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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...

Prolific Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet (“The Secret Life of Words”) will next direct “Tre Ciotole,” a drama starring Italian A-listers Alba Rohrwacher and Elio Germano. The film is based on the bestselling book of the same name by late great Italian writer Michela Murgia.

Cameras are set to roll March 3 in Rome on Coixet’s new film, which is lead-produced by Italy’s ITV-owned Cattleya. Seven weeks of shooting are planned. Vision Distribution is launching pre-sales at the EFM.

Coixet is known for prizewinning films that explore the inner lives of women such as “My Life Without Me” and “The Secret Life of Words,” both starring Sarah Polley, and “The Bookshop” with Emily Mortimer.

Murgia’s partly autobiographical novel “Tre Ciotole” (“Three Bowls”) follows a couple, Marta and Antonio, who split up after what seems like a trivial argument. Marta, played by Rohrwacher – who recently starred in Pablo Larrain...

When we first meet Nino Sarratore in the HBO adaptation of “My Brilliant Friend,” based on the Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante, he’s a young child at a wake for the dead husband of his father, Donato Sarratore’s (Emanuele Valenti) mistress, Melina (Pina Di Gennaro). While it’s clearly not the first time that our narrator, Elena Greco, has met the slightly older Nino, what’s important is that six-year-old Elena is already secretly in love with him. Later, when teenage Elena (Margherita Mazzucco) sees Nino (Francesco Serpico) at high school with his perfectly floppy hair, glasses on his adorable face while smoking a cigarette, she drops a sandwich on the ground at first glance. Her lust for him is palpable. How many of us haven’t felt that feeling for someone we would later learn is a nightmare?

As Elena narrates her life through the lens of...

Italy’s Fandango Film Sales has taken world rights outside Italy on Andrea Segre’s “The Great Ambition,” a biopic of late Italian political leader Enrico Berlinguer, who during the 1970s was secretary of Western Europe’s largest Communist Party.

The film, which is lead-produced by Rome-based indie Vivo film has been set as the Rome Film Festival opener, as previously announced.

Elio Germano, who won the actor top honors in Cannes with Daniele Luchetti’s “Our Life,” plays Berlinguer, who led the Italian Communist Party (Pci) from 1972 until his death in 1984. Berlinguer nearly brought the Pci to power in the Italian parliamentary elections of 1976.

Germano is currently at Venice Film Festival with the Mafia drama “Sicilian Letters.” Segre was last at Venice with the 2021 drama “Welcome Venice,” which played in Venice Days.

“When a way forward seems impossible to everyone, do you have to stop? Enrico Berlinguer did not,...

Italian production designer Paolo Comencini, whose recent credits include the box office hit There’s Still Tomorrow, will be feted with the Campari Passion for Film Award at the 81st Venice International Film Festival.

The ceremony will take place on September 6 to be followed by the Out of Competition screening of Il Tempo Che Ci Vuole by the production designer’s sister Francesca Comencini, which features the production designer’s work.

The father and daughter drama, starring Fabrizio Gifuni and Romana Maggiora Vergano, takes inspiration from their father, the iconic director Luigi Comencini.

Having cut her cinema teeth as an intern on Billy Wilder in Italy, Avanti! in 1978, Comencini began working with her father, before branching out into productions by her sisters and other directors.

Comencini’s more than production designer 50 credits include Michele Placido’s award-winning film Romanzo Criminale for which she received the David di...

Enter the adult lives of longtime girlfriends-on-edge Lenù and Lila in the final season of HBO’s “My Brilliant Friend.” The Italian series is based on Elena Ferrante’s wildly popular, globally best-selling Neapolitan Novels, beginning with “My Brilliant Friend” and concluding with “The Story of the Lost Child,” which forms the basis of the fourth and final season. Watch the teaser below.

New to the cast are Alba Rohrwacher, who has previously only narrated the decades-spanning series as the autofiction-writing Lenù, and Irene Maiorino as Lila, her dark-haired mercurial childhood friend with whom Lenù has fractiously jockeyed for the affections of the lothario Nino Sarratore. Nino, a political writer, is now played by Fabrizio Gifuni. The series is set in Naples, with this season directed by Laura Bispuri (who directed the films “Sworn Virgin” and “Daughter of Mine” with Alba Rohrwacher) and executive produced by Saverio Costanzo, who created the series.

The 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 28 to July 6) boasted not one but two competitions, the Crystal Globe and Proxima, presided over by the festival president Jiří Bartoška, artistic director Karel Och, and executive director Kryštof Mucha. The festival is the main summer event in the country, which attracts many sponsors and patrons who want to attend, and faces none of the financial hardships of such festivals as Berlin, Toronto, and Sundance. 130 films are shown, with 140,000 tickets sold. There is no room for growth, given the limited venues, from the many screening rooms at the festival hub, the Hotel Thermal, where juror Christine Vachon mixed Negronis for her fellow jurors between screenings, to the colorful arthouse Kino Drahomira, named after a revered Czech woman director.

