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Prime Video has unveiled the next installment in the Russo Brothers' Citadel franchise. Titled Citadel: Diana, the new series will star Matilda De Angelis as undercover Citadel agent, Diana Cavalieri.

The streamer unveiled the Citadel spinoff during a gala evening presentation of its Italian slate held in the palatial Villa Miani on a hill overlooking the Eternal City. Diana will be Prime Video's most ambitious Italian original to date. The six-episode series is set in Milan in 2030, where eight years ago, spy agency Citadel was destroyed by the powerful enemy syndicate, Manticore. Since then, Diana Cavalieri (De Angelis), an undercover Citadel agent, is alone, trapped behind enemy lines as a mole in Manticore," reads the official synopsis. Check out the teaser trailer for Citadel: Diana below.

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Prime Video on Monday unveiled teaser footage, plot details and an Oct. 10 launch date for “Citadel: Diana,” the hotly anticipated spy show starring Matilda De Angelis (“The Undoing”) that is part of the “Citadel” franchise.

Details of “Citadel: Diana” – which marks the streamer’s most ambitious Italian original to date – were unveiled during a gala evening presentation of Prime Video’s Italian slate held in the palatial Villa Miani on a hill overlooking the Eternal City.

The six-episode series is set in a near-future Milan, in 2030, where eight years earlier the independent global spy agency Citadel was wiped out by Manticore, the powerful enemy syndicate that manipulates the world from the shadows. Since then, Diana Cavalieri (De Angelis) – who is an undercover Citadel agent – is alone, “trapped behind enemy lines as a mole in Manticore,” as the provided synopsis puts it.

When Diana finally sees a way out and the chance to disappear forever,...

Just when The Bad Guy tried to get out, Amazon pulled him back in.

Amazon Prime Video on Wednesday unveiled a second season order for the Italian crime series, starring Luigi Lo Cascio and Claudia Pandolfi, which has been a hit with audiences and critics.

Stefano Accorsi (Italian Race) will join the cast for season 2, alongside returning cast members including Selene Caramazza, Giulia Maenza and Antonio Catania. Season 2 shot on location in Lazio, Emilia Romagna and Sicily.

Lo Cascio stars in The Bad Guy as Nino Scotellaro, an incorruptible Sicilian public prosecutor who is imprisoned on false accusations of collusion with the mafia. Once inside, he decides to pull off a Machiavellian revenge plan, embracing the “bad guy” image that has been forced upon him.

Season 2, which series producers say will be a mix of “crime and dark comedy,” will explore Scotellaro’s past as well as his likely future,...

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,...

Experience the richness of world cinema with these classic foreign language films. From intense drama to thrilling action, each one offers an unforgettable cinematic experience that will stay with you long after watching. These iconic movies break boundaries while teaching viewers more about diverse cultures, so grab some popcorn today.

Related: 10 Best TV Movies of All Time, Ranked by Viewers

Foreign films have been inaccurately labeled as arrogant. However, these movies offer many genres, including action flicks, comedies, musicals, and thrillers. This list of best foreign movies includes those from non-English speaking countries but no silent films. This is your cinematic passport to the world’s movie scene.

10 Best Foreign Movies, Ranked on IMDb The Lives of Others (2006) – 8.4 Oldboy (2003) – 8.4 The Best of Youth (2003) – 8.5 Cinema Paradiso (1988) – 8.5 The Intouchables (2011) – 8.5 Parasite (2019) – 8.5 Harakiri (1962) – 8.6 Life Is Beautiful (1997) – 8.6 City of God (2002) – 8.6 Spirited Away (2001) – 8.6 10 The Lives of Others (2006)

IMDb: 8.4/10 396K | Popularity: 1,156 | Top 250: #58 | Metascore: 89

The Lives of Others...

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If there’s one thing the world doesn’t need, it’s another Italian mafia series. Mob shows have become the go-to genre for the Italian industry, the global success of shows like Gomorrah (on HBO in the U.S.) and Suburra (on Netflix) having spawned several (mostly inferior) imitations.

But The Bad Guy, the new mafia show from Indigo film and Amazon Studios, is something different.

The series, which bowed on Amazon worldwide in early December, breaks new ground in how the mafia and the forces that fight organized crime, are depicted on Italian TV.

