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Illustration by Franz Lang.As an American, I usually avoid spending too much time at a festival considering the films from my own country—Notebook has an international lens, and those films will get more than enough attention from the mainstream American press. But it’s hard to ignore the American titles in this year’s Cannes selection; to look at this year’s competitors—Wes Anderson, Ari Aster, Richard Linklater, and Kelly Reichardt—is to experience cultural dissociation that suggests not only that our cinema is fine and dandy, but that, gee whiz, our country might be too. At festivals, art films are often burdened with representing the state of an entire country; perhaps too readily, they are taken as national allegories. The positive artistic force on display at Cannes, however, belies the reality back home, where misanthropic, self-serving leaders are governing with unfathomable authoritarian cruelty. These films seem...

Italian auteur Mario Martone, who last competed for the Cannes Palm d’Or in 2022 with “Nostalgia,” will soon be back on the Croisette with “Fuori” a drama set in 1980 Rome that depicts a specific period in the life of feminist writer Goliarda Sapienza who is best known for posthumously published erotic novel “The Art of Joy.”

Variety has been given an exclusive clip of the drama which is produced by Indigo Film with Rai Cinema and Fremantle’s The Apartment, and co-produced with Srab Films, and La Pact Production in collaboration with Fremantle. Goodfellas is handling international sales. The film will go on release in Italy on May 22.

“Fuori,” which translates as “Outside,” portrays Sapienza, played by Valeria Golino, during the 1980s when, after “The Art of Joy” is rejected by the Italian publishing world, she ends up in a Rome prison for stealing jewelry and forges a deep bond...

The Cannes Film Festival 2025 line-up reveals the films that likely will be chatted about long through the year. Here’s what’s showing.

Cannes Film Festival has published its official line-up for this year’s event, and we get our first hint at the films that are set to be part of the awards conversation for the coming months. The festival will be screening several interesting films, including the directorial debuts of Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson in the new filmmaker category.

Screening out of competition will be Spike Lee’s latest offering, Highest 2 Lowest, and Tom Cruise and company are taking Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning to the festival too. This has proved to be a public relations misstep in the past (remember Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny?) but with Mission releasing so soon after the festival, this seems like a savvy move to us.

We haven’t yet relaunched, but Kevin Jagernauth and I wanted to have a quick conversation about the nineteen films (plus no-shows) selected for the 2025 competition film section. Running for the Palme d’Or this year we have the likes of Julia Ducournau, Dominik Moll, Tarik Saleh, Ari Aster, Mario Martone, Oliver Hermanus, Kelly Reichardt, Richard Linklater, Hafsia Herzi, Wes Anderson, Chie Hayakawa, Carla Simón, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Joachim Trier, Jafar Panahi, Oliver Laxe, Mascha Schilinski, Sergei Loznitsa, and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. More will trickle in next week. Check out our talk below let us know who you believe has the best chance at grabbing gold.…...

The full list of films that will be screening at the 78th Annual Cannes Film Festival has been released. The line-up was announced this morning by the Cannes delegate general Thierry Frémaux and President Iris Knobloch at a press conference in Paris. The Hollywood Reporter has shared the program listing for this year’s event. While there are a number of anticipated high-profile titles, a bevy of auteurs will be showcasing their latest, including Kelly Reichardt, who will be returning to the competition with The Mastermind. The film is an art-heist drama and stars Josh O’Connor and John Magaro, which takes place during the Vietnam War.

Joachim Trier, the Norwegian filmmaker who made a splash in 2021 with The Worst Person of the World, returns with the new film Sentimental Value, which features Renate Reinsve. Julia Ducournau, the director of the surreal film, Titane, which got her a Palme d’Or...

The guessing game around which films could make the lineup for the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, which runs from May 13—24, came to an end this morning at a press conference in Paris by Cannes delegate general Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch. If you tapped the latest works by Ari Aster (Eddington), Kelly Reichardt (The Mastermind), Richard Linklater (Nouvelle Vague), Wes anderson (The Phoenician Scheme), and the Dardenne brothers (Young Mothers) to make the cut, then you were correct.

Neon, which is on a five-year winning streak of Palme d’Or winners, two of which went on to win best picture at the Oscars (Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite and Sean Baker’s Anora), will try to make it a sixth with, for now, either of the two films it already has in its stable: Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value and Julie Ducournau’s Alpha.

Absent from the...

Among the lineup for the Cannes Film Festival’s 78th edition are some big names from Hollywood and global cinema. We already knew that Tom Cruise will light the fuse on Paramount/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning on May 14 out of competition, while there was plenty of speculation that Scarlett Johansson would have a pair of movies on the Croisette. The latter has now been confirmed with Johansson’s directorial debut Eleanor the Great set for Un Certain Regard, and her acting reteam with Wes Anderson in his latest, The Phoenician Scheme, in Competition. Also confirmed is Ari Aster’s Eddington with Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone.

