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Vanished Into the Night has mixed reviews, with a 40% critics' score and a 15% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite criticisms of its shallow plot, the movie is praised for its entertainment value and thrilling storyline. While not a standout film, Vanished Into the Night offers escapism for fans of popcorn crime thrillers with its formulaic approach.

The Italian crime thriller Vanished Into the Night is doing well on Netflix but is it worth watching or can its not-so-great Rotten Tomatoes score be trusted? Vanished Into the Night revolves around a father whos stuck in the middle of a trying divorce. When his young children go missing from their isolated country home, he embarks on a dangerous quest to find them on the outskirts of Bari, Italy. He has to get in touch with a criminal from his dark past to ensure that his children get home safe.

The movie was directed by Renato De Maria,...

When the young children of an estranged couple go missing on the outskirts of Bari, Italy, their father connects with a criminal from his past on a dangerous mission to get his kids home safe. The Italian thriller Vanished into the Night, from director Renato De Maria, stars Riccardo Scamarcio and Annabelle Wallis and was written by Francesca Marciano (The Miracle) and Luca Infascelli (The Catholic School).

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Pietro (Scamarcio) and Elena (Wallis) are in the middle of a divorce when their two children, Bianca (Coletti) and Giovanni (Ferrante), disappear. The kids were asleep in bed at Pietro’s home, then gone without a trace by the time their father checked on them. Elena, away in Milan, rushes back to Bari just as Pietro gets a call: It’s a man demanding 150,000 euros in cash for...

Adriana Chiesa Enterprises has taken world sales on high-profile doc “Caterina Caselli: One Life, 100 Voices,” about the former Italian pop singer, base player and actress who is now president of Andrea Bocelli’s record label, Sugar Music.

The veteran Italian sales agent is lauching sales on the doc at the online EFM.

Directed by Renato De Maria, who is known for films such as “Love Me” and “The First Line,” which went to Toronto – and more recently Netflix Italy original “The Ruthless” – the doc delves into Caselli’s career which kicked off with the 1966 Sanremo song fest where she performed proto feminist song “Nessuno mi può giudicare,” (which translates as “Nobody Can Judge Me”). It went gold, selling over one million copies.

Caselli also subsequently scored several hits, one of which with an Italian cover of the David McWilliams song “Days of Pearly Spencer” titled”Il volto della vita” in Italian.

In today’s Global Bulletin, Sky announces its most sustainable Italian shoot yet for “Romulus” season two; “Death and Nightingales” heads to Starz in the U.S.; Beta Film appoints Sarp Kalfaoğlu in Istanbul; KwaZulu-Natal Film Commission plans its upcoming Film Makers Conference; Lineup Industries and Nhk Enterprises strike deals in three territories on a pair of programs; “I Can See Your Voice” gets a Turkish adaptation; and Fremantle’s UFA launches a new documentary unit.

Series

Sky has confirmed that its popular period drama series “Romulus,” a mix of myth and history about the founding of the Eternal City of Rome, will be back for a second season. Importantly, the upcoming shoot is being propped up as Sky Italia’s most sustainable production to date as part of the Comcast-backed pay-tv operator’s overall plan to be net zero carbon by 2030.

Season two’s eight episodes will be produced by Sky,...

Updated with Own statement: Ambitions will not return for a second season on Own. Robin Givens, who stars as Stephanie Carlisle Lancaster on the series, revealed the news on Instagram.

“Found out last week #Ambitions wouldn’t be returning for a second season ….,” Givens wrote in a post preceded by a sad emoji.

Own confirmed the cancellation.

“We’re thankful to Will Packer, Jamey Giddens and the entire cast and crew of Ambitions for their creativity and hard work on the show. Every week they delivered great drama, intrigue and a lot of fun storytelling,” said Tina Perry, Own president. “We look forward to continue working with Will Packer and his talented team of collaborators in the future.”

The soapy family drama hailed from producer Packer, Lionsgate and Debmar-Mercury.

Created by executive producer/writer Jamey Giddens (The Rich and The Ruthless) from an original idea by Packer, Ambitions was a...

Netflix and Mediaset on Tuesday in Rome announced details of an alliance in Italy under which they will jointly produce seven Italian-language feature films, a move that marks the U.S. streaming giant’s biggest Italian content deal to date.

