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Exclusive: Fandango Sales has appointed former The Match Factory exec Laura Nacher as Head of International Sales.

The appointment comes as the sales arm of Rome-based film company Fandango gears up for a major international push.

Nacher, who was previously Head of Sale Operations at The Match Factory, brings more than 12 years of experience in the international film sales sector.

She will make her first market outing with the company at the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film this month, where it will present a first promo of Francesca Archibugi’s new film Illusion to buyers.

Nacher will report directly to Raffaella Di Giulio, Managing Director of Fandango Sales. Di Giulio will continue to oversee all sales and acquisitions activities, while also contributing to the company’s co-production strategy.

“I’m very excited for Laura to join the Fandango Sales team—and more broadly, the Fandango family. I’m...

The Cannes Film Festival has put together a powerful jury for its 78th edition, including Halle Berry, Jeremy Strong (“The Apprentice”) and Payal Kapadia, the Indian filmmaker of “All We Imagine as Light.”

Mixing actors, filmmakers and authors, the jury will also comprise of South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo; Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher; French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani; Congolese director, documentarist and producer Dieudo Hamadi; and Mexican filmmaker and producer Carlos Reygadas. As previously announced, Juliette Binoche will preside over the jury, succeeding Greta Gerwig who handed out the Palme d’Or to Sean Baker’s “Anora.”

Both Strong and Kapadia were at Cannes last year, in competition. Strong presented Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice” in which he starred as Roy Cohn, while Kapadia was there with her fiction debut, “All We Imagine as Light” which won the Grand Prize.

Berry became the first African-American woman to win best actress at...

Halle Berry, Payal Kapadia, Alba Rohrwacher, Leïla Slimani, Dieudo Hamadi, Hong Sangsoo, Carlos Reygadas and Jeremy Strong have been announced as members of the Cannes Film Festival’s main Competition jury for its 78th edition running from May 13 to May 24.

They join previously announced Jury President Juliet Binoche. Together, they will award the Palme d’Or to one of the 21 films in the main Competition, as well as the Grand Prix, Jury Prize, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Actor awards.

U.S. Actress and filmmaker Berry was the first African-American woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Marc Forster’s Monster’s Ball (2002).

Alternating between blockbusters and independent productions, her credits include Jungle Fever (1991), Dorothy Dandridge (1999), X-Men (1999), Swordfish (2002), Die Another Day (2003), Gothika (2003), Frankie & Alice (2011), Cloud Atlas (2012), Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) and John Wick Parabellum (2019).

In 2020, she directed her first film, Bruised. Also a producer,...

Pope Francis, who died at the age of 88 on Easter Monday, had a special relationship with cinema going back to his childhood in Buenos Aires.

“I owe my cinema culture above all to my parents who took us to the cinema a lot,” the pontiff said in a 2013 interview, a few months after his election as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in the Argentinian capital in 1936 to parents with roots in northern Italy, Italian cinema figured highly in his early cinema-going.

In the same 2013 interview, Pope Francis named Federico Fellini’s 1954 Oscar-winning work La Strada, starring Giulietta Masina as fragile protagonist Gelsomina who is abused by brutish circus strongman Zampanò, played by Anthony Quinn, as the film he loved the most.

“I identify with that film, in which there is an implicit reference to Saint Francis,” said the pontiff referring to its themes of love...

Chinese distribution company Hishow has launched We Love Cinema, a new label dedicated to highlighting arthouse films from around the world in mainland China.

The new programme, unveiled at the Hong Kong FilmMart, will focus on distribution, marketing and exhibition for movies across arthouse and genre. We Love Cinema will be developing innovative marketing initiatives, for instance a WeChat mini app boasting exclusive contents and bonuses, as well as early screenings and Q&a with filmmakers. As part of the programme, Hishow will also be setting up a network of arthouse cinemas.

The Beijing-based distributor has been ramping acquisitions of international prestige movies. One of its recent acquisitions include Walter Salles’ Brazilian family drama “I’m Still Here” which just won best international feature film at the Oscars, along with Salles’ 1998 film “Central Station.” Other recent pickups include the Oscar-nominated animated feature “Memoir of a Snail” from Australian stop-motion master Adam Elliot,...

“Everything must change for everything to remain the same,” Tancredi, Prince Fabrizio Salina’s beloved nephew, says in a now-famous line from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel “The Leopard.” The same philosophy applies to the look and feel of the Sicily-set classic’s Netflix miniseries adaptation, which released globally Wednesday and marks the streamer’s most ambitious Italian original to date.