Many more stars are potentially in store now that the bulk of the official selection has been revealed. Not everyone is confirmed to attend the Riviera shindig, but here’s a look at some of the possibilities.

Cannes...

Dieciséis años después, el cine español vuelve a duplicar presencia en la Competición Oficial de la Croisette.

© Cannes

Hoy es un día para celebrar. Porque esta mañana se ha desvelado la programación oficial del Festival de Cannes 2025 y, por primera vez desde aquel histórico 2009 –cuando coincidieron Isabel Coixet y Pedro Almodóvar–, dos cineastas españoles competirán por la ansiada Palma de Oro. Ellos son Carla Simón (recordemos que ganó el Oso de Oro en la Berlinale 2022 con Alcarràs) y Oliver Laxe. España vuelve a estar doblemente representada en la Croisette con sus nuevos largometrajes: Romería y Sirat, respectivamente.

Romería, tercer largometraje de Carla Simón, es una obra profundamente personal en la que la directora catalana se sumerge en la memoria de su familia biológica paterna. La historia sigue a Marina (interpretada por la debutante Llúcia Garcia Torras), una joven adoptada que viaja a Vigo para encontrarse por primera con la familia de su padre biológico.

Updated May 8: The Cannes lineup is now complete with four more additions, included below.

Updated April 23: The original April 10 Cannes announcement has been updated to reflect new additions to the lineup.

Updated 10:40 a.m. Et: Cannes has now confirmed that Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest” will play out of competition at Cannes. The film was omitted from Thursday morning’s announcement, though Lee shared on Instagram afterward that “Highest 2 Lowest” would be heading to Cannes. We’ve now included the film below.

Earlier: The 2025 Cannes Film Festival lineup was revealed bright and early, starting at 5 a.m. Et on Thursday, April 10 for those following in the States. For those in France, festival director Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch unveiled this year’s crop of films from the main competition to Un Certain Regard and beyond at the more reasonable hour of 11 a.m. local time.

New films from Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater and the Dardenne brothers will premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Cannes organizers announced at a press conference in Paris on Thursday.

Anderson will be back in Cannes with “The Phoenician Scheme,” which premiered a baffling trailer at CinemaCon last week. Linklater is heading to France with a bold movie, “Nouvelle Vague,” which tackles the sacred ground of Jean-Luc Godard and the filming of “Breathless” in the 1960s. The Dardenne brothers have “Young Mothers,” which gives them a chance to become the first filmmakers to win the Palme d’Or three times.

Actors in the festival making their directorial debuts include Scarlett Johansson, who is in Un Certain Regard with “Eleanor the Great,” starring Joan Squibb; and Harris Dickinson, the star of the Palme d’Or winner “The Triangle of Sadness,” with “Urchin.”

The main competition will include a number of...

The Cannes Film Festival announced its 2025 lineup on Thursday morning. Several expected contenders are set for world premieres on the French Riviera, including new projects from Scarlett Johansson, Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson, Ari Aster, Kelly Reichardt, Joachim Trier, and more.

Among the titles that will premiere at Cannes this year are Eleanor the Great, Johansson’s directorial debut with a lead role for June Squibb; Nouvelle Vague, Linklater’s tribute to the French New Wave and the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless; The Mastermind, Reichardt’s latest about an art-world heist with roles for Josh O’Connor, Alana Haim, and John Magaro; Splitsville (directed by Michael Angelo Covino), a Neon release with Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona; and Sentimental Value, Triet’s follow-up to The Worst Person in the World with Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, and Elle Fanning in the cast.

Other films of note include Alpha (Cannes winner Julia Ducournau...

The Official Selection for the 78th Cannes Film Festival was revealed Thursday, with 19 movies in Competition. See full lists below.

Familiar names who will launch new works in the Competition include Wes Anderson, who brings his latest flick The Phoenician Scheme; Richard Linklater will launch his Paris-shot Nouvelle Vague; Jochim Trier debuts his latest feature Sentimental Value; and Titane Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau returns with Alpha.

Cannes will open this year with Leave One Day by first-time French filmmaker Amelie Bonnin. Thierry Frémaux said during his presser this morning that it was the first time a debut film has been selected to open the festival. Also hitting the Croisette for the first time is horror auteur Ari Aster, who returns to feature filmmaking with his buzzy A24 feature Eddington.