The Eastern European festival falls between Cannes and Venice, and programs many films in its Crystal Globe Competition that did not make the cut at Cannes,...

Viggo Mortensen, Clive Owen and Daniel Brühl will each receive the President’s Award at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff), which runs from June 28-July 6.

Actor-director Mortensen’s second outing as a director, The Dead Don’t Hurt, plays as the opening film of this year’s festival. The film world premiered at Toronto last year and follows on from his acclaimed 2020 feature directing debut Falling. The Dead Don’t Hurt’s premiere comes ahead of its July 4 theatrical launch in the Czech Republic through Aerofilms.

British actor Clive Owen will receive the President’s Award at Kviff’s closing ceremony.

Viggo Mortensen, Daniel Brühl and Clive Owen will receive Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) honors at the Czech fest’s 58th edition this year.

Organizers revealed on Wednesday that actor-director Mortensen will receive the Kviff President’s Award on opening night, June 28, and also present his feminist western The Dead Don’t Hurt, which he wrote and directed, as the opening film of the fest.

German-Spanish star Brühl will also be a guest of the fest, receiving the Kviff President’s Award and presenting his directorial debut Next Door. And British actor Owen will, at the closing ceremony on July 6, receive the Kviff President’s Award.

Last year’s Kviff honorees included Alicia Vikander, Ewan McGregor and Russell Crowe, who also got the bucolic spa town of Karlovy Vary rocking when he showed off his musical chops in an open-air concert with his band Indoor Garden Party.

This year, its 25th year on the scene,...

Actor-director Viggo Mortensen, actor Clive Owen and actor-director Daniel Brühl will be honored at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Central and Eastern Europe’s leading movie event, which will open with Mortensen’s “The Dead Don’t Hurt.”

The festival also revealed Wednesday that director-producer Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter-director Nicole Holofcener will attend the event.

Mortensen, Owen and Brühl will each receive the Festival President’s Award.

The festival will screen Mike Nichols’ 2004 drama “Closer,” for which Owen was Oscar nominated, to mark his award.

Brühl will present his directorial debut “Next Door,” which premiered at the 2021 Berlinale, at Karlovy Vary to coincide with his award.

Soderbergh will present two of his films, “Kafka” (1991) and “Mr. Kneff” (2021), which are being shown as part of the festival’s retrospective for films inspired by the works of Kafka, titled “The Wish to Be a Red Indian: Kafka and Cinema.”

Karlovy Vary will be...

Opening night at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival often lures a top talent to accept the Kviff President’s Award, in this case Viggo Mortensen, the writer/director/star of his sophomore film, western “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” co-starring Vicky Krieps, which will open in the Czech Republic on July 4.

Every year, Kviff presents a new black-and-white short film at the opening night ceremony, to serve as a trailer of sorts for the festival. This year’s main protagonist is Oscar-winning actor and producer Benicio del Toro (“Traffic”), recipient of the Kviff President’s Award in 2022. The short film was written and directed by long-time creator of Kviff trailers Ivan Zachariáš. Del Toro took time off while shooting Wes Anderson’s new film in Berlin to work with Zachariáš, who collaborated on the trailer with cinematographer Jan Velický and editor Filip Malásek, and composed the music.

“We are glad...

The 23rd edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival, kicked off Friday night with a sold-out screening of Dogman, the canine-focused revenge thriller by the French veteran Luc Besson, with Dogman co-star Jojo T. Gibbs in attendance.

Some 3,500 viewers backed Unirii Square in Cluj-Napoca for the start of the 11-day festival, which runs through June 24. The biggest film extravaganza in Romania, the festival is one of the premier events on the Eastern European industry calendar, with more than 200 films, exhibitions, concerts, talks and special events scheduled, and around 1,000 industry professionals expected.

Alongside Jojo T. Gibbs, most recently seen in Alex Garland’s Civil War, the TIFF guest list this year includes Italian filmmaker Daniele Luchetti (The Yes Man), who will be honored with the festival’s special award for contribution to world cinema; and Romanian film and theater legend Catrinel Dumitrescu (Aurora), who will receive the excellence award at the closing gala on June 22nd.

Thom Yorke has shared the original score he composed for Daniele Luchetti’s new film Confidenza.

Released via Xl recordings, the Radiohead and The Smile frontman offered previews of his Confidenza score this week with “Knife’s Edge” and “Prize Giving.” Confidenza, which was adapted from Domenico Starnone’s novel of the same name and released in Italian cinemas this week, is Yorke’s second film score after crafting the soundtrack to Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake in 2018.

Yorke’s Confidenza score was produced by previous collaborator Sam Petts-Davies. Consisting of 12 tracks, the album was recorded with the London Contemporary Orchestra alongside a jazz ensemble that included Robert Stillman and Yorke’s bandmate in The Smile, Tom Skinner. Stream the Confidenza soundtrack below.

Meanwhile, Yorke has been gearing up for the second leg of a European tour with The Smile in support of the supergroup’s new album, Wall of Eyes.

Thom Yorke has shared the original score he composed for Daniele Luchetti’s new film Confidenza.

