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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...

Italy’s True Colours has unveiled key sales across its slate, including deals for Toronto title U Are The Universe, Venice Horizons feature Familia and Locarno premiere Death Will Come.

Ukrainian director Pavlo Ostrikov’s sci-fi U Are The Universe, which played in Toronto’s Discovery section, has sold to France (The Jokers Films), German speaking territories (Pandastorm Pictures), Poland (Aurora Film), Brazil (Imovision) and Indonesia (Falcon Pictures).

Set after the explosion of Earth, the film follows a lonely Ukrainian astronaut who believes he is the only survivor – until he hears a French scientist on the radio, and decides to find her.

The stars are descending on Tuscany. Ethan Hawke, Paul Schrader, Matthew Modine and Swedish auteur Ruben Östlund will walk the red carpet at the Lucca Film Festival, the annual event held in the picturesque Tuscan town, home to old-fashioned merchants, tailors, jewelers and some of the best olive oil on the planet.

The Hollywood Reporter Roma will become the official International Media Partner of Lff this year, providing daily coverage throughout.

The Llff, which kicks off on Saturday and concludes on Sunday, Sept. 29, is the vision of fest director Nicola Borrelli, who places an emphasis on uncompromising, unconventional cinema.

Also attending is Italian cinema legend Pupi Avati, fresh from premiering his gothic horror film The American Backyard in Venice. Francesco Costabile, the writer of of Familia, will also be in Lucca, along with the film’s lead actor, Francesco Gheghi, who recently won best actor in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Fest.

Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore in ‘The Room Next Door’ (Photo Credit: Sony Classics)

The 2024 Venice Film Festival winners were announced on September 7th, with Oscar-winner Pedro Almodóvar (Talk to Her) earning the Golden Lion for Best Film for The Room Next Door. Almodóvar took home the coveted prize for this first English-language film, and he dedicated the win to his family. “It is my first movie in English but the spirit is Spanish,” said the acclaimed filmmaker.

Academy Award-winner Nicole Kidman was named Best Actress for her starring role in director Halina Reijn’s Babygirl. Kidman wasn’t able to attend the ceremony, and Reijn read a statement accepting the award. “Today, I arrived in Venice to find out shortly after that my brave and beautiful mother Janelle Ann Kidman has just passed. I’m in shock and I have to go to my family. But this award is for her.

Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door won the Golden Lion for best film at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.

Almodóvar’s first English-language feature marks the first time he has won the top award at one of the three major film festivals. Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore star in the story of a woman who makes the decision to end her life, and the friend who re-enters her world around this time.

Scroll down for the full list of winners

Sony Pictures Classics will release the film in the US on December 20, with Warner Bros handling multiple international territories including UK-Ireland.

Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” won the Golden Lion at the 81st Venice Film Festival. The Spanish auteur’s first feature in English took the top prize at the awards ceremony on Saturday, where he accepted the honor in person. Based on Sigrid Nunez’s novel “What Are You Going Through,” the film stars Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore as friends who reunite after several years.

Though Almodóvar’s latest was not reviewed as enthusiastically as most of his films (a high bar to cross), the drama was still favored to do well at the Venice awards. When it premiered earlier this week, it was met with a lengthy standing ovation of almost 20 minutes — a warm reception even for festival audiences. And few are the cinephiles in Europe who do not consider the director of “All About My Mother,” “Talk to Her,” “Volver,” “Bad Education” and “Parallel Mothers” a living great.

The 81st Venice Film Festival comes to a close today with the awards ceremony, held at the Sala Grande in the Palazzo del Cinema.

Starting at 7pm Cet (6pm BST), viewers can watch the ceremony live in the video above; Screen will be updating this page with the winners as they are announced.

Scroll down for the latest winners

The ceremony will be hosted by Italian actress Sveva Alviti, who also hosted the opening ceremony on August 28. A Competition jury led by Isabelle Huppert will award eight prizes, including the Golden Lion for best film. There are further awards in the Horizons,...