Related: Thierry Frémaux Talks ‘Mission: Impossible’; Star Presence; Hollywood Introspection & Oscar Track Record

Elsewhere, American filmmaker Kelly Reichardt will...

Ahead of the 78th Cannes Film Festival, taking place May 13 to 24, the lineup has now been unveiled. Iris Knobloch, President of the Festival de Cannes, and Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate, have revealed the slate this morning.

Highlights include Ari Aster’s Eddington, Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, Joachim Trier’s Sentimal Value, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent, Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, Julia Ducournau’s Alpha, Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident, Carla Simon’s Romeria, and more. In other sections we have Rebecca Zlotowski’s Vie Privée, the directorial debuts of Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson, Michael Angelo Covino’s Splitsville, Sebastián Lelio’s The Wave, Sylvain Chomet’s The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol, and more.

See below.

In Competition

After (Oliver Laxe)

Alpha (Julia Ducournau)

The Eagles of the Republic (Tarik Saleh)

Eddington (Ari Aster)

Dossier 137 (Dominik Moll...

The 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is looking to be another knockout, with some of this year’s hottest features, including Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague and Ari Aster’s Eddington set to premiere on the Croisette.

Cannes delegate general Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch announced this year’s lineup at a press conference in Paris on Thursday morning.

The 2025 competition lineup is packed with auteur heavyweights, including Kelly Reichardt, who returns to Cannes competition with The Mastermind, an art-heist drama starring Josh O’Connor and John Magaro, set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War; Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier, who returns to the Croisette after his 2021 triumph (with The Worst Person of the World) with Sentimental Value, also featuring Renate Reinsve; and dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who will be back in Cannes competition with his latest drama, A Simple Accident.

The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 78th edition (May 13-24).

Scroll down for full line-up

Festival director Thierry Frémaux revealed the Official Selection at a press conference at the Ugc Montparnasse cinema in Paris alongside festival president Iris Knobloch.

A diverse range of features make up the 2025 Competition, mixing veteran auteurs with up-and-coming directors.

Acclaimed directors the Dardenne Brothers, Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater and Joachim Trier are among those selected for Cannes Competition 2025.

Newcomers to the Competition include genre specialist Ari Aster, Berlin Golden Bear winner Carla Simon as well as Germany’s Mascha Schilinski.

Six...

Exclusive: Goodfellas has unveiled one of its biggest European Film Market slates ever featuring upcoming films by Cristian Mungiu, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Saeed Roustaee, Claire Denis, Mario Martone and Raoul Peck.

The company is also handling a trio of Berlin Film Festival titles: Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Golden Bear contender The Ice Tower with Marion Cotillard; Burhan Qurbani’s No Beast. So Fierce. in Berlinale Special; and a fresh acquisition, Bálint Dániel Sós’ Growing Down.

The latter film, which premieres in the new competitive Perspectives section aimed at first films, revolves around a widowed father of two who is tested by fate when he becomes the only witness of a serious accident involving his stepdaughter caused by his youngest son.

Goodfellas will begin pre-sales on Romanian director Mungiu’s first English-language picture Fjord, with Oscar nominee Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice) and Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World...

Under the leadership of new CEO Annamaria Morelli, The Apartment — the Fremantle-owned outfit which will attend Venice with three hot titles including Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” — is set to produce the next project by emerging Italian director Carolina Cavalli.

Cavalli – whose first feature “Amanda” went to Venice and Toronto – is set to shoot a follow-up titled “The Kidnapping of Arabella” that will see her reteam with “Amanda” protagonist Benedetta Porcaroli in the lead role.

Similarly to “Amanda” – an absurdist arrested development comedy that traveled widely and garnered critical praise – “The Kidnapping of Arabella” will see Porcaroli play a young female misfit named Holly who “is convinced that she is the wrong version of herself until she meets a 7-year-old girl who makes her change her mind,” according to the film’s provided synopsis.

“I think lonely people who come together to solve a problem have already solved the biggest one,...

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...

The Cannes Film Festival has named the eight members of its main Competition jury who will join previously announced president Greta Gerwig in deciding the Palme d’Or and other key prizes at 77th edition running from May 14 to 25.

They are Turkish screenwriter and photographer Ebru Ceylan, U.S. actress Lily Gladstone, French actress Eva Green, Lebanese director and screenwriter Nadine Labaki, Spanish director and screenwriter J.A. Bayona, Italian actor Pierfrancisco Favino, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda and French actor and producer Omar Sy.

The wife and long-time collaborator of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, screenwriter and photographer Ceylan co-wrote 2014 Palme d’Or winner Winter Sleep and also took co-writing credits on Cannes selected films Three Monkeys (Best Director Prize 2008), Once upon a time in Anatolia (Grand Prix 2011), The Wild Pear Tree (2018) and About Dry Grasses (2023).