The series, set in a near-future Sicily, stars Luigi Lo Cascio (The Traitor, The Best Of Youth) as Nino Scotellaro, a former anti-mob prosecutor imprisoned on trumped-up charges of collusion with the Cosa Nostra. Furious at the injustice, he vows revenge. Over the course of the six-episode first season,...

Gianni Amelio’s “Lord of the Ants,” a biopic of Italian poet and playwright Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968 due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law, has reached the top spot at Italy’s box office following its launch from the Venice Film Festival.

“Ants” on Monday reached the numero uno position at the local box office roster with a €483,474 intake from more than 300 screens following its September 8 release. While far from stellar in normal times, this result is being hailed as an encouraging sign for the country’s still sagging post-pandemic theatrical sector.

Amelio’s film is now ahead of Japanese anime pic “Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo,” which was released as an event on Monday for a three day run, and “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” which is at the end of its run, following it’s Aug. 18 Italian outing.

“After being excellently received at the Venice Film Festival,...

The Film Circuit begins with Telluride, a small but perfect film festival in the mountains of Colorado as simultaneously Venice unfurls the films that will soon be released in the wonderful arthouse cinemas of Europe, followed closely by Toronto whose films foretell the coming year’s Oscars nominees. It is a very exciting time to be on the festival circuit.

And simultaneously with these great screenings are sidebars, panel discussions, workshops, master classes and all around great networking for filmmakers around the world.

Venezia 79 Competition

Il Signore Delle Formiche

Director Gianni Amelio

Main Cast Luigi Lo Cascio, Elio Germano, Leonardo Maltese, Sara Serraiocco / Italy / 134’

The Whale

Director Darren Aronofsky

Main Cast Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Samantha Morton, Ty Simpkins / USA / 117’

White Noise

Director Noah Baumbach

Main Cast Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle, Raffey Cassidy, Sam Nivola, May Nivola, Jodie Turner-Smith, André L. Benjamin and Lars Eidinger / USA / 136’

L’IMMENSITÀ

Director Emanuele Crialese

Main Cast Penélope Cruz, Luana Giuliani, Vincenzo Amato, Patrizio Francioni / Italy, France / 97’

Saint Omer

Director Alice Diop

Main Cast Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Valérie Dréville, Aurélia Petit / France / 123’

Blonde

Director Andrew Dominik

Main Cast Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Xavier Samuel, Julianne Nicholson, Lily Fisher / USA / 166’

TÁR

Director Todd Field

Main Cast Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss, Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover, Allan Corduner, Mark Strong / USA / 158’

Love Life

Director Kôji Fukada

Main Cast Fumino Kimura, Kento Nagayama, Atom Sunada / Japan, France / 123’

Bardo, Falsa CRÓNICA De Unas Cuantas Verdades

Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Main Cast Daniel Giménez Cacho, Griselda Siciliani, Ximena Lamadrid, Iker Sanchez Solano, Andrés Almeida, Francisco Rubio / Mexico / 174’

Athena

Director Romain Gavras

Main Cast Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Anthony Bajon, Ouassini Embarek, Alexis Manenti / France / 97’

Bones And All

Director Luca Guadagnino

Main Cast Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Mark Rylance, André Holland, Chloë Sevigny, Jessica Harper, David Gordon Green, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jake Horowitz / USA / 130’

The Eternal Daughter

Director Joanna Hogg

Main Cast Tilda Swinton, Joseph Mydell, Carly-Sophia Davies / UK, USA / 96’

Shab, Dakheli, Divar (Beyond The Wall)

Director Vahid Jalilvand

Main Cast Navid Mohammadzadeh, Diana Habibi, Amir Aghaee / Iran / 126’

The Banshees Of Inisherin

Director Martin McDonagh

Main Cast Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan / Ireland, UK, USA / 109’

Argentina, 1985

Director Santiago Mitre

Main Cast Ricardo Darín, Peter Lanzani, Alejandra Flechner, Norman Briski / Argentina, USA / 140’

Chiara

Director Susanna Nicchiarelli

Main Cast Margherita Mazzucco, Andrea Carpenzano, Carlotta Natoli, Paola Tiziana Cruciani, Luigi Lo Cascio / Italy, Belgium / 106’

Monica

Director Andrea Pallaoro

Main Cast Trace Lysette, Patricia Clarkson, Adriana Barraza, Emily Browning, Joshua Close / USA, Italy / 113’

Khers Nist (No Bears)