“The Leopard” chronicles the changes in Sicilian life and society during the 19th-century unification of Italy, known as the Risorgimento. When tasked with telling the story in 2025, the lavish show’s production and costume teams faced a monumental challenge in envisioning a modern take on the sensual Sicilian saga. There would also be inevitable comparisons to “The Leopard’s” first adaptation — Luchino Visconti’s 1963 cinema classic starring Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon and Burt Lancaster, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival.

Netflix’s six-episode epic...

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If you are a horror fan, then there is a big chance that you might have heard about the horror streaming service Shudder, and if you have its subscription, you might be wondering what’s in store for you in March 2025. Don’t worry. There is a host of new and old horror movies coming to the service in the upcoming month, and we have listed the 13 best movies coming to Shudder in March 2025.

Army of Darkness (March 1) Credit – Universal Pictures

Army of Darkness is a dark fantasy horror comedy film directed by Sam Raimi, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Ivan Raimi. The 1992 film is the third installment in the Evil Dead franchise, and it follows Ash Williams as he is transported to the Middle Ages and must fight the undead to go back to his time.

Tarsem Singh’s The Fallis an absolute beauty in many aspects. It expertly weaves tales of grandeur to reinterpret what its characters are going through in the real world. Plus, it uses out-of-this-world-but-ultimately-real settings that transport you to anciently aesthetic times. Movies like these are scarce, and considering The Fall has struggled to find a streaming home, the craving for more may be satisfied through Matteo Garrone’s Tale of Tales.

Here’s our annual rundown of the largest distribution awards handed out by the British Film Institute. This list covers cash handed out in 2024.

The BFI supports cinema releases through its audience fund, which hands cash to individual titles as well as organizations such as festivals and independent cinemas.

Matteo Garrone’s Venice-winning drama Io Capitano received the largest award for an individual title with £70,000. The cash went towards aiding the film release with “a broad marketing campaign targeting 18-30 and Senegalese/Black West African audiences across the UK.” The BFI states that “funded activity included “digital advertising, podcast sponsorship, social media campaign, grassroots outreach and creation of access materials.”

An award from the BFI National Lottery will support the release of Io Capitano with a broad marketing campaign targeting 18-30 and Senegalese/Black West African audiences across the UK. Funded activity included “digital advertising, podcast sponsorship, social media campaign,...

The Irish comedy “Kneecap” was the big winner at the 2024 Les Arcs Film Festival. It won the Crystal Arrow for Best Film and several other important prizes. The film tells the story of how the Irish-language hip-hop group with the same name got started. It was already well known before the festival, but now it’s been chosen for Best International Feature and Best Song at the 2025 Academy Awards.

As part of its win, “Kneecap” will receive a €20,000 digital advertising campaign with France Televisions for free. Thanks to this help, the film will be better when it comes out in France on June 18, 2025, through Wayna Pitch. The film won more than one award: the Young Jury Prize and the Cinglés du Cinéma prize. Michael “Mikey J” Asante was also praised for writing his music.

The festival took place in the beautiful French mountain resort from December 14–21 and had its best year yet,...

Rich Peppiatt’s Irish comedy Kneecap has won the Crystal Arrow for best film atFrance’s Les Arcs Film Festival, which ran from December 14-21, 2024 in the mountain resort town.

The origin story of the titular Irish-language hip-hop group earned a €20,000 digital promotional campaign in partnership with France Televisions for its release. Wayna Pitch will release the film in France on June 18, 2025 and Charades handles international sales.

Kneecap,whichhas been shortlisted in the best international feature and best song categories for the 2025 Oscars, racked up several prizes at the festival including the young jury prize voted on by high-school students,...

Rich Peppiatt’s drama Kneecap, which made it onto short list for Best International Feature Film for the 97th Academy Awards earlier this week, has scooped the top Crystal Arrow for best film at France’s Les Arcs Film Festival.

The prize, awarded in partnership with state broadcaster France Télévisions, comes with a digital promotional campaign worth €20,000 to support the theatrical release in France next summer by local distributor Wayna Pitch.

The picture also won Best Original Music, with Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante winning the €1,000 prize donated by the French music rights management body Sacem.

The jury – announced as a collective without a president – comprised actor Pio Marmaï, writer Delphine de Vigan, director and producer Peter Kerekes, actor Céline Sallette, singer, actor and producer Sofiane Zermani and composer Herdís Stafánsdóttir.