Ceylan also appeared as an actress and took art director credits on her husband’s early films...

The great Martin Scorsese returned to the Eternal City, accompanied by the star of the moment, Lily Gladstone, as the guests of honor of a gala dinner at the Hotel Hassler by the Spanish steps Wednesday night. The event, honoring Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and hosted by co-chief of Leone Film Group, Raffaella Leone, daughter of great Italian film director Sergio Leone, and Paolo Del Brocco, head of Rai Cinema, the Italian distributor of Killers. Hot off the film’s 10 Oscar nominations, including a record-setting 10th best director nod for Scorsese and the historic best actress nod for Gladstone as the first Native American nominated in the category, the event was a must-attend for the Italian film scene.

The Hollywood Reporter Roma was the only media outlet admitted to the event, and we were a fly on the wall for the parade of A-list industry guests, which...

Rotterdam Film Festival Sets ‘Head South’ As Opening Film

Jonathan Ogilvie’s post-punk, coming-of-age comedy Head South has been announced as the opening picture of the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), running from January 25 to February 4. The festival has also teased a handful of early selections. They include Indian filmmaker Ishan Shukla’s dystopian, sci-fi animation Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust and U.S. director Billy Woodberry’s biodoc Mário, about African independence activist Mário de Andrade, which will both world premiere. Further confirmations include European premieres for Amanda Kramer’s So Unreal and Ann Hui’s Elegies as well as Omar Hilal’s Voy! Voy! Voy!, which is Egypt’s Oscar entry this year. The festival will unveil its full line-up on December 18.

Paul Schrader To Be Feted At Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Avellino Festival

U.S. director and screenwriter Paul Schrader will be honored with a Lifetime...

Rome-based sales agency True Colours has added Edoardo de Angelis’ “Comandante,” which opens the Venice Film Festival, to its slate. The film, which plays in the main competition section, stars Pierfrancesco Favino.

“Comandante” is based on the true story of Italian submarine commander Salvatore Todaro and the events that occurred in October 1940, when Todaro was in command of the Italian Royal Navy submarine Cappellini.

One night, while navigating in the Atlantic, the Italian vessel sinks an armed Belgian merchant ship, and Todaro decides to take the 26 shipwrecked crew members on board his already crowded submarine, aiming for the nearest safe harbor to release them. It is an unexpected action in the context of war, but follows the law of the sea, and endangers his life as well as that of his men, since the submarine has to navigate on the surface of the water for three days, visible to the enemy forces.

An underhanded move by members of Italy’s right-wing government to try and take over the management of Rome’s Centro Sperimentale Film School is prompting an uproar by its students and a strong show of support from the country’s top directors.

Earlier this week, students of the Centro Sperimentale — which is the oldest film school in the world, and among the finest — staged a demonstration in front of the country’s parliament just as a piece of legislation that would change the school’s management was swiftly being approved by a parliamentary committee. A ratification vote, expected in the coming days, would make it effective.

If passed by parliament, the legislation — which is being couched in small print within a larger bill — would basically oust the school’s current president — producer Marta Donzelli, whose Vivo Film is known for indie titles such as Susanna Nicchiarelli’s “Nico, 1988” and...

In Italy, Pierfrancesco Favino needs no introduction. At this year’s David di Donatello awards ceremony — Italy’s equivalent of the Oscars — a Favino film was nominated in every major category. A shortlist of the directors he’s worked with — Gabriele Salvatores, Giuseppe Tornatore, Marco Bellocchio, Gianni Amelio, Gabriele Muccino, Ferzan Ozpetek, Mario Martone — reads like a who’s who of Italian cinema.

Internationally, Favino has carved out a second career as a supporting player in Hollywood productions. In Spike Lee’s Miracle at St. Anna, Ron Howard’s Rush and Angels and Demons, or Mark Forster’s World War Z. But his most recent U.S. visit — to this year’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York — was for an Italian film: Andrea Di Stefano’s Last Night of Amore, which screened in competition.

In the gritty police drama, Favino plays the titular Franco Amore, a good cop called...

The Last Night Of Amore director Andrea Di Stefano on Pierfrancesco Favino: “I wrote it thinking of him. I had his face in my mind.”

The retirement party for police lieutenant Franco Amore (Pierfrancesco Favino of Marco Bellocchio’s The Traitor and Francesca Archibugi’s The Hummingbird) is in full swing, only the one person celebrated is nowhere to be seen in Andrea Di Stefano’s thriller The Last Night Of Amore. He arrives late, in jogging pants, having been out running through the nightly streets of Milan. Almost immediately after his arrival, he is called in to work because his partner Dino (Francesco Di Leva of Mario Martone’s Nostalgia with Favino) has been shot. Nothing is what it seems, we soon are about to find out, when the film jumps ten days back in time.