Director Jafar Panahi

Main Cast Jafar Panahi, Naser Hashemi, Vahid Mobaseri, Bakhtiar Panjeei, Mina Kavani, Reza Heydari / Iran / 107’

All The Beauty And The Bloodshed

Director Laura Poitras

USA / 117’

Un Couple

Director Frederick Wiseman

Main Cast Nathalie Boutefeu / France, USA / 64’

The Son

Director Florian Zeller

Main Cast Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern, Vanessa Kirby, Zen McGrath, Anthony Hopkins, Hugh Quarshie / UK / 124’

Les Miens

Director Roschdy Zem

Main Cast Sami Bouajila, Roschdy Zem, Meriem Serbah, Maïwenn, Rachid Bouchareb, Abel Jafrei, Nina Zem / France / 85’

Les Enfants Des Autres

Director Rebecca Zlotowski

Main Cast Virginie Efira, Roschdy Zem, Chiara Mastroianni, Callie Ferreira / France / 104’

Toronto is in spite of itself in a civilized sort of way in competition for the premieres with Venice, though the sequential festivals are serving different constituencies. Still, The Whale, for example is premiering in Venice and then traveling to TIFF.

TIFF Gala Presentations:

The Whale directed by Darren Aronofsky, produced and to be distributed in U.S. and actng as international sales agent A24.

TIFF says: “Brendan Fraser gives a career-defining performance in Darren Aronofsky’s arrestingly intimate drama about a reclusive English professor struggling with personal relationships and self-acceptance, adapted from the stage play by Samuel D. Hunter.”

Alice, Darling by Mary Nighy

Also playing are Alice, Darling (Mary Nighy) in which Anna Kendrick captures the anxious psychology of a woman in an abusive relationship as her friends try to reconnect with her while on a cottage getaway.

Black Ice(Hubert Davis) about Black hockey players facing systemic racism in the sport.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever (Peter Farrelly) about man’s story of leaving New York in 1967 to bring beer to his childhood buddies in the Army while they are fighting in Vietnam. An Apple TV+ production.

Butcher’s Crossing (Gabe Polsky) is a frontier epic about an Ivy League drop-out as he travels to the Colorado wilderness, where he joins a team of buffalo hunters on a journey that puts his life and sanity at risk. Based on the highly acclaimed novel by John Williams. Isa Altitude

The Hummingbird (Francesca Archibugi)Hunt (Jung-jae Lee)A Jazzman’s Blues (Tyler Perry)Kacchey Limbu (Shubham Yogi)Moving On (Paul Weitz)Paris Memories (Alice Winocour)Prisoner’s Daughter (Catherine Hardwicke)Raymond & Ray (Rodrigo García)Roost (Amy Redford)Sidney (Reginald Hudlin)The Son (Florian Zeller)The Swimmers (Sally El Hosaini)What’s Love Got to Do With It? (Shekhar Kapur)The Woman King(Gina Prince-Bythewood)

Special PRESENTATIONSAllelujah (Sir Richard Eyre)All Quiet on the Western Front (Edward Berger)The Banshees Of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)Blueback (Robert Connolly)The Blue Caftan (Maryam Touzani)Broker (Hirokazu Kore-eda)Brother (Clement Virgo)Bros (Nicholas Stoller)Catherine Called Birdy (Lena Dunham)Causeway (Lila Neugebauer)Chevalier (Stephen Williams)Corsage (Marie Kreutzer)Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook)Devotion (Jd Dillard)Driving (Madeleine Christian Carion)El Suplente (Diego Lerman)Empire of Light...

Veteran Italian auteur Gianni Amelio rose to prominence with Oscar-nominated “Open Doors” (1990) and also “Stolen Children,” which won the 1992 Cannes Grand Prix. He won the Venice Golden Lion in 1998 with period drama “The Way We Laughed” and competed again in Venice with “A Lonely Hero” in 2013. Amelio’s more recent work comprises “Hammamet,” a portrait of disgraced late Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi’s final years in Tunisia.

Amelio is back in Venice with “Lord of the Ants” a biopic of Italian poet, playwright and director Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968, after a four-year trial due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law. Pic, which is produced by Simone Gattoni and Marco Bellocchio, stars Luigi Lo Cascio (“The Ties”) as Braibanti, who was convicted after a complaint from his younger 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.