In a third prize, decided by eight local high school students, the film also won the Young Jury Prize. The...

Highlighting the power of local stories, Italy’s box office has been taken by storm by “The Boy With Pink Pants,” Margherita Ferri’s intimate film telling the harrowing true tale of a 15-year-old boy who took his own life after enduring bullying at school and online.

Produced and fully financed by Tarak Ben Ammar’s Eagle Pictures and Roberto Proia’s Weekend Films, “The Boy With Pink Pants” has conquered Italian audiences en masse, grossing more than €8.5 million ($9 million) from 1.3 million admissions since its Nov. 7 release. In terms of ticket sales, it’s even beat Hollywood heavyweights such as “Wicked,” “Dune 2,” “Gladiator 2” and “Venom 3.”

Without resorting to splashy special effects, a massive cast or a famed IP, “The Boy With Pink Pants” struck an emotional chord across the country and became a cultural phenomenon. Traditionally, European movies that reach that level of mainstream popularity are either comedies or family-friendly animated fare.

French actress Karin Viard’s stay as guest of honor at the Les Arcs Film Festival in the French Alps got off to a dramatic start over the weekend after she fell while skiing and banged her head.

The star, who is a best known internationally for her roles in films La Famille Bélier (which was remade as the Oscar-winning Coda) and Perfect Nanny, fell just minutes after taking to the slopes on Sunday.

She later posted footage on her Instagram account showing her being treated by medics as she lay on a toboggan stretcher ahead of being evacuated off the slopes.

“There you go, a head trauma after a minute of ski. That’s what you call talent,” wrote the actress.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Karin Viard (@karinviard)

Karine Viard post

Earlier in the day, she had been snapped at the unveiling of her...

The sheer range and depth of European filmmaking is on display in the nominations for this year’s European Film Awards (EFAs) which take place on Saturday (December 7) in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Jacques Audiard’s Mexico-set Emilia Perez and Pedro Almodovar’s New York-set English-language drama The Room Next Door are the front runners with four nominations each.

Close behind is Mohammad Rasoulof’s Tehran-set, German-French- produced Persian-language film The Seed Of The Sacred Fig with three nominations.

Among the 15 nominees for the best European Film Award are French director Caroline Fargeat’s Los Angeles storyThe Substance starring Demi Moore and...

The sheer range and depth of European filmmaking is on display in the nominations for this year’s European Film Awards (EFAs) which take place on Saturday (December 7) in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Jacques Audiard’s Mexico-set Emilia Perez and Pedro Almodovar’s New York-set English-language drama The Room Next Door are the front runners with four nominations each.

Close behind is Mohammad Rasoulof’s Tehran-set, German-French- produced Persian-language film The Seed Of The Sacred Fig with three nominations.

Among the 15 nominees for the best European Film Award are French director Caroline Fargeat’s Los Angeles storyThe Substance starring Demi Moore and...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.NEWSPoison.Former talk show host and current digital media emperor Conan O’Brien will host the 97th Academy Awards. He has previously hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards and the White House Correspondents dinner, twice apiece, as well as the Fifth Annual NFL Honors ceremony in 2016.Director Todd Haynes is set to head the jury of the 75th Berlin International Film Festival in February. Haynes’s feature film debut, Poison (1991), won the festival’s Teddy Award.The UK arthouse theater chain Curzon Cinemas has been sold to the New York investment company Fortress for $5 million as part of a foreclosure auction of assets owned by Cohen Realty Enterprises. The Curzon group reportedly believes that Fortress is “more likely to invest...

UK sales, finance and production company Protagonist Pictures has made a suite of promotions and hires across its sales and marketing teams.

Joseph Hewitt has been tapped from fellow UK sales agent HanWay Films as senior marketing and distribution manager. At HanWay, Hewitt worked on films including Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter, Matteo Garrone’s Pinocchio, Ron Howard’s Pavarotti and Viggo Mortensen’s The Dead Don’t Hurt.

Alexandra Da Silva has been promoted from sales executive to sales manager, looking after new title sales in Eastern Europe, Asia and select European territories. She reports to acting senior vice...

France’s Les Arcs Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 16th edition of its mountaintop movie marathon, taking place from December 14-21, 2024.

Eight European films will vie for the festival’s Crystal Arrow awards.