Andrea Di Stefano with Anne-Katrin Titze: “I’m trying to put together...

Adrian Wootton, CEO of Film London and the British Film Commission, will preside over the jury of the Malta Film Commission’s inaugural Mediterrane Film Festival celebrating movies from the Mediterranean Basin.

The fest, which will take place in Valletta, Malta’s capital, and other locations on the island between June 25-30, will showcase films from each of the MED9 nations, an alliance of nine Mediterranean and Southern European Union member states. It comprises: Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain.

Besides Wotton the other jury members are “Triangle Of Sadness” actor Zlatko Burić; Cypriot filmmaker Tonia Mishiali; French actor and director Vahina Giocante; Greek producer Amanda Livanou; Italian journalist Boris Sollazzo; Maltese critic Mario Azzopardi; Portuguese journalist and programmer José Vieira Mendes; Slovenian journalist Tina Poglajen; and Spanish programmer Carlos Reviriego.

Alice Diop’s prize-winning Venice 2022 title “Saint Omer” (pictured); Carla Simon’s Berlin Golden Bear...

The inaugural Mediterrane Film Festival will take place June 25-30 in Malta

Adrian Wotton, CEO of Film London and British Film Commission, will head the international jury of Malta Film Commission’s inaugural Mediterrane Film Festival, taking place on the island from June 25 to 30.

Further jury members are Triangle Of Sadness actor Zlatko Burić, Cypriot filmmaker Tonia Mishiali, French actor and director Vahina Giocante, Greek producer Amanda Livanou, Italian journalist Boris Sollazzo, Maltese critic Mario Azzopardi, Portuguese journalist and programmer José Vieira Mendes, Slovenian journalist Tina Poglajen and Spanish programmer Carlos Reviriego.

The nine films in the competition include Alice Diop...

Belgian directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s Italian-language drama The Eight Mountains and veteran Marco Bellocchio’s Exterior Night topped the 68th edition of Italy’s David di Donatello Awards on Wednesday evening.

The Eight Mountains won best film as well as best non-original screenplay, photography and sound.

Based on the novel of the same name by Paolo Cognetti, it stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as two men from different backgrounds who form a life-long bond during summers spent together as children in a remote mountain village.

The film world premiered in Competition at Cannes last year where it co-won the Jury Prize. Read the Deadline review here.

It is the second time in the history of the awards that a film by non-Italian directors has clinched the best film prize.

The last time was in 1971 when the Dino de Laurentiis-produced epic Waterloo by Russian director Sergei Bonderchuk,...

Italian sales company True Colours has closed a raft of sales following Berlin’s European Film Market. Italy’s box office hit “La Stranezza” (“Strangeness”) got picked up for a dozen territories and queer romantic drama “Norwegian Dream” also sold widely, including to North America.

Directed by Roberto Andò, “Strangeness” (pictured) toplines Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”) as Nobel-prize-winning playwright Luigi Pirandello. This tragicomic period piece about how Pirandello found inspiration to write his masterpiece “Six Characters in Search of an Author” has been a sleeper hit at the Italian box office, coming from nowhere to pull more than €5.5 million ($5.8 million) and becoming the local 2022 box office champ.

Now “Strangeness,” which is produced by Bibi Film and Tramp Limited with Rai Cinema and Medusa, will be playing in: Spain (Alfa Pictures); Poland (Aurora Film); Portugal (Il Sorpasso); Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay (Zeta Film); former Yugoslavia (Stars Media); Taiwan...

Veteran auteur Mario Martone, whose Naples-set drama “Nostalgia” launched last year from Cannes, has quite a lot in common with Massimo Troisi, Italy’s beloved late comic actor-director who is best known internationally as the star of Oscar-winning film “Il Postino.”

Which is why Martone was well-suited to direct the multi-layered doc about Troisi’s legacy “Somebody Down There Likes Me” that is screening in the Berlinale Special sidebar.

For starters, they are both Neapolitan, and were born only a few years a part. Troisi – who in “Il Postino” played the simple postman who rides his bicycle on a sandy Italian island to deliver mail to his sole client, the Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda – died tragically of congenital heart failure at age 41 in June 1994, the day after “Il Postino” finished shooting at Rome’s Cinecittà studios.

Martone in Berlin spoke to Variety about capturing Troisi’s combination of humor,...