Released via Xl recordings, the Radiohead and The Smile frontman offered previews of his Confidenza score this week with “Knife’s Edge” and “Prize Giving.” Confidenza, which was adapted from Domenico Starnone’s novel of the same name and released in Italian cinemas this week, is Yorke’s second film score after crafting the soundtrack to Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake in 2018.

Yorke’s Confidenza score was produced by previous collaborator Sam Petts-Davies. Consisting of 12 tracks, the album was recorded with the London Contemporary Orchestra alongside a jazz ensemble that included Robert Stillman and Yorke’s bandmate in The Smile, Tom Skinner. Stream the Confidenza soundtrack below.

Meanwhile, Yorke has been gearing up for the second leg of a European tour with The Smile in support of the supergroup’s new album, Wall of Eyes.

It’s only fitting that on the day the score drops for Challengers, composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Thom Yorke’s first score since Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria would arrive. The Radiohead and Smile frontman’s latest work is the 12-track score for Daniele Luchetti’s Confidenza aka Trust, the Italian director adaptation of Domenico Starnone’s novel.

A collaboration with producer Sam Petts-Davies, the London Contemporary Orchestra, and a jazz ensemble featuring Tom Skinner and Robert Stillman, as reported by Stereogum, it’s not just an instrumental production as Yorke provides vocals throughout.

The film, which premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam earlier this year and opens in Italy this week, stars Elio Germano as a teacher in his forties named Pietro Vella who works in a rundown Roman high school. He strongly believes he can help students strive for a better future and Teresa, and bright and rebellious student,...

“If I were you, I’d run away/Get out while you still can,” Thom Yorke sings on his new song “Knife Edge.” “‘Cause this to me is life or death/And all I think about.” The pensive song, which ambles along slowly with piano and sparse strings, comes off the soundtrack to Confidenza, a new film by director Daniele Luchetti (My Brilliant Friend).

The music video for the tune shows footage from the movie, which is based on author Domenico Starnone’s novel of the same title about a doomed couple.

Thom Yorke, frontman of Radiohead and The Smile, has composed the original score for Daniele Luchetti’s new film Confidenza.

Confidenza marks Yorke’s second film score, following his contributions to Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake of Suspiria. As a preview of his latest effort, Yorke has shared the visual for “Knife Edge” and its B-side, “Prize Giving.” Check out both songs below.

Spanning a total of 12 tracks, Yorke’s score for Confidenza will recorded with the London Contemporary Orchestra alongside a jazz ensemble which included Robert Stillman and Yorke’s bandmate in The Smile, Tom Skinner. It will be released digitally this Friday, April 26th via Xl Recordings, with a physical release following on July 12th.

Confidenza is an adaptation of Domenico Starnone’s 2019 novel of the same name. Starring Elio Germano, Vittoria Puccini, and Isabella Ferrari, the Italian drama centers around an affair between a teacher named Pietro and his former student Teresa.

Thom Yorke, frontman of Radiohead and The Smile, has composed the original score for Daniele Luchetti’s new film Confidenza.

Confidenza marks Yorke’s second film score, following his contributions to Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake of Suspiria. As a preview of his latest effort, Yorke has shared the visual for “Knife Edge” and its B-side, “Prize Giving.” Check out both songs below.

Spanning a total of 12 tracks, Yorke’s score for Confidenza will recorded with the London Contemporary Orchestra alongside a jazz ensemble which included Robert Stillman and Yorke’s bandmate in The Smile, Tom Skinner. It will be released digitally this Friday, April 26th via Xl Recordings, with a physical release following on July 12th.

Confidenza is an adaptation of Domenico Starnone’s 2019 novel of the same name. Starring Elio Germano, Vittoria Puccini, and Isabella Ferrari, the Italian drama centers around an affair between a teacher named Pietro and his former student Teresa.

Update: Italian collecting company Artisti 7607, which represents thousands of local acting and dubbing talents, has announced it is suing Netflix in a Rome court “to obtain adequate and proportionate compensation due by law to its mandated artists.”

Netflix disputes they are doing anything wrong.

Artisti 7607, which was founded as a co-op more than a decade ago by a group of Italian A-list actors including Elio Germano — who in 2015 won top acting honors in Cannes with Daniele Luchetti’s “Our Life” — has long been doing battle with Netflix over residual rights.

“After more than eight years of sterile negotiations to obtain the data necessary to determine the compensation for artists in observance of European and national legislation, Artisti 7607 is forced to appeal to an ordinary court to request compliance with the law,” the indie collecting company said in a statement.

Artisti 7607 is suing Netflix in court after taking similar action...

Thom Yorke has composed the soundtrack for Italian director Daniele Luchetti’s relationship drama “Trust,” which will soon launch in competition from the Rotterdam Film Festival.

Yorke’s work with Luchetti on “Trust” marks the second feature fully scored by the Radiohead and the Smile frontman since working on Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 “Suspiria” remake. The following year, in 2019, Yorke contributed to Edward Norton’s “Motherless Brooklyn.”