They include Rich Peppiatt’s Kneecap, a comedy about titular west Belfast hip-hop trio that is Ireland’s entry for the best international feature Oscar race and leads the Bifa 2024 nominations, Runar Runarsson’s Icelandic drama When the Light Breaks that opened this year’s Cannes Un Certain Regard, and Kurdwin Ayub’s Moon about a former Austrian martial arts master hired to train...

Exclusive: Chinese producer-distributor Hishow Entertainment has been on an acquisitions spree, snapping up several prestige festival titles for distribution in mainland China, including Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, which it plans to give a wide theatrical outing before the end of the year.

The film, which premiered in competition at this year’s Cannes film festival, will first screen at China’s Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, taking place in Xiamen, November 13-16.

Hishow has also acquired French director Laetitia Dosch’s Dog On Trial, a highly-acclaimed debut feature that premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard; Rooney Mara starrer La Cocina, from Mexico’s Alonso Ruizpalacios, which premiered in Berlin; and Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano, a Venice 2023 competition title that was nominated in the Best International Feature category of this year’s Oscars.

Starting with Megalopolis, the company is planning to roll these titles out theatrically in...

Ron Howard’s survival thriller “Eden,” starring Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby and Sydney Sweeney, has been set as the opening film of Italy’s Torino Film Festival with the director in tow.

“Eden,” which follows a pair of high-minded Europeans, played by Law and Kirby, who are seeking a new life on a previously uninhabited island in the Galápagos, will be having its international premiere in Torino after world premiering at the Toronto Film Festival in September.

Landing the international launch of the survival thriller, with Howard on hand, marks a nice coup for the fest’s new artistic director, Italian actor/director Giulio Base. Torino’s upcoming 42nd edition will run Nov. 22-30.

Torino is Italy’s preeminent event for young directors and indie cinema, and is where Matteo Garrone and Paolo Sorrentino screened their first works. The festival’s lineup will be announced on Nov.

The Oscars international feature film race got another strong competitor on Tuesday when Italy announced it would submit “Vermiglio” as its entry for the 97th Academy Awards. Written and directed by Maura Delpero, the film won the Silver Lion in Venice earlier this month.

Delpero’s drama is set in 1944 in the alpine village of the film’s title. When a young Sicilian soldier named Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico) comes to town, his presence, according to the synopsis provided by Sideshow and Janus Films, “disrupts the dynamics of the local teacher’s family, changing them forever. During the four seasons marking the end of World War II, Pietro and Lucia, the eldest daughter of the teacher, instantly drawn to each other, led to marriage and an unexpected fate. As the world emerges from its tragedy, the family will face its own.”

Produced by Cinedora, Charades and Versus Productions, “Vermiglio” was...

Italy has selected Maura Delpero’s Venice Silver Lion winner Vermiglio as its entry for the best international feature Oscar.

Vermiglio won the Grand Jury Prize in Competition at Venice earlier this month. Set in 1944 in the Italian alpine village after which the film is named, it sees the arrival of a deserter soldier disrupt the life of the village teacher and his family, as the eldest daughter falls in love with him.

Producers on the film are Francesca Andreoli, Santiago Fondevila, Leonardo Guerra Seragnoli and Delpero, for Italy’s Cinedora with Rai Cinema, in co-production with France’s Charades...

Italy has selected Maura Delpero’s Venice Silver Lion winner Vermiglio as its entry for the best international feature Oscar.

Vermiglio won the Grand Jury Prize in Competition at Venice earlier this month. Set in 1944 in the Italian alpine village after which the film is named, it sees the arrival of a deserter soldier disrupt the life of the village teacher and his family, as the eldest daughter falls in love with him.

Producers on the film are Francesca Andreoli, Santiago Fondevila, Leonardo Guerra Seragnoli and Delpero, for Italy’s Cinedora with Rai Cinema, in co-production with France’s Charades...

Italy has selected Vermiglio to represent it in the Best International Feature Film category of the 97th Academy Awards.

The second feature from Maura Delpero, Vermiglio premiered in Competition at the Venice Film Festival, winning the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize.

At the time of the win, Delpero said she hoped the prize would put her in the frame to represent Italy in the Oscars, and now her wish has come true.

The picture takes its title from a mountain village in the Italian Alps, which was home to the director’s family for generations.

The drama opens in the village in 1944. Largely cut off from the war across Europe, the arrival of a deserted soldier will disrupt the life of the village teacher and his family as the eldest daughter falls for him, leading to an unexpected turn of fate.