Oscar Wilde may be the most famous person to face imprisonment for being gay, but he wasn’t the only one to suffer under an archaic legal system. Set in 1960s Italy, Gianni Amelio’s expansive historical drama “Lord of The Ants” uncovers the story of Aldo Braibanti, an Italian playwright, poet, and director who faced imprisonment for a consensual relationship with a younger student. “Lord of The Ants” holds a mirror to this shameful chapter in Italian history, painting

The film opens on an intimate moment between the handsome and dignified Aldo (Luigi Lo Cascio) and beautiful Ettore (Leonardo Maltese). Glowing with adoration, Aldo and Ettore recite poetry to each other in an outdoor Roman movie theater, ensconced in each other’s brilliance. At another table a kind journalist named Ennio (Elio Germano) observes them with sensitivity. “Braibanti, the myrmecologist,” he points out to his cousin Grazie (Sara Serraiocco...

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For those who haven’t been schooled in the roster of Catholic saints, Assisi boasts just one household name, the oft-cited, world-famous Francis. In her latest portrait of a real-life woman, after Nico, 1988, and Miss Marx, filmmaker Susanna Nicchiarelli invites us to consider another saint from that Italian town, Clare (Chiara in Italian). She was Francis’ follower, friend, and, in this telling, his occasional foe, taking his questioning of convention a crucial step further, in the name of female autonomy. She’s played by Margherita Mazzucco (Elena Greco in the series My Brilliant Friend) with compassion, ferocious intelligence and a bit of song-and-dance pizazz, 13th century style. Because yes, Chiara is a musical of sorts.

Even as Nicchiarelli, her design team and Dp Crystel Fournier evoke an ancient world, this earnest yet playful take on Clare, the first woman to author a set of monastic guidelines,...

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Gianni Amelio’s chronicle of the persecution of Aldo Braibanti, Lord of the Ants (Il Signore delle Formiche), doesn’t avoid the propensity of many Italian period dramas for dense verbosity, with characters spouting great gobs of manicured prose. That’s perhaps especially the case since the protagonist was a poet, playwright and philosopher. But Amelio’s classical approach, and the dignified refusal of martyrdom in Luigi Lo Cascio’s lead performance, make this account of Braibanti’s controversial imprisonment for homosexuality in 1968 after a four-year trial a quietly stirring portrait of institutional intolerance.

The Braibanti case drew international attention in the wake of his conviction due to the number of influential public figures who spoke out against the travesty of justice — Pier Paolo Pasolini, Alberto Moravia, Elsa Morante, Marco Bellocchio and Umberto Eco among them.

What’s striking now about the courtroom...

Myrmecology is a study of science that looks at the life, society and hierarchy of ants. Early Myrmecologists believed that ant culture was utopian and thought by studying them in encased ant farms, they could find solutions to human problems. However, Gianni Amelio’s Italian post-wwii drama The Lord of the Ants (Il Signore Delle Formiche) flips this idea around. It examines why strict societies foster cultures of oppression where everyone must play their role or be punished.

The screenplay by Amelio, Federico Fava and Edoardo Petti chooses its dialogue with precision. They want us to know they resent post-Mussolini Europe and how not just homosexuals but anyone on the margins is oppressed under fascist rule.

Venice Film Festival: Deadline’s Full Coverage

In 1965 Rome, Aldo Braibanti (Luigi Lo Cascio) is caught sleeping with his young lover Ettore (Leonardo Maltese). Their relationship started a year earlier in small-town Italy, where Aldo was directing a play.

Gianni Amelio was in his late sixties when he came out as gay a few years ago. The announcement preceded the release of his documentary “Happy to Be Different,” which worked toward an overriding sunniness in contemplating the trials and challenges of being gay in Italy at various points in the 20th century. In turning to a gay-themed narrative project, Amelio narrows the focus and dims the mood: “Lord of the Ants” takes as its subject the gay Italian author Aldo Braibanti, and the social and legal opposition he faced over his sexuality in mid-1960s Rome. Solemn, stately and perhaps a little stifled, it’s the kind of queer statement you might expect from a veteran filmmaker who wasn’t until relatively recently out and proud, and is rather poignant for that.

In a key scene, the middle-aged Braibanti (played with urbane grace by Luigi Lo Cascio) takes his...

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,...

Michele Vannucci’s “Delta” has debuted its trailer ahead of its world premiere on the Piazza Grande at the Locarno Film Festival. True Colours is handling world sales.