“Trust,” which is based on the novel “Confidenza” by Neapolitan writer Domenico Starnone, centers on a teacher in his 40s named Pietro Vella – played by A-list Italian actor Elio Germano – who works in a rundown Roman high school. He becomes romantically entangled with a former student years after they intersect in class. Their affair triggers some deep-seated fears in Pietro.

“It’s the story of a man who, for his entire life, finds himself trapped between a fear of love and a love of fear,...

Thom Yorke has announced he composed the score for Italian filmmaker Daniele Luchetti’s new film, Confidenza.

Confidenza, which translates to Trust in English, is adapted from Domenico Starnone’s 2019 novel of the same name. Starring Elio Germano, Vittoria Puccini, and Isabella Ferrari, the movie centers around an affair between a teacher named Pietro and his former student Teresa.

Luchetti is best known for his work on acclaimed films like The Yes Man and The Ties. He also directed Season 3 of the Italian HBO drama My Brilliant Friend. Confidenza is set to premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam later this week, but a theatrical release date has not been revealed. Watch a teaser clip below.

In 2018, Yorke unveiled his first original film score for Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake. One year later, he contributed the song “Daily Battles” to the soundtrack for Edward Norton’s crime drama Motherless Brooklyn.

Thom Yorke has announced he composed the score for Italian filmmaker Daniele Luchetti’s new film, Confidenza.

Confidenza, which translates to Trust in English, is adapted from Domenico Starnone’s 2019 novel of the same name. Starring Elio Germano, Vittoria Puccini, and Isabella Ferrari, the movie centers around an affair between a teacher named Pietro and his former student Teresa.

Luchetti is best known for his work on acclaimed films like The Yes Man and The Ties. He also directed Season 3 of the Italian HBO drama My Brilliant Friend. Confidenza is set to premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam later this week, but a theatrical release date has not been revealed. Watch a teaser clip below.

In 2018, Yorke unveiled his first original film score for Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake. One year later, he contributed the song “Daily Battles” to the soundtrack for Edward Norton’s crime drama Motherless Brooklyn.

Toni Servillo, who played Roman socialite Jep Gambardella in Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning “The Great Beauty,” will star in a drama about Cosa Nostra boss Matteo Messina Denaro, dubbed “the last godfather” directed by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza (“Sicilian Ghost Story”).

Also starring in the hotly-anticipated drama titled “Iddu” – which means “Him” in Sicilian dialect – is Italian A-list actor Elio Germano, winner of a Cannes best actor prize for Daniele Luchetti’s “Our Life” in 2010 and more recently of Italy’s 2021 David di Donatello Award for Giorgio Diritti’s “Hidden Away.”

The roles respectively being played by Servillo and Elio Germano are being kept under wraps.

After being on the run for three decades, Messina Denaro was arrested in mid-January 2023 outside an upscale medical facility in Palermo, where he had been undergoing cancer treatment for a year under false identity. The top mafioso, convicted of masterminding some of Italy...

Debbie Harry, lead singer of Blondie, will be among those taking part in on-stage talks at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which runs Jan. 25 to Feb. 4.

Harry narrates the latest film by Amanda Kramer, “So Unreal,” an essay-documentary about the relationships between cinema, humanity and technology. On Jan. 27, the two will give an IFFR Talk discussing their work as artists with distinctive esthetics whose careers have developed across film and music.

As previously announced, other speakers in the IFFR Talk program include actor Sandra Hüller, and directors Anne Fontaine, Marco Bellocchio, Bill Plympton and Billy Woodberry.

Directors attending with their titles in the Limelight section, which is for films from established filmmakers, include Mexican filmmaker Amat Escalante with “Lost in the Night,” Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland with “Green Border” and Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania with “Four Daughters,” which is shortlisted for an Oscar.

Fontaine will attend the world premiere of her 19th feature film,...

International Film Festival Rotterdam has revealed its lineup for the Tiger, Big Screen and Tiger Short competitions. The festival runs from January 25-February 4. Scroll down for the full lists.

Head South by Jonathan Ogilvie will open the proceedings with M. Raihan Halim’s comedy La Luna on closing duties. The Tiger Competition jury will be comprised of Marco Müller, Ena Sendijarević, Nadia Turincev, Herman Yau and Billy Woodberry.

Also confirmed are the first names for the Talks lineup including Marco Bellocchio, Anne Fontaine, Alexander Kluge and Rachel Maclean.

Festival director Vanja Kaludjercic said today, “For over half a century, IFFR has stood as a haven for diverse voices – a convergence where artists share perspectives. Our program celebrates the resilience and creativity of global filmmakers, a testament to cinema’s power to transcend borders. From Indian to Japanese epics, a Kazakh thriller, Finnish Freudian reinterpretations, Dominican sci-fi and underground Iranian cinema,...