Related: Best International Feature Film Oscar Winners Through The...

"How evil can one cat be?" "Pretty evil, ha ha ha!"...

“The Quiet Son,” a French film exploring family dynamics amidst far-right radicalization, has won the 2024 Collateral Impact Award at the 81st Venice Film Festival. The award, presented by Think-Film Impact Production and Impact Europe, recognizes films with significant societal impact potential.

Written and directed by Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin, the cast features Vincent Lindon, Benjamin Voisin and Stefan Crepon.

A high-profile jury selected the winner, comprising Adjoa Andoh, Chiwetel Ejiofor (“12 Years a Slave”), Alia Shawkat, Mstyslav Chernov, and Misan Sagay. The jury cited the film’s urgency in sparking conversation about the rise of the far-right and its societal impact.

During a Venice Production Bridge panel, jury members shared their thoughts on cinematic impact. Ejiofor highlighted cinema’s role in communicating real-world situations, stating: “Cinema can inspire leaders and legislators and help facilitate genuine lasting change.”

Andoh added: “The notion of having an intentional organization like Think-Film Impact...

Italy’s Minister of Culture claims that he has been “passionate” about cinema his whole life.

Gennaro Sangiuliano, a former Rai executive who was appointed culture minister by right-wing Premier Giorgia Meloni in 2022, said he plans to keep investing heavily in grants to the Venice Film Festival, and through a generous program of tax credits he also wants to promote Italy to international producers.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Sangiuliano said he is satisfied with Italy’s investment of nearly $800 million a year in a program of tax credits and selective grants for TV and film producers. When it emerged last year that some Italian producers had been abusing the system, Sangiuliano took steps to tighten the rules. But the fund is still large, and it provides producers with up to 40 percent of the production budget of many films shot in Italian territory.

As Scott Roxborough and Giammaria...

The Italian government will this week announce major changes to its film and TV tax credit system aimed at boosting local productions and producers and ensuring more Italian stories get told on screen. The changes come after a year of uncertainty that has left many productions in limbo.

Under the new rules, international co-productions will face an €18 million ($19.7 million) cap on tax credit payouts for projects where at least 30 percent of the production is made in Italy. Local productions will be capped at €9 million ($10 million). The overall fund for film and audiovisual investments in 2024 remains unchanged at approximately €700 million ($782 million).

The change is designed to boost Italian TV and movies and encourage visiting international productions to focus more on Italian stories, like Michael Mann’s Ferrari, about the life of the legendary car designer, starring Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz, which premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival, or...

On May 26, 2023, nearly a year after winning the 2022 national election to become Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni addressed a political rally in Catania, Sicily. The first woman to govern Italy, and the most far-right politician to do so since fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, Meloni told her cheering supporters that despite her electoral success, victory was not yet complete. There was one last left-wing holdout in Italian society, she said: the cultural sector.

“I want to liberate Italian culture from a system that you can only work in if you are from a certain political camp,” she said. It was a clear signal of intent, a threatening shot in the country’s culture wars, and the promise of a right-wing counteroffensive to the supposed left-wing hegemony over Italy’s film, television and arts scenes.

Meloni has appeared to be true to her word. One of her first acts as prime...

Actors Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alia Shawkat and Adjoa Andoh are among the jurors on the Venice Film Festival’s second annual impact jury.

The impact prize, which has been renamed as the Venice Biennale Impact Award, will again honor a film in the official selection that has the “greatest potential” to affect wider societal changes. Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano won the inaugural award in 2023, and went on to also take home the festival’s Silver Lion and earn an Oscar nomination for best international feature film.

Ejiofor will next star in the forthcoming social justice drama Rob Peace, while Shawkat...

In her 2022 Toronto curtain raiser “The Swimmers,” telling the true story of two Syrian sisters and their emotional and gruelling journey to Europe to escape the civil war, director Sally El-Hossaini went to great lengths to ensure authenticity, using real-life refugees both in-front of and behind the camera.

For Counterpoints Arts, the U.K. charity that focusses on culture and migration, “The Swimmers” offered a great example of how projects involving refugees and migrants could — and should — be developed. As the organization’s co-founder and director Almir Koldzic explains to Variety, El-Hossaini made sure that “people with lived experiences were represented on every level of production and were respected in that process.”

Since it launched in 2012, Counterpoints has worked alongside the U.K. arts scene as part of its efforts to “inspire social change and enhance inclusion and cultural integration,” putting on numerous film screenings concerning the subject, many during the annual Refugee Week,...