The Po Delta in Italy is the setting of the clash between fishermen and poachers. Osso wants to save the river from overfishing at the hands of the Florians, a family on the run from the Danube. Together with the Florians is Elia, who was born in those lands. Overwhelmed by blind violence, the two will face each other in the mists of the delta.

Vannucci said: “From the very beginning, I thought of ‘Delta’ as an action film with strong social implications. A manhunt in which the two protagonists, Elia and Osso, are both executioners and victims of a conflict that dominates them. Two identities on the run, each one fighting with his own ghost, who discover in their duel an...

Italy’s True Colours has sold Mario Martone’s Naples-set Cannes competition drama “Nostalgia” to Curzon Film for the U.K. and Ireland, among other new territories.

The deal, negotiated by True Colours sales manager Francesca Tiberi and Curzon acquisitions executive Eleonora Pesci, marks the first partnership between the companies.

At the Italian Screenings market event recently held in Lecce, Southern Italy, the Rome-based sales company also sealed fresh deals on several other films, including pre-sales on upcoming Locarno title “Delta,” which is a revenge drama with a contemporary Western vibe.

Martone’s “Nostalgia,” 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, who returns to the bustling port city after having lived in Egypt for 40 years. Once back, he is caught up in memories of a distant life spent in his hometown,...

As Venice Film Festival chief Alberto Barbera continues to see films and tinker with his selection before announcing the Lido lineup next week, several high-profile titles have emerged as either locked in or highly likely to be launching from the Lido.

As previously anticipated by Variety, U.S. studios and streamers are set to be disembarking at the fest in full force. Warner Bros. will be launching steamy psychological thriller “Don’t Worry Darling,” which is Olivia Wilde’s second directorial effort and stars Florence Pugh and Harry Styles. The pic is one of two movies starring the latter pop star to come out this fall (the other being Amazon Studios’ “My Policeman”).

Focus Features will be on the Lido with Todd Field’s “Tár,” which teams the “In the Bedroom” director with Cate Blanchett as the fictional Lydia Tár, one of the world’s greatest conductors and the first female...

Marco Martone’s Cannes competition title has sold to Spain and Switzerland.

True Colours has clinched additional sales on Marco Martone’s Cannes competition title Nostalgia, with Vertigo Film buying rights for Spain and Xenix Filmdistribution for Switzerland.

The film has also sold to Benelux (Paradiso Filmed Entertainment), Poland (Gutek Film), Taiwan (Av-Jet), Baltic territories (Estinfilm), Bulgaria (Beta Film) and Mena (Moving Turtle).

The feature starring Pierfrancesco Favino is set in Martone’s hometown of Naples and revolves around the protagonist Felice Lasco’s return to his origins after some four decades of being away. Nostalgia so far has grossed...

Marco Martone’s Cannes competition title has sold to Spain and Switzerland.

True Colours has clinched additional sales on Marco Martone’s Cannes competition title Nostalgia, with Vertigo Film buying rights for Spain and Xenix Filmdistribution for Switzerland.

The film has also sold to Benelux (Paradiso Filmed Entertainment), Poland (Gutek Film), Taiwan (Av-Jet), Baltic territories (Estinfilm), Bulgaria (Beta Film) and Mena (Moving Turtle).

The feature starring Pierfrancesco Favino is set in Martone’s hometown of Naples and revolves around the protagonist Felice Lasco’s return to his origins after some four decades of being away. Nostalgia so far has grossed...

Disney, Amazon, Netflix and Showtime all have TV series of different types either recently shot or set to shoot in Sicily.

As one of its first Italian originals, Disney+ has commissioned a still-untitled TV series about Sicily’s Florio family, who, during the 19th century, built an economic empire on the island and became known as the merchant princes of Europe.

Casting is now underway for this high-end period epic, to be directed by Italy’s Paolo Genovese (“Perfect Strangers”) and produced by Rome-based Lotus Prods., a unit of Leone Film Group. The Sicilian skein, which is expected to start shooting in July, is based on local bestseller “The Lions of Sicily,” by Stefania Auci, that has been translated in several languages.

Cameras rolled in October in Palermo, the Sicilian capital, on Amazon Studios’ dark Mafia comedy “The Bad Guy,” which is being produced by Indigo Film, the shingle behind...