Head South.International Film Festival Rotterdam have announced the lineup for their 53rd edition, which will take place between January 25 to February 4. Opening FILMHead South (Jonathan Ogilvie)The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire.Tiger COMPETITIONThe Ballad of Suzanne Césaire (Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich)Flathead (Jaydon Martin)Grey Bees (Dmytro Moiseiev)Kiss Wagon (Midhun Murali)Me, Maryam, the Children and 26 Others (Farshad Hashemi)MosesLa Parra (Alberto Gracia)Praia Formosa (Julia De Simone)Rei (Tanaka Toshihiko)Reise der Schatten (Yves Netzhammer)She Fell to Earth (Susie Au)sr (Lea Hartlaub)Swimming Home (Justin Anderson)Under a Blue Sun (Daniel Mann)Milk Teeth.Big Screen COMPETITIONAire: Just Breathe (Leticia Tonos Paniagua)Children of War and Peace (Ville Suhonen)Confidenza (Daniele Luchetti)Eternal (Ulaa Salim)Milk Teeth (Sophia Bösch)The Old Bachelor (Oktay Baraheni)Portrait of a Certain Orient (Marcelo Gomes)Seven Seas Seven Hills (Ram)Steppenwolf (Adilkhan Yerzhanov)TenementThe Worst Man in London (Rodrigo Areias...

‘Swimming Home’ is directed by Justin Anderson and stars Mackenzie Davies, Christopher Abbott and Ariane Labed.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled the Tiger and Big Screen programmes for the 3rd edition, taking place January 25 – February 4, 2024 in the Netherlands.

Justin Anderson’s Swimming Home, starring Mackenzie Davies, Christopher Abbott and Ariane Labed, is among the titles world premiering in the Tiger Competition.

Scroll down for full line-up

The drama is adapted from Deborah Levy’s novel about a woman who implores the help of a naked stranger found floating in her pool. It is produced by Emily Morgan’s UK outfit Quiddity Films,...

Italy’s Indiana Production – which has just become part of pan-European studio Vuelta Group – is staying true to its roots with production kicking off this month on gender swap movie “Romeo is Juliet,” directed by quality comedy specialist Giovanni Veronesi, just as the company expands its horizons.

This latest title in Indiana’s slate stars A-lister Sergio Castellitto and Pilar Fogliati (“Romantiche”) who plays an actress named Vittoria who after being brutally rejected by a cynical stage director when she auditions to play Juliet in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” decides to reinvent herself as a man to audition for Romeo and gets the part. The film’s lead actors and director are pictured above.

“Romeo is Juliet” is being produced by Indiana, co-produced by Capri Entertainment, and will be distributed in Italian theatres by Vision Distribution. The movie will start production in September.

Founded in 2005, Indiana over the ensuing...

Italian producer, director, and film and TV industry pioneer Renzo Rossellini is being honored with the Locarno Film Festival’s lifetime achievement award.

The Swiss fest dedicated to indie cinema will pay tribute to the consummate filmmaker and renaissance man – who as a producer shepherded works by master directors such as Federico Fellini, Lina Wertmüller, Werner Herzog and Francis Ford Coppola – with a screening of Fellini’s 1980 work “City of Women” on its 8,000 seat open-air Piazza Grande venue on Aug. 10, followed by an onstage conversation the next day.

Rossellini who also worked as assistant director for his father Roberto and, among others, François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol – and is a director in his own right – “Has never ceased his quest to pass on his knowledge of the cinema, teaching generations of students and cineastes with passion and commitment,” the fest said in a statement.

“Film is a tool for learning...

Italian director Daniele Luchetti, who most recently helmed the third season of Rai/HBO’s Elena Ferrante series “My Brilliant Friend,” is working on a new film titled “Confidenza” (“Trust”) toplining Elio Germano.

Luchetti previously directed Germano in the drama “Our Life” in a role that in 2015 won the actor top honors in Cannes.

Vision Distribution is launching sales on “Trust” at the European Film Market.

In “Trust” Germano plays a teacher in his forties named Pietro Vella who works in a rundown Roman high school. He strongly believes he can help students strive for a better future and Teresa, and bright and rebellious student, is totally taken with him and his lessons. Then, a few years later, they meet up again and get romantically entangled. Teresa insists they must share their deepest secrets to bond for life. But as soon as Pietro really opens up, the relationship ends.

“Trust...

Prominent arthouse sales company The Match Factory has closed multiple sales on Italian auteur Gianni Amelio’s Venice competition title “Lord of the Ants” ahead of its Venice premiere on Tuesday.

The Match Factory has sealed deals on Amelio’s latest work – which is a biopic of Italian poet, playwright and director Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968 due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law – that will ensure the film’s theatrical release in Australia/New Zealand (Palace Films); Japan (Zazie Films); Spain (Surtsey Films); Sweden (TriArt Film) and Greece (Ama Films). Further deals are in negotiation, the company said.

Braibanti was convicted after a complaint from his partner’s father, who later forced his son to be treated with electroconvulsive therapy in an ill-conceived attempt to rid him of his homosexuality. The Fascist-era law that punished Braibanti, which made it a crime to lead innocent or unwary people “morally” astray,...

Elena and Lila’s story will reach its conclusion on HBO with a fourth and final season of My Brilliant Friend, TVLine has learned.