Seydou (Seydou Sarr) with Moussa (Moustapha Fall) crossing the desert Io Capitano, streaming now on Mubi

As Agniezska Holland's docureal exploration of the migrant crisis, Green Border, hits cinemas (and I highly recommend you catch that if you can), Matteo Garrone's more fairy-tale flavoured examination of the situation has landed on the streaming service. His focus is a pair of cousins, Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa (Moustapha Fall), who are convinced they will find their own happily ever after in Europe. Their hopefulness is palpable as they leave Senegal with their savings but soon their dreams slam up against a reality of exploitation and violence. Garrone's film may initially appear a more gentle sort than Holland's but he doesn't shy away from the brutality the boys face - all the more hard hitting in the face of the open-hearted performances from Sarr and Fall. Like every fairy tale,...

Mobster movies deep dive into the dark criminal underworlds where corruption and amorality abound in often brutal and surprising ways. Their appeal is long-standing, from Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather to Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning film The Irishman. What these mobster movies do best is make accessible a secret world that is foreign to most and sublimate the chaos and the violence through deeply personal and sometimes profoundly relatable characters, always asking ourselves whether the ends justify the means. Gomorrah (2008) is an Italian crime drama directed by Matteo Garrone, who reportedly conspired with real mafia members to get the film made. The film is based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Roberto Saviano, who spent eight years under armed guard after receiving death threats for exposing mafia secrets in the book. The film is gritty, brutal, and terrifyingly real.

Challengers

Smart, seductive and bristling with sexual tension, this is Luca Guadagnino’s most purely pleasurable film to date. As dynamic as the many tennis matches it depicts, the love-triangle drama pits the rivalry on the court of two former BFFs against their competing desire for a self-possessed woman whose hunger to win is not diminished by an injury that cuts short her own career. It helps that the chemistry of stars Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist is off the charts. — David Rooney

La Chimera

Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher’s invigoratingly strange and lyrical film revolves around a fascinating pocket community: the tombaroli, illegal grave-robbers who dig up Etruscan relics and make their money selling those antiquities to fences, who in turn sell them to museums and collectors for vastly larger sums. Josh O’Connor is superb in the central role of a haunted Englishman whom the tombaroli regard as a kind of mystic,...

The Eternal City’s glitterati celebrated Sofia Coppola on Wednesday at an American Academy in Rome gala in the 17th century Villa Aurelia on Janiculum Hill.

The Oscar-winning director of “Lost in Translation,” “Marie Antoinette,” “Bling Ring” and, most recently, “Priscilla” was honored with a McKim Medal that “marks the profound relationship between Italy and the United States and recognizes the works of individuals who have contributed to the intense artistic and humanistic dialogue between the two nations,” as a statement put it.

Coppola’s ties to Rome comprise directing a 2016 production of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata at the Italian capital’s Teatro dell’Opera featuring costumes by Valentino and the fact that “Priscilla” — which got a seven-minute standing ovation at its 2023 Venice Film Festival premiere — is produced by Rome-based producer Lorenzo Mieli.

Mieli was in attendance along with a mix of prominent film, fashion, arts, academia and business...

Exclusive: Io Capitano, the latest feature from Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone, and Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border have joined the lineup of this year’s Refugee Week arts and culture festival, running June 17 to 23.

The theme for Refugee Week 2024 is “Our Home”, which organizers have said will focus on thinking about our bodies as our homes, how we can make whole neighborhoods more welcoming, and how to care for our collective home, planet Earth.

Mubi has joined the festival this year and will launch Garrone’s Io Capitano on its platform during the festival. BFI Player has compiled a Refugee Week collection of free films and rental films. Other major events during the week include:

Key Screenings (London):

● Io Capitano by Matteo Garrone: This Oscar-nominated film follows two Senegalese teenagers, Seydou and Moussa, as they journey from Dakar to Italy, facing deserts, detention centers, and perilous seas in pursuit of a better life.

The Oscar-nominated novelist, screenwriter and essayist Nick Hornby below writes a special tribute for Deadline commemorating Jenne Casarotto, his agent for nearly 30 years, who died on February 29 aged 77.

The industry titan, who co-founded leading British talent agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates in 1989, was eulogized today by family, friends and close colleagues at an event named a Celebration of the Life of Jenne Casarotto in the Queen Elizabeth Hall located in London’s Southbank Centre.