Exclusive: Italian director Mario Martone, who has been on the festival and awards circuit over the past year with Oscar submission and Cannes title Nostalgia, is at the Berlinale with his passion project Somebody Down There Likes Me.

The documentary pays tribute to late Italian actor and fellow Neapolitan Massimo Troisi who died tragically young at the age of 41 in 1994, just hours after filming wrapped on Michael Radford’s Il Postino (The Postman).

Selected for the Berlinale Specials sidebar, the documentary plays at a sold-out screening on Saturday, on the eve of what would have been the actor’s 70th birthday on February 19. Deadline can reveal a trailer.

Martone says he wants to shed light on the popular actor who he believes has never been properly celebrated.

“Massimo has always remained alive in the collective consciousness because he was a great actor and a great artist,” says the director.

Il Postino,...

‘Women Talking’, ‘Marcel The Shell With Shoes On’ start in cinemas.

Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania is the headline title at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, opening in 678 cinemas through Disney and looking to become the first of the Ant-Man trilogy to cross the £20m mark in the territory.

Peyton Reed returns as director having made the first two films. This instalment sees Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang and Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne explore the Quantum Realm; new cast members include Kathryn Newton, and Jonathan Majors as the main antagonist Kang the Conqueror.

Ant-Man was the fifth...

In sharp focus: Mario Martone checks out Pierfrancesco Favino on the mini monitor during the filming of Nostalgia in Naples Photo: Film Italia The inexorable sway of his home city Naples casts a long shadow over Neapolitan filmmaker Mario Martone who found himself back on his native turf recently to make Nostalgia, based on author Ermanno Rea’s novel, and for a documentary about the revered Italian icon Massimo Troisi.

Nostalgia was shot in the bustling Sanità area in the heart of the city which has a reputation for crime and poverty but also boasts stunning churches and baroque buildings.

It emerged as Italy’s contender in the race for the best foreign film Oscar but failed to make the final mix. Pairing the director and the material seemed like a perfect match.

Martone who’s also a stage director, was asked by his producer to adapt the novel. “Up...

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...

You Can’t Go Home Again: Martone’s Latest Asserts the Past is a Dangerous Place

In yet another foray into the teeming possibilities of Naples, Mario Martone directs an adaptation of Ermanno Rea’s Nostalgia, published after the author’s death in 2016. Less than a year after premiering his The King of Laughter (2021), a biography of Neopolitan comedic theater notable Eduardo Scarpetta and his court case which solidified the legality of parodies, Martone is back in the present in this mournful tale of the past catching up with a man who’s been avoiding it for the past four decades.

Initially a gentle exploration of the intoxicating comfort in delving into the carefree days of youth, events take a sinister turn when an inevitable confrontation with the best friend he abandoned gets ugly.…...

Festival to also honour French cinematographer Caroline Champetier with honorary Berlinale Camera.

The Berlinale has added the world premiere of documentary Love To Love You, Donna Summer and a tribute to a century of Disney animation to its upcoming 73rd edition.

The additions complete the lineup for the Berlinale Special sidebar at the festival, set to run February 16-26.

Love To Love You, Donna Summer is co-directed by Roger Ross Williams, Oscar nominated in 2016 for Life, Animated, and US actress Brooklyn Sudano, who is the daughter of Summer and makes her directorial debut with the film.

The documentary will explore...

2023 truly begins taking shape with next month’s Berlinale, which will run from February 16 to February 26 and feature more than a few of our most-anticipated films this year. Among them are Christian Petzold’s Afire (Roter Himmel), starring new muse Paula Beer; Hong Sangsoo’s In Water, which will appear in the Encounters section; and Philippe Garrel’s The Plough, once known as La lune crevée starring his three children Louis, Esther, and Lena, and (judging from the still) his first color feature since 2011’s A Burning Hot Summer. Meanwhile: Angela Schanelec will return with Music, and––six years after the wonderful Person to Person––it’s nice spotting a new feature from Dustin Guy Defa, The Adults.

Find the lineup below and head back next month for our coverage of the festival headed by Kristen Stewart’s jury.

Competition

20,000 Species of Bees (Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren)

The Shadowless Tower (Zhang...

Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson’s dreamy “Beautiful Beings,” which is Iceland’s entry for the Oscars this year, is about what used to be called juvenile delinquents; it observes a group of boys with little or ineffectual parental supervision as they test each other and comfort each other and get into trouble. The pace is languorous, and the Icelandic settings are so lovely that the problems the boys have tend to seem less important or troubling than they should.

Balli (Áskell Einar Pálmason) lives in what is described by the other boys as a “bum’s house,” but the red and blue exterior of his home is gorgeous, and though the inside isn’t too clean, the soft light coming from the windows and the swaying curtains in the breeze make it look inviting. Balli is being bullied at school, and a boy hits him in the face with a burned tree branch,...