The final collection of episodes (premiere date Tbd) will be based on The Story of the Lost Child, which is the fourth book in Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend quadrilogy.

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My Brilliant Friend is coming to an end at HBO. But not quite yet.

The WarnerMedia-owned cable network and Italian public broadcaster Rai have renewed the series, which is based on Elena Ferrante’s book series, for a fourth and final season.

It comes as the third season, My Brilliant Friend: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, launched in the U.S. last month.

The fourth season will be based on Ferrante’s The Story of the Lost Child, the fourth book in her quadrilogy.

Cancellations/Renewals Scorecard: TV Shows Ended Or Continuing In 2021-22 Season

Created by Saverio Costanzo, My Brilliant Friend is produced by The Apartment, Fremantle Italy, Wildside and Fandango.

The third season, which stars Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace, follows Elena Greco and Lila, otherwise known as Raffaella Cerullo, both now grown women, during the great open sea of the 1970s. Lila took her...

Alba Rohrwacher is set to play Elena, aka Lenù, in the fourth and final season of Rai/HBO show “My Brilliant Friend.”

Just as season three of the Elena Ferrante adaptation, directed by Daniele Luchetti, kicks off in the U.S. where it debuted on Feb. 28. on HBO and HBO Max to positive reviews, Italian viewers of the final episode of the show’s third instalment, aired locally on pubcaster Rai, have found out that going forward Lenù will no longer be played by young Neapolitan actor Margherita Mazzucco.

Without spoilers, suffice it to say that in a final cliffhanger scene when Lenù, played by Mazzucco, looks in a mirror and sees herself in the future, Rohrwacher’s face appears.

Alba Rohrwacher, who is among Italy’s A-listers, is not entirely new to “Brilliant Friend.” She has been performing the voiceover for the series since the first season of the...

The third season of the Rai and HBO series “My Brilliant Friend” is ready to air in Italy and in the U.S., where the high-end show based the third book in Elena Ferrante’s quadrilogy has been set for a Feb. 28 debut on HBO and HBO Max.

The eight-episode adaptation of Ferrante’s 1970s-set novel, “Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay,” was unveiled Wednesday during an online presser held in Rome by Rai, ahead of its premiere on Feb. 6 on the pubcaster’s flagship Rai 1 station.

“My Brilliant Friend: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay” follows Lila (Gaia Gerace), who married at 16, has a young son, left her husband and comfortable life and is now working in a factory under tough conditions. Elena, aka Lenù, (Margherita Mazzucco) meanwhile has left the Naples neighborhood, earned her college degree and published a successful novel, all of which has...

Italian auteur Gianni Amelio (“Open Doors”) will shoot a biopic of Italian poet, playwright and director Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968 due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law. The Match Factory has boarded the pic and is launching international sales in Cannes.

Amelio is best-known for the Oscar-nominated “Open Doors” (1990) and also “Stolen Children,” which won the 1992 Cannes Grand Prix, as well as “Hammamet,” a portrait of disgraced late Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi’s final years in Tunisia.

Braibanti was convicted after a complaint from his partner’s father, who later forced his son to be treated with electroconvulsive therapy in an ill-conceived attempt to rid him of his homosexuality. The Fascist-era law that punished Braibanti, which made it a crime to lead innocent or unwary people “morally” astray, was repealed in 1981.

Amelio’s new film, titled “Il signore delle formiche,” which translates as “The Ants Man,” features an...

Aldo (Luigi Lo Cascio) with Vanda (Alba Rohrwacher) in Daniele Luchetti’s tightly wound The Ties (Lacci)

Daniele Luchetti’s The Ties (Lacci), adapted from the novel by Domenico Starnone, with co-screenwriter Francesco Piccolo, which stars Alba Rohrwacher and Luigi Lo Cascio with Laura Morante, Silvio Orlando, Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Adriano Giannini was a highlight of the 2021 virtual edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, presented by Film at Lincoln Center and Istituto Luce Cinecittà in New York.

Daniele Luchetti with Anne-Katrin Titze on costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini: “He has great taste, not to mention the fact that he really knows the craft well, he really knows his fabrics.”

The film begins with a closeup of shoes. Dancing feet - lacci also means laces - hop in a carnivalesque conga line. Children are having fun in their costumes, while Vanda (Alba Rohrwacher) and Aldo (Luigi Lo Cascio) cannot...

Two of the highlights of the 2021 virtual edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema presented by Film at Lincoln Center and Istituto Luce Cinecittà are Salvatore Mereu’s adaptation of Giulio Angioni’s Assandira, starring Gavino Ledda with Anna König, Marco Zucca, and Corrado Giannetti, and Daniele Luchetti’s The Ties (Lacci), adapted from the novel by Domenico Starnone, with co-screenwriter Francesco Piccolo, which stars Alba Rohrwacher and Luigi Lo Cascio with Laura Morante, Silvio Orlando, Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Adriano Giannini.

Starnone’s novel begins with Vanda’s letters to her husband Aldo. She writes about how she feels and how she sees what he is doing to their family, which includes two small children, Sandro and Anna. “You want to isolate me, cut me out completely. And what matters most, you want to...