Private Eye editor Ian Hislop welcomed guests. Agent colleagues Abby Singer, Mel Kenyon and Jodi Shields spoke of working with Jenne, her son Mark Casarotto commemorated his mother, and producers Jeremy Thomas and Tim Bevan and longtime director clients John Madden and Shawn Slovo told stories about the Jenne they knew and loved.

During the ceremony, it was announced that Casarotto Ramsay & Associates and the National Film and Television School have established The Jenne Casarotto Scholarship...

Record Intake

The European Film Academy has added a record 709 new members in its 2024 annual intake. New members include Cate Blanchett (Australia/U.K.), Jovan Marjanović (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Maria Bakalova (Bulgaria), Juraj Lerotić (Croatia), Anna Hints (Estonia), Ariane Toscan du Plantier (France), Stéphan Castang (France), David Thion (France), Marie-Ange Luciani (France), Latifa Saïd (France), Rebecca Houzel (France), Thomas Hakim (France), Sami Mustafa (France/Kosovo), Mohamed Siam (France), Hanna Bergholm (Finland), Hamze Bytyçi (Germany) and Christian M. Goldbeck (Germany).

The intake also includes Behrooz Karamizade (Germany), Jerry Hoffmann (Germany), Aylin Tezel (Germany), Jasmin Tabatabai (Germany), Sofia Exarchou (Greece), Phedon Papamichael (Greece), Kate McCullough (Ireland), Matteo Garrone (Italy), Enzo d’Alò (Italy), Francesco Montagner (Italy), Uljana Kim (Lithuania), Cindy Jansen (Netherlands), Fatih Rağbet (Netherlands), Cristi Puiu (Romania), Anca Puiu (Romania), Elene Naveriani (Switzerland), Selahattin Paşalı (Turkey), Molly Manning Walker (U.K.), Melanie Hoyes (U.K.), Lizzie Francke (U.K.), Charles Newland (UK), Jad Salfiti (U.

The European Film Academy (Efa) has added a record 709 film professionals as new members, including actress Cate Blanchett and directors Molly Manning Walker and Matteo Garrone.

New members are invited to join Efa once a year, and the 2024 cohort has been announced on today’s Europe Day.

Other new members include Sarajevo festival director Jovan Marjanović, Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova, Anatomy Of A Fall producers David Thion and Marie-Ange Luciani, German actress and director Aylin Tezel, Greek director Sofia Exarchou, Romanian director and screenwriter Christi Puiu, and UK’s National Film and Television School head of fiction directing Lizzie Franke.

Italy’s True Colours has taken on international sales for German director Christoph Hochhäusler’s upcoming noir thriller Death Will Come (La Mort Viendra).

Currently in post-production, Death Will Come centres on a female assassin who is hired by a leading gangster to avenge the murder of one of his couriers – but soon finds herself the prey. The French-language film stars Franco-Belgian actress Sophie Verbeeck and veteran French actor Louis-Do de Lencquesaing.

Hochhausler’s previous film Till The End Of The Night premiered in competition at Berlin in 2023.

Death Will Come is a German-Luxembourg-Belgium co-production. The co-producers are leading German...

Matteo Garrone’s Oscar-nominated drama “Io Capitano,” about the odyssey of two young African men who decide to leave Dakar to reach Europe, and Paola Cortellesi’s feminist dramedy “There’s Still Tomorrow” were both the big winners at Italy’s 69th David di Donatello Awards.

“Io Capitano” won Davids for best picture, director, producers, editor, and cinematographer, among other prizes, while “Still Tomorrow,” which is about the plight of an abused housewife in post-war Rome and had 19 nominations scored six statuettes, including best directorial debut, actress, non supporting actress, screenplay, and audience award.

“Still Tomorrow,” which marks the directorial debut of popular Italian actor Paola Cortellesi, who also stars, is shot in black-and-white and riffs on Italy’s neorealist past, albeit with a contemporary female empowerment angle.

“I made this debut at the brink of menopause,” Cortellesi, who is 50, said while accepting the statuette for best debuting director. “I hope...

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.

This is a stacked weekend for movies that could get awards attention but probably won’t, both in theaters and on digital platforms. First up is a lively ode to one of cinema’s musical masters.