In spite of a disastrous box office situation, the Italian film industry is staying buoyant thanks to increased exports, a friendly rapport with streaming giants and support from the government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi that is pumping money into a revamp of Rome’s Cinecittà Studios.

“Production never stopped and ailing movie theaters have been able to get subsidies,” says Francesco Rutelli, the former Rome mayor who heads Italy’s motion picture association, Anica. The org recently broadened its member base to include executives from Amazon Prime Video, Disney and ViacomCBS, after Netflix had joined.

This move — which is unique in Europe — indicates the level of friendly dialogue between film producers and streaming platforms in Italy, best encapsulated by Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” Italy’s international Oscar nominee. Sorrentino’s Netflix original film was released theatrically in November across the country before dropping on the platform...

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 is among the first countries in the world where film and TV production restarted after the peak of the pandemic and the country is now trying to become among the first in Europe to reopen movie theaters.

Culture Minister Dario Franceschini in late February announced tentative plans to reopen Italian cinemas on March 27 in areas with lower Covid-19 infection and death rates, using new stricter social distancing norms. Though it remains to be seen whether Franceschini’s plan will pan out, what’s clear is that “Italy’s trade organizations and the government are engaged in a fruitful dialogue,” says producer Carlo Cresto-Dina, whose Tempesta Film is best-known for regularly shepherding pics by Cannes regular Alice Rohrwacher such as “The Wonders” and “Happy as Lazzaro.”

Cresto Dina points out that “right now in Italy it’s tough to find available crew, since they are all taken,” thanks to the...

Luigi Lo Cascio also stars in this Groenlandia and Kino production, the second film offered up by the director of I Was A Dreamer. Filming kicked off yesterday on Delta, the second feature film by Michele Vannucci. The Roman director who graduated in 1987 is once again directing Alessandro Borghi, who is joined in the cast by Luigi Lo Cascio (the winner of the Best Supporting Role David for The Traitor) to tell a story about a no holds barred duel unfolding amidst the fog of the Po Delta plains. Written by Matteo Garrone’s faithful collaborator Massimo Gaudioso, together with Fabio Natale, Anita Otto and Vannucci himself, Delta depicts a clash between poachers and fishermen in the Po Delta National Park. Osso (Lo Cascio) wants to...

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...

This year’s Venice Film Festival is a less starry affair than usual, for obvious reasons, with few of the Oscar contenders that have become its trademark in the last decade. Witness its opening film, Daniele Luchetti’s “Lacci” or “The Ties,” an intimate Italian domestic drama that’s smaller in scale and in international appeal than some recent openers (such as “First Man” and “Birdman”) — and smaller in its emotional scale, too. A year on from the premiere of “Marriage Story” at Venice, here is another marriage story, but instead of surveying the destructive fury of a divorce, “Lacci” sees what happens when a wife and an unfaithful husband stay together. It’s just as sad, but not as engrossing.

The unhappy couple comprises Aldo (Luigi Lo Cascio) and Vanda (Alba Rohrwacher), who live in a cluttered Naples apartment with their son and daughter. In the opening scenes, set in a stylized early-1980s,...

Midway through “The Ties,” a long-absent father and his estranged young son realize they have an unlikely thing in common: They both tie their shoes in an unconventional way that draws light mockery from others. The boy must have learned it from his dad, though neither can remember when; now, as they scarcely know each other anymore, it’s the one literal tie that binds them. The original Italian title of “The Ties” is “Lacci,” which translates more specifically as “shoelaces,” and it better evokes where the strengths of Daniele Luchetti’s freely time-skipping domestic drama lie: in conveying the more banal everyday details, incidents and anecdotes that become, over time and often subconsciously, the very fabric of family history. When it reaches for grander metaphors and emotional gestures, on the other hand, Luchetti’s film comes a little undone.

As the first homegrown production in 11 years to be selected...

In what is being touted as a first, the Venice Film Festival’s opening ceremony is streaming live this evening in roughly 100 Italian movie theaters, followed by the fest’s opening film, Daniele Luchetti’s “The Ties.”

The film’s distributor, 01 Distribution, is previewing “The Ties” in cinemas across Italy as a double bill in conjunction with the fest’s opening ceremony.

“It’s the first time this has ever been done anywhere in the world,” says 01 Distribution chief Luigi Lonigro, who devised this marketing strategy in tandem with fest organizers in the spirit of Venice’s symbolic significance as a restart moment.