This review originally ran September 7, 2022, in conjunction with the film’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

When he made his directorial debut with “The Father” last year, French novelist and playwright Florian Zeller proved to be uncommonly adept at using the tools of cinema to depict an elderly man’s descent into dementia. But Zeller was far from finished exploring the subject of mental illness, which he tackles from a very different perspective in his new film, “The Son.”

While “The Father” was entirely from the point-of-view of Anthony Hopkins’ title character, “The Son,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday, is a film of shifting perspectives. The young Australian actor Zen McGrath offers an indelible performance as Nicholas, a high schooler wracked with depression after the stormy divorce of his parents – but we spend as much time with the adults who are trying desperately to...

This review originally ran May 25, 2022, in conjunction with the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

For decades, Italian filmmakers dominated Cannes.

If the 1960s saw Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Luchino Visconti reign supreme, somehow the 1970s were even richer. Elio Petri and Francesco Rosi won shared top prizes in 1972, while for two consecutive years later that decade the Taviani brothers and then Ermanno Olmi hoisted Palmes across a border that sits just 40 miles away.

This year’s lone competition title from an Italian director, Mario Martone’s “Nostalgia” will probably not break that particular drought, but the Neapolitan director can take solace in another modest honor: Telling a story about mothers and sons, about gangsters and priests, and about a peculiar kind of longing for the past in a place where little has changed for hundreds of years, “Nostalgia” is a nigh perfect candidate to wave il Tricolore.

Legal docudrama Saint Omer was voted Best Picture at the 34th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival, which announced this year’s juried award winners today.

Saint Omer wins for its ability “to expertly interrogate issues of society, culture, race, and gender,” the festival release stated. “Alice Diop, as screenwriter and director, delivers a film that explores different dynamics of Black women in contemporary France, drawing empathetic lead performances from Kayije Kagame and Guslagie Malanga. By harnessing the skills of her technical team, Diop turns Saint Omer into a shrewd, cogent, ambitious, and overwhelming film which teases a metafictional awareness while remaining clear-eyed and unsentimental.”

The Palm Springs festival took place from January 5-16 and screened 134 films from 64 countries, including 27 premieres. The lineup includes 35 of the International Feature Film Oscar submissions.

The jury award categories included the Fipresci Prize for films...

The Berlin International Film Festival has added several out-of-competition world premieres to its 2023 lineup, including Golda, Guy Nattiv’s political biopic starring Oscar winner Helen Mirren as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. The feature, which co-stars Camille Cottin and Liev Schreiber, will screen as a Berlinale Special Gala at the 73rd Berlin festival.

Kill Boksoon, an action thriller from Korean director Byun Sung-hyun (The Merciless) featuring The Housemaid star Jeon Do-yeon and Mad Fate from Chinese filmmaker Soi Cheang (Limbo) will also have their world premieres as 2023 Berlinale special screenings. They will play alongside two Italian films: Andrea Di Stefano’s Italian crime feature Last Night of Amore with The Traitor actor Pierfrancesco Favino playing a cop in Milan on his fateful last night, and Mario Martone’s documentary Massimo Troisi: Somebody Down There Likes Me, about the star of the Oscar-winning The Postman. Two German dramas: Sun and Concrete...

Berlinale Special strand adds eight titles.

Guy Nattiv’s Golda, in which Helen Mirren plays former Israeli prime minister Golda Weir, will have its world premiere as a Berlinale Special Gala at next month’s Berlin Film Festival (February 16-26).

The film is one of eight additions to the Berlinale Special section, seven of which are world premieres.

Scroll down for the full list of new Special titles

Produced by Michael Kuhn for the UK’s Qwerty Films, Jane Hooks and Nattiv’s New Native Pictures, Golda focuses on the responsibilities and decisions of Meir faced during the Yom Kippur...

The Berlin Film Festival has added eight films to its Berlinale Special program, including “Golda,” starring Helen Mirren as Golda Meir, “Call My Agent!” star Camille Cottin, and Liev Schreiber.

Other films include Andrea Di Stefano’s “Last Night of Amore,” about the last night of a Milan policeman, played by Pierfrancesco Favino, documentary “Massimo Troisi: Somebody Down There Likes Me,” Mario Martone’s tribute to actor and filmmaker Troisi, and Byun Sung-hyun’s “Kill Boksoon,” starring Jeon Do-yeon (“The Housemaid”) as an unflappable female killer in South Korea.