The contender to watch this week: “Ennio”

Giuseppe Tornatore‘s documentary about influential composer Ennio Morricone has been a long time coming, and not only because Morricone’s career dates back to 1946. “Ennio” premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in 2021 and was released in Italy in 2022. But don’t take its delayed domestic debut as a bad omen: The movie is a spellbinding tribute to the two-time Oscar winner, who wrote the scores for “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” “Days of Heaven,” “The Untouchables,” “The Hateful Eight,” and Tornatore’s own “Cinema Paradiso.” The talking heads include Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Quincy Jones, and Bruce Springsteen. Following a theatrical run in February,...

RankFilm (distributor)Three-day gross (Apr 5-7)Total gross to dateWeek 1. Kung Fu Panda 4 (Universal) £2.8m £12.8m 2 2. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Warner Bros) £2m £9.2m 2 3. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Sony) £1.4m £12.1m 3 4. Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros) £1.1m £36.8m 6 5. Monkey Man (Universal) £763,004 £809,767 1

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.26

Universal animation Kung Fu Panda 4 knocked Godzilla x Kong: A New Empire off top spot at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend; as Dev Patel’s Monkey Man started in fifth place.

Kung Fu Panda 4 added £2.8m on its second weekend – a 28% drop that brings it to £12.8m. It is already...

Despite the silent era producing renowned gangster films such as The Penalty and Underworld, the gangster genre did not strike a chord with mainstream audiences until the pre-Code years of the early 1930s. Just prior to the implementation of the Production Code, gangster films like The Public Enemy, Little Caesar, and Scarface revolutionized cinema with their vicious protagonists and unprecedented screen violence. Ever since, for better or worse, audiences have seemed fascinated with cinematic representations of criminal life.

In the twenty-first century, gangster films continue to be a viable international genre. Martin Scorsese expanded upon his gangster movie legacy with The Departed and The Irishman. Hong Kong cinema has produced memorable gangster thrillers such as Infernal Affairs and the Election series. In Europe, auteurs like Jonathan Glazer, Jacques Audiard, and Matteo Garrone directed significant gangster works such as Sexy Beast, A Prophet, and Gomorrah. The best gangster films of the...

Dev Patel’s feature directorial debut Monkey Man leads the new films at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, starting in 592 cinemas through Universal.

Directed, produced, from a story by and starring Patel, Monkey Man follows an anonymous young man who unleashes a campaign of violence against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother, and continue to systematically victimise the poor and powerless.

Filmed in early 2021, Netflix originally bought worldwide rights to Monkey Man. After Jordan Peele boarded the title as producer through his Monkeypaw Productions, Universal acquired it from Netflix earlier this year. It debuted at SXSW last month.

Running April 4-7, the Iff Panama brings to this year’s edition a rich mix of standout director driven titles from Europe, the Spanish-speaking world and beyond, spangled by highlights from Central America, including Panama:

“Bila Burba,” (Duiren Wagua, Panama)

Documentary. Wagua’s debut feature. The Gunadule nation’s ties with the Panamanian government were fraught with territorial and cultural disputes. In 1925, leaders Simral Colman and Nele Kantule, inspired by their warrior ancestors, joined forces to unite their communities in the ‘Dule Revolution’ against police brutality. Today, their descendants honor this legacy through street theater, transforming community streets into stages to commemorate their ancestors’ struggle.

Bila Burba

“Brown,” (Ricardo Aguilar, Panama)

Penned by Aguilar’s regular collaborator, Manolito Rodríguez, the story centers on Teófilo Alfonso, also known as “Panamá Al” Brown, the first Latin American World Boxing Champion. After a fixed fight costs him his title, he retires to Paris.

Italian actress and screenwriter Paola Cortellesi’s directorial feature debut, There’s Still Tomorrow (C’è Ancora Domani), and Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano lead nominations at this year’s David Di Donatello Awards.

There’s Still Tomorrow nabbed 19 noms, including best film while Io Capitano landed 15, including best director for Garrone. Trailing the leading two is Alice Rohrwacher’s latest film, La Chimera, starring Josh O’Connor. Other leading films are Rapito (11), Comandante (10), Il Sol Dell’avvenire (7), and Adagio (5).

The 69th David di Donatello Awards take place May 3. The live show will be broadcast on Rai 1 in Italy. This year’s hosts include Carlo Conti and Alessia Marcuzzi. The ceremony will take place at the legendary Cinecittà studios.

Check out the full list of nominees below:

Best Film

C’È Ancora DOMANIprodotto da Mario Gianani e Lorenzo Gangarossa per Wildside società del gruppo Fremantle; Vision Distribution società del gruppo Sky; in collaborazione...