Marco Zucca as Mario and Gavino Ledda as Costantino in Salvatore Mereu’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema highlight Assandira

Two of the highlights of the 2021 virtual edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema are Daniele Luchetti’s The Ties (Lacci), adapted from the novel by co-screenwriter Domenico Starnone, and Francesco Piccolo, which stars Alba Rohrwacher and Luigi Lo Cascio, and Salvatore Mereu’s adaptation of Giulio Angioni’s Assandira, starring Gavino Ledda with Anna König, Marco Zucca, and Corrado Giannetti. Film at Lincoln Center and Istituto Luce Cinecittà’s festival opens with Damiano D'Innocenzo and Fabio D'Innocenzo’s Bad Tales (Favolacce) this Friday.

Salvatore Mereu in Sardinia with his son Francesco Mereu (our translator) in Bologna and Anne-Katrin Titze in New York

In 2013, before the New York Open Roads Italian Cinema luncheon for the Rome delegation of filmmakers, which included Marco Bellocchio for Dormant Beauty and Daniele Cipri for It Was The Son,...

Italy’s 66th David di Donatello Awards are set to celebrate on May 11 a year of resilience for Cinema Italiano that also looks likely to germinate some creative renewal, just as Italian movie theaters start to reopen and production is booming.

Giorgio Diritti’s biopic “Hidden Away,” about crazed primitivist painter Antonio Ligabue, Gianni Amelio’s wistful “Hammamet,” which reconstructs the Tunisian self-exile of scandal-plagued Italian leader Bettino Craxi, and dark drama “Bad Tales” by the D’Innocenzo Brothers lead the crowded field for Italy’s equivalent of the Oscars, with no clear frontrunner.

Significantly, “Hidden Away,” which scooped 15 nominations, and “Bad Tales,” which scored 13, both star actor Elio Germano. And Germano also plays the lead in another standout title in the Davids race, Netflix Italian Original “The Incredible Story of Rose Island,” which landed 11 noms, including one for the pic’s producer, multihyphenate Matteo Rovere, whose Groenlandia Group is having a banner year.

Veteran Italian auteur Daniele Luchetti, whose most recent film “The Ties” opened the 2020 Venice Film Festival, is now shooting season 3 of HBO-rai series “My Brilliant Friend,” taking the reins from helmer-showrunner Saverio Costanzo, who is taking a break.

The show’s hotly anticipated third season is based on the bestselling novel “My Brilliant Friend – Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay,” the third book of the quadrilogy by Elena Ferrante published in the U.S. by Europa Editions. It’s produced by The Apartment and Wildside, both Fremantle companies, along with FremantleMedia Italia and Fandango Production, in collaboration with Rai Fiction and HBO Entertainment. The story and screenplays are by Ferrante, Francesco Piccolo, Laura Paolucci and Saverio Costanzo.

Luchetti spoke exclusively to Variety about the upcoming season’s cinematic references, the two protagonists’ journeys, and his personal connection to the material.

Saverio had told me that after referencing Neorealism in...

The event featuring films from the festival's latest edition, including Padrenostro and The Macaluso Sisters, will take place from 3 to 10 February at the Cinemathèque Seoul Art Cinema. Seven Italian films from the 77th Venice International Film Festival 2020 compose the programme for the 9th edition of Venice in Seoul. The film series will run starting tomorrow 3 February through 10 February at the Cinemathèque Seoul Art Cinema, organized by La Biennale di Venezia in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Culture in Seoul. The line-up of the 9th edition of Venice in Seoul, from the Venezia 77 Competition, will also feature Padrenostro by Claudio Noce, for which Pierfrancesco Favino won the Coppa Volpi, and The Macaluso Sister by Emma Dante. The series will also include both the opening film of the Venice Film Festival, Ties by Daniele Luchetti, and the closing film, Lasciami andare by Stefano Mordini, both...

When Jane Fonda opened that envelope and called Bong Joon-ho and his team to the stage, we really should have known. The Oscars were not supposed to get it right, it was too perfect. From a moment like that there was nowhere to go but down, way down.

The rest of 2020 turned out to be quite a historic dumpster fire. As much as you think you’ve gotten used to it by now, the bleak news updates, the sight of cities on lockdown or trainfuls of masked passengers still strike me as dizzyingly surreal sometimes. Like waking up inside an elaborate Terry Gilliam production.

As with most other cultural sites, cinemas were first in line to be shuttered for being non-essential. From an epidemiological perspective it’s hard to argue against this. In every other regard, however, film proved even more essential in a pandemic. How else do you see the world beyond the confinement,...

With a newly rejigged global drama unit, Fremantle COO Andrea Scrosati is nurturing a pipeline that features several high-profile projects in advanced stages, such as “Wild Rabbit,” which has attached U.S. director Reinaldo Marcus Green (“Monsters and Men”).