Also selected is David Wnendt’s “Sun and Concrete,” an adaption of Felix Lobrecht’s novel of the same name, following seven days in the life of a bunch of 15-year-old boys in Berlin-Neukölln as they search for weed, girls, and a way to steal their school’s computers.

Other titles include “Mad Fate,” directed by Soi Cheang, who recently won...

The year is finally at an end. Despite all the breathless prophesying and doomsdaying, the industry is in more or less the same place it started in January. Marvel has not, and probably never will completely wrestle the production and exhibition of non IP-films about regular human beings into the ground, adults are slowly but surely returning to theaters to see film artists play with original ideas, and there still are no movie stars.

Film culture is as dynamic and exciting as ever. I had the good fortune to attend both the Cannes and Toronto International Film Festivals this year, which means I was exposed to a far broader range of international cinema than what my trusty combination of small indie theaters, VOD services like Mubi and Kanopy, and effedupmovies.com can provide. That also means many of those films, no matter how wonderful, won't make the cut, as they didn't secure a 2022 release.

Exclusive: In October, Breaking Glass Pictures acquired Mario Martone’s Nostalgia, Italy’s entry for the Best International Feature Oscar for North America, and today we have a first look at the official trailer (check it out above).

The drama kicked off its festival run in the Cannes competition last May, and will next play at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Breaking Glass will release in U.S. cinemas on January 20, 2023.

Based on the novel by Ermanno Rea, Nostalgia stars Pierfrancesco Favino (The Traitor), who received a Best European Actor nomination at the recent European Film Awards for his performance as Felice Lasco, a middle-aged Neapolitan who returns to his bustling hometown after having lived in Egypt for 40 years. Once back in the city, Felice is caught up in a lifetime of loose ends as his criminal youth slowly catches up with him.

Martone directed and co-wrote the film...

Further titles include Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s ’The Beasts’ and Chie Hayakawa’s debut ‘Plan 75’.

Venice titles including Fyzal Boulifa’s Morocco-set drama The Damned Don’t Cry and Penelope Cruz-starring melodrama L’Immensità are among the prestige international titles on UK-Ireland distributor Curzon’s 2023 slate.

The line-up represents filmmakers from Italy, Spain, Japan, France and the UK.

“The past year has been a difficult one for international film in the UK,” said Louisa Dent, Curzon Film managing director, “but we remain absolutely committed to championing the best cinema from around the world.”

UK filmmaker Boulifa’s second feature, after debut Lynn + Lucy,...

Film centres on a spoon bending boy in 1970s Italy.

Rome-based sales company True Colours has boarded The Properties of Metals, the debut feature of Italian director Antonio Bigini which is screening in the Berlinale’s Generation Kplus section.

Set in 1970s Italy, the film is the story of a twelve-year old boy who astounds locals by appearing to bend metal simply through the power of his mind.

The film is inspired by real events in the 1970s, when various youngsters in Europe started bending keys and spoons without touching them, following performances by Israeli illusionist Uri Geller. The kids,...

Directors Mario Martone and Paolo Sorrentino both hail from Naples, the bustling port city that Martone vividly depicts in his drama “Nostalgia,” which is Italy’s contender in the international Oscars race.

The well-received pic, which has been praised by Variety critic Guy Lodge as the prolific Italian auteur’s “most rewarding film in years,” stars Pierfrancesco Favino as the middle-aged Felice Lasco, a Neapolitan native who returns to his hometown after having lived in Egypt for 40 years. As Felice gets caught up in memories of his distant Neapolitan life, his criminal youth slowly and fatally catches up with him.

Besides Favino, the “Nostalgia” cast also includes Francesco Di Leva, who played the lead in Martone’s “The Mayor of Rione Sanità” and in this drama plays a priest, Father Loffredo, who tries to help the protagonist navigate the Naples of today.

Martone and Sorrentino, who have long been living in Rome,...

Click here to read the full article.

The five best film nominees for this year’s European Film Awards give a feel for the breadth and diversity of the 2022 lineup, one of the most impressive ever for the event. To illustrate: An intimate drama of two pre-pubescent boys turns deeply tragic in Lukas Dhont’s Close; Ali Abbasi’s Iran-set crime thriller Holy Spider centers on a serial killer and the female journalist trying to catch him; Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage is a period portrait of an Austrian empress struggling for emancipation and against ideals of femininity; the Catalan-set Alcarràs from Carla Simón spotlights a family of peach farmers on their final summer harvest; and Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness rollicks as a capitalist satire with a set piece of impressive projectile vomiting. Alongside Dhont, Kreutzer, Abbasi and Östlund, best director nominees include the venerable 84-year-old Polish auteur Jerzy Skolimowski...