Luchetti, a veteran helmer whose “Our Life” and “My Brother Is an Only Child” years ago launched from Cannes, had submitted “The Ties” to Cannes earlier this year. But when he did so the film was not completed, since the pandemic had forced him to interrupt editing.

As the Venice Film Festival ramps up for its 77th (and in-person!) run on September 2, now’s the time to peruse the lineup for the discoveries that will pop, especially in a festival season without many new major movies. One such discovery is the film from Kazakhstan “Yellow Cat,” set for the Horizons section dedicated to edgier fare looking to break out. IndieWire shares the exclusive first trailer for the film, which is directed by Adilkhan Yerzhanov. Check it out below.

It’s no coincidence that the music in the trailer sounds a lot like Carl Orff’s “Gassenhauer,” the theme for Terrence Malick’s debut “Badlands.” Like that film, “Yellow Cat” follows lovers on the lam, running from a criminal background but still entangled in all sorts of misadventures. The story centers on ex-con Kermek (Azamat Nigmanov) and his beloved Eva (Kamila Nugmanova), who want to give up their...

The Venice Film Festival is unveiling the lineup of its 77th edition, which, barring complications, will be the first major international film event to hold a physical edition following the coronavirus crisis.

Previously announced titles include Chloé Zhao’s road drama “Nomadland,” starring Frances McDormand, which will screen at Venice and Toronto simultaneously on Sept. 11, in both cases preceded by virtual introductions.

The out-of-competition opener will be Italian director Daniele Luchetti’s anatomy of a marriage drama “Lacci” (“The Ties”) (pictured) starring Alba Rohrwacher (“Happy as Lazzaro”) and Luigi Lo Cascio (“The Traitor”) as the couple at the film’s center.

The virtual press conference is scheduled to begin at 11am Cet. This post will be updated live as films are revealed.

Venice Film Festival Lineup

In Competition

“In Between Dying,” Hilal Baydarov

“Le Sorelle Macaluso,” Emma Dante (Italy)

“The World to Come,” Mona Fastvold (U.S.)

“Nuevo Orden,” Michel Franco

“Lovers,...

The pre-opening film will be Andrea Segre’s Molecole, shot in Venice during the lockdown; the members of the various juries have also been announced. The Ties by Daniele Luchetti will have the honour of opening the 77th edition of the Venice International Film Festival (2-12 September), out of competition. Produced by Beppe Caschetto for Ibc Movie together with Rai Cinema, the new film by the director of My Brother Is an Only Child and Our Life is based on a novel by Domenico Starnone and is described as “a mystery about feelings, a story of loyalty and faithlessness, of resentment and shame”. The main characters are Aldo and Vanda (Alba Rohrwacher), who live in Naples in the early 1980s. Their marriage begins to break down when Aldo falls in love with young...

The Venice Film Festival is setting up quite the internationally starry jury this year. Running September 2-12, the festival has revealed all its jury members as led by president Cate Blanchett. Joining her will be Austrian director Veronika Franz, British filmmaker Joanna Hogg (“The Souvenir”), Italian writer and novelist Nicola Lagioia, German filmmaker Christian Petzold, Romanian director Cristi Puiu, and French actress Ludivine Sagnier.

Together, they will award the festival’s top prizes, including the Golden Lion, which last year went to “Joker” under jury president Lucrecia Martel.

Meaning, in the Orizzonti, or Horizons, section running parallel to the main competition, French favorite Claire Denis will lead the jury comprised of Oskar Alegria (Spain), Francesca Comencini (Italy), Katriel Schory (Israel), and Christine Vachon (USA).

Heading the jury for the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film are Claudio Giovannesi (Italy) as president, Remi Bonhomme (France), and Dora Bouchoucha...

The Venice Film Festival has announced that Daniele Luchetti’s “Lacci” will open the 77th edition on September 2, 2020. The decision is a notable one as “Lacci” becomes the first Italian movie to open the Venice Film Festival in 11 years. The last Italian opener was the 2009 opener, with Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Baarìa.” Luchetti’s “Lacci” is based on Domenico Starnone’s 2017 novel of the same name about a potential affair that threatens a marriage. The cast includes Alba Rohrwacher, Luigi Lo Cascio, Laura Morante, Silvio Orlando, and Linda Caridi.