Marcus Green debuted with Sundance 2018 Special Jury Prize winner “Monsters and Men” and more recently directed anti-lgbtq bullying drama “Good Joe Bell,” which played at the Toronto Film Festival. Having secured a hot director in Marcus Green, the previously announced series produced with Richard Brown’s Passenger shingle and set in the Miami underworld of performance-enhancing drugs in college sports, “is now in a very good place,” says Scrosati. He expects to soon announce the show’s broadcaster.

Meanwhile, shooting is set to start in two weeks in Naples on the third season of Fremantle’s “My Brilliant Friend,” based on Elena Ferrante’s third book in the four-part series, titled...

Portuguese film distributor Midas Filmes has picked up a slew of new acquisitions, including Nanni Moretti’s upcoming “Three Floors,” Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Memoria” and Daniele Luchetti’s “The Ties,” which opened this year’s Venice Film Festival.

The Lisbon-based company, which is taking part in this year’s International Classic Film Market (Mifc) focus on Portugal in Lyon, France, has also recently picked up Belgian helmer Lucas Belvaux’s “Home Front,” starring Gérard Depardieu; “The Woman Who Ran,” by Hong Sang-Soo; and “Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue,” Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke’s documentary about a local literature festival in Shanxi, China, which premiered at this year’s Berlinale.

Launched in 2006, Midas Filmes has released more than 60 films and boasts a DVD catalog of more than 200 films. Catalog titles and classics play major roles in the distributor’s repertoire, some 85% of which comprises international films, about 10% Portuguese titles and 5% U.

Turkey’s 57th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival is forging ahead with a hybrid edition this year that will feature a mix of the best new Turkish features and cherry-picked international titles.

The storied event being held Oct. 3-10 in the bustling resort city on Turkey’s Southern coast has been through a spell of politically-prompted turbulence that led to the appointment last year of new fest chief Ahmet Boyacıoğlu and artistic director Başak Emre, who both stated that “Return to Roots” would be their mantra as they took the helm.

That’s because the 2017 and 2018 editions, headed by British-Irish producer Mike Downey, had done away with the national competition, historically the backbone of Turkey’s oldest and most prominent film event.

Therefore lots of locals during those two years “boycotted the festival” since Turkish cinema, which had been folded into the international lineup, “was practically out,” says Boyacıoğlu, who...

This was the original release weekend for ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ before its Covid-induced delay.

France, Wednesday, September 30

French comedy My Cousin by Jan Kounen was the biggest release of the week in France on just under 700 prints for Pathé. Vincent Lindon stars as the uptight chief of a family business empire on a mission to get his wayward cousin, who owns half its shares, to sign off on a mega-deal.

Cannes 2020 label feature animation Josep was the second widest launch on 200 prints for Sophie Dulac Distribution. This was followed by Israeli-French drama The End Of Love by Keren Ben Rafael...

Titles include ‘Nomadland’, ‘The Courier’, Regina King’s ‘One Night In Miami’ and Venice opener ‘The Ties’.

The Zurich Film Festival has added 12 gala premieres to its 2020 line-up, including several selected for Venice and Toronto.

The 16th edition of the festival has secured Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, starring and produced by Frances McDormand, which will receive a simultaneous world premiere next week in Venice and Toronto.

Films set to receive their international premieres at the festival include Daniele Luchetti’s Italian drama The Ties (aka Lacci), which opened Venice on Wednesday, and Sonke Wortmann’s German comedy Contra.

Zurich will...

The Venice Film Festival’s market is kicking off preceded by a flurry of activity, with several significant deals already announced during the world’s first physical place to do business after lockdown.

Though smaller than in past editions, the event – known as the Venice Production Bridge – has more than 800 mostly European accredited buyers, sellers, producers and financiers in attendance. Plus 150 more signed up for its online aspect. Roughly 400 physical meetings have already been booked through the market’s networking service. That’s symbolic of a restart.

“Our business is meeting; it’s networking, first of all,” says Vpb chief Pascal Diot. “Especially for producers,” he adds. “They need to meet people, it’s simply not the same thing as a Zoom or Skype conversation.”

Meanwhile, sales announcements of Venice titles have been springing forth. Sony Pictures Classics snapped up worldwide rights to Luca Guadagnino’s Salvatore Ferragamo doc “Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams,...

Daniele Luchetti’s “The Ties” (“Lacci”), the first Italian film to open the Venice Film Festival in 11 years, garnered warm reviews on its world premiere on Wednesday evening, and has been sold by MK2 Films in a raft of territories around the world.

MK2 Films has been able to lure major distributors in key markets, notably France (Pyramide), Spain (Caramel), Latin America (Synapse), China (Huanxi), Portugal (Midas), Greece (Weirdwave), Austria (Thim), Switzerland (Cineworx), Cis (Provzyglad), Bulgaria (Cinelibri) and former Yugoslavia (McF).

“The Ties” opens in Naples, in the early 1980s, and revolves around the relationship of Aldo and Vanda who go through a separation after Aldo reveals an affair. Their two young children are torn between their parents, in a whirlwind of resentment; but even without love, the ties that keep people together are inescapable, and 30 years later, Aldo and Vanda are still married.

The movie is headlined by a...