While last year’s strikes created a somewhat subdued energy on the Lido with very few talent able to be present, this year’s 2024 Venice Film Festival proved to hot and steamy. And we’re not just talking about the excessive heat movie stars and fan alike were subjected to. Films like Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller “Babygirl” and Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burrough’s short novel “Queer” aroused audience interest with career-best performances from Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and highly revealing sexual interplay. However it was Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” that took home the coveted Golden Lion, marking the first time the filmmaker has won a top prize at any major festival throughout his career.

Brady Corbet returned to the Palazzo del Cinema with his four-hour post-wwii epic “The Brutalist,” which screened to rave reception and earned the director the Silver Lion,...

The 2024 Venice Film Festival awards ceremony has wrapped up after a sweltering week and a half on the Lido.

The prestigious Golden Lion award for best film went to Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door. The Spaniard’s first-ever English-language feature received a whopping 17-minute standing ovation when it premiered at the festival. Almodóvar said in his acceptance speech Saturday: “I would like to dedicate it to my family, who is here now… This movie The Room Next Door, it is my first movie in English.. but the spirit is Spanish.”

His film, an adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s novel What Are You Going Through, follows best-selling writer Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton) as they rekindle their friendship after losing touch. As they immerse themselves in past memories, anecdotes, art and movies, Martha, battling terminal cervical cancer, wants to die with dignity and asks Ingrid to be...

Monica Dugo with Anne-Katrin Titze celebrating Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s 22nd edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema. Photo: Sally Fischer

Monica Dugo’s Like Turtles (Come Le Tartarughe), co-written with Massimiliano Nardulli, starring the director with Romana Maggiora Vergano, Angelo Libri, Edoardo Boschetti, Martina Brusco, Francesco Gheghi, Annalisa Insardà, and Ancheta Aurelia Martin was a highlight of Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s 22nd edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema. Monica Dugo, who plays the mother, Lisa, graciously sprinkles the clues about this family of four and trusts that we connect the dots.

A closet is being built in an apartment. We see the city from above, Rome in all its splendour. It’s a house with lavender satchels, the teenage daughter Sveva (Romana Maggiora Vergano) plays tennis. The father Daniele (Angelo Libri) brings back a gift basket from a conference. The family expects it.

Italian seller unveils Cannes market slate.

Italy’s Illmatic Film Sales arrives in Cannes with a slate led by Gianluca Manzetti’s debut feature Roma Blues.

Set in Rome, it’s the story of a serial dreamer whose discovery of a phone containing proof of a crime changes his life forever.

Produced by Art Film Kairos, Eliofilm, Rai Cinema, the feature film stars lead actor Francesco Gheghi – as seen recently in Paolo Strippoli’s Flowing (Piove) – together with Mikaela Neaze Silva and Mino Caprio.

Illmatic is also at Cannes selling Francesco Carnesecchi’s thriller-horror Resvrgis, about a bored young girl...

The movie, an “emotional horror film” set in a version of Rome on the point of imploding, is produced by Propaganda Italia and Belgium’s GapBusters and stars Fabrizio Rongione and Cristiana Dell’Anna. Filming has begun in Rome on Piove, 28-year-old director Paolo Strippoli’s second work whose cast is led by the Dardenne brothers’ favourite actor Fabrizio Rongione, alongside Cristiana Dell’Anna (Gomorrah), whose performance we look forward to in Mario Martone’s upcoming movie. The pair are joined by the young Francesco Gheghi (recently seen in Padrenostro) and little Aurora Menenti. Produced by Marina Marzotto and Mattia Oddone on behalf of Propaganda Italia, and co-produced by Joseph Rouschop of Belgian group GapBusters, Piove applies the codes of the thriller/horror genre to a family drama, exploring an increasingly hateful modern-day society wrestling with ever greater pressures: “The Rome we see in Piove is continually on the point of imploding,...

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...