“Recently, we have all feared that cinema might become extinct,” Luchetti said in a statement (via Deadline). “Yet during the quarantine it gave us comfort, like a light gleaming in a cavern. Today we have understood something else: that films, television series, novels, are indispensable in our lives. Long live festivals, then, which allow us to come together to celebrate the true meaning of our work.

The film stars Alba Rohrwacher and will play out of competition.

Daniele Luchetti’s Lacci will open this year’s Venice Film Festival (September 2-12). It is the first Italian film in 11 years to open Venice.

Playing out of competition, the film stars Alba Rohrwacher, Luigi Lo Cascio, Laura Morante, Silvio Orlando, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Adriano Giannini and Linda Caridi, and is based on Domenico Starnone’s novel about an unhappy marriage set in 1980s Naples.

Lacci is produced by Ibc Movie with Rai Cinema, and was written by Domenico Starnone, Francesco Piccolo and Daniele Luchetti. mk2 Films is handling sales.

In a first for an Italian movie in over a decade, Daniele Luchetti’s Lacci has been set to open the Venice Film Festival’s 77th edition on September 2. The drama is based on the novel by Domenico Starnone and stars Alba Rohrwacher, Luigi Lo Cascio, Laura Morante, Silvio Orlando, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Adriano Giannini and Linda Cadri. It will screen out of competition.

Venice runs from September 2-12 on the Lido with the full lineup due to be announced next week. This is the first major international film event since the coronavirus pandemic began. Although it’s been a while, it’s not terribly surprising that an Italian movie has been designated to open the proceedings as a tribute to the country’s rich cinema history and recent strength — it may also be indicative of a lack of major available Hollywood titles, particularly given that travel restrictions could still be in place in early September.

The Venice Film Festival is set to open with “La Nostra Vita” director Daniele Luchetti’s latest film, “Lacci” (The Ties).

The Naples-set feature, which will play out of competition, stars Alba Rohrwacher, Luigi Lo Cascio, Laura Morante, Silvio Orlando, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Adriano Giannini and Linda Caridi. Set in the early 1980s, the film is based on Domenico Starnone’s eponymous 2017 novel and centers on a marriage that is threatened by a potential affair.

“Recently, we have all feared that cinema might become extinct,” said Luchetti. “Yet during the quarantine it gave us comfort, like a light gleaming in a cavern. Today we have understood something else: that films, television series, novels, are indispensable in our lives.

“Long live festivals, then, which allow us to come together to celebrate the true meaning of our work. If anyone thought it served no purpose, they now know it is important to everyone.

Daniele Luchetti's Italian marital drama The Ties (Lacci), starring Alba Rohrwacher, Luigi Lo Cascio and Laura Morante, will open this year's Venice International Film Festival, the festival announced Friday.

The Ties, an adaptation of the novel by Domenico Starnone, will be the first Italian film to open Venice in 11 years. It will screen out of competition.

The 1980s-set drama traces a marriage in collapse. Aldo and Vanda have been married 30 years but their relationship is tested when Aldo falls in love with the young Lidia.

"It’s been eleven years since the Venice International Film Festival was ...

Daniele Luchetti's Italian marital drama The Ties (Lacci), starring Alba Rohrwacher, Luigi Lo Cascio and Laura Morante, will open this year's Venice International Film Festival, the festival announced Friday.

The Ties, an adaptation of the novel by Domenico Starnone, will be the first Italian film to open Venice in 11 years. It will screen out of competition.

The 1980s-set drama traces a marriage in collapse. Aldo and Vanda have been married 30 years but their relationship is tested when Aldo falls in love with the young Lidia.

"It’s been eleven years since the Venice International Film Festival was ...

Top Italian film outfit Rai Cinema on Wednesday sounded an upbeat post-pandemic note as it unveiled a slate of 20 upcoming titles to exhibitors and press, comprising new works by prominent Italian directors such as Nanni Moretti, Gianfranco Rosi, and Susanna Nicchiarelli alongside their U.S. acquisitions — most notably Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

“Italy will be the only country in the world where this film will not be distributed by a major company,” boasted Rai’s head of distribution Luigi Lo Nigro, referring to Scorsese’s murder mystery drama set to star Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. Apple is reportedly in the process of partnering on “Flower Moon” with Paramount. The Italy deal between Paramount Rai and Leone Film Group had been previously announced.

Rai Cinema chief Paolo De Brocco said he expects shooting to start soon on Scorsese’s next pic, which is based on...

Distributor planning hybrid theatrical