyda Patitucci, the Italian director is shooting the new Netflix original series, a supernatural drama produced by Indiana, consisting of 7 episodes and available from 2020. Shooting is now underway on Curon, the new Netflix original series produced by Indiana Production and directed by Fabio Mollo alongside Lyda Patitucci. The 7-episode series, which will be available from 2020 in the 190 countries where the platform is currently active, is billed as a supernatural drama where mystery, legend and reality combine to give rise to a tale which will take audiences on an incredible journey of self-discovery and an exploration of their own identity. It all unfolds in...