Five of the films that Netflix will produce in tandem with Italy’s top private generalist broadcaster were announced. They are being made by prominent Italian indie producers such as Indigo Film (“The Great Beauty”) and Lucky Red, with which Netflix teamed up on last year’s Venice title “On My Skin.” All films are to be helmed by young up-and-coming directors.

The films comprise two men’s soccer-related titles, one of which about Roberto Baggio, one of the greatest Italian players of all time, to be directed by female helmer Letizia Lamartire. Lamartire’s comedy, “We’ll Be Young and Beautiful,” about a mother-and-son pop band, was in the...

Since Netflix entered the Italian market in 2015, it’s steadily gained ground in terms of subscriptions, which are expected to reach 2 million by the end of 2019, according to independent analyst Ovum. The streaming giant recently announced a €200 million ($222 million) investment in Italian original productions over the next three years. Variety spoke to Felipe Tewes, director of international originals at Netflix, about how the country compares with other European territories.

Is Netflix’s investment in Italy likely to grow going forward?

Since our arrival in Italy over three years ago, we have invested significantly in local TV productions, with shows such as “Suburra: The Series” and “Baby,” and in bringing Italian films such as “Sulla Mia Pelle” (On My Skin) and “Lo Spietato” (The Ruthless) to the world. … Our investment announcement is a clear sign of our strong commitment to the Italian creative community, and our desire to continue bringing local,...

With most top Italian production companies — Cattleya, Wildside and Palomar — now owned by non-Italian players, and Italian pubcaster Rai also increasingly thinking internationally, cinema Italiano is striving to break out of national confines more than ever.

This means bigger budgets and auteurs turning toward genre — in particular, crime movies and biopics.

Marco Bellocchio’s Cannes competition entry “The Traitor,” which follows Tommaso Buscetta, the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence, is case in point, with an auteur taking on a genre pic.

Buscetta is played by local A-lister Pierfrancesco Favino, who will next be seen as disgraced late Italian socialist prime Bettino Craxi in upcoming biopic “Hammamet,” directed by veteran auteur Gianni Amelio. The title refers to the Tunisian seaside city where Craxi fled from Italian justice in the 1990s after being indicted for massive corruption.

Italian cinema no longer stems “from self-contemplation,...

Netflix is famously tight-lipped when it comes to revealing how many people are tuning in to its endless supply of movies and TV series, though the streaming giant does occasionally toot its own horn when one of its titles does especially well. Now the company is experimenting with a weekly list of its most-watched offerings in the UK, with nature docuseries “Our Planet” topping the first edition.

In a Twitter thread, the company announced that it will be releasing such lists on a weekly basis from here on out. To compile them, “we look at the most-watched individual season of a show, film or special (regardless of when it launched). ‘Watched’ means members finished at least 70% of one episode.”

“It’s a test as we want to make sure this information is useful for you,” Netflix added. “So we may tweak it in the weeks ahead. eg. we’re not including kids right now.

Rome-based sales company Coccinelle Film has closed U.S. deals on two new Italian Lgbt titles, confirming the international appeal of what is becoming a small but significant local cinema sub-genre.

Strand Releasing has taken North American rights to “Mom+Mom,” about two southern Italian women who struggle to have a child together because of a local law that forbids gays and lesbians to adopt or have babies.

The U.K. rights for “Mom+Mom” have been picked up by Lgbt specialty distributor Tla Releasing, while its sister company Optimale has picked up the pic for France.

Produced by prominent shingle Bibi Film – which recently made Netflix’s first Italian movie, gangster pic “The Ruthless” – “Mom+Mom” features Linda Caridi (“Antonia”) and Maria Roveran (“These Days”) as the couple who with great difficulty raise money to go to Barcelona for artificial insemination.

Breaking Glass Pictures, which is run by industry...

Netflix has announced three new Italian originals, indicating that the streaming giant is ramping up operations in the country as it gets more traction with local subscribers.

The new Italian Netflix originals in the pipeline are: “Curon,” a genre show with supernatural elements, which is set in a Northern Italian village; a series adaptation of hit teen romance movie “Three Steps Over Heaven”; and an adaptation of a bestselling Italian novel titled “Fedeltà,” which translates as “Faithfulness,” and is about a Milanese couple in their 30s.

“Curon,” in which “a mother and her teen kids return to her mysterious hometown village in Northern Italy only to discover what lies below the surface of her past,” according to promotional materials, sees Ezio Abbate serving as head writer. Abbate was a writer on “Suburra,” which was Netflix’s first Italian original. “Curon” will be produced by Indiana Productions and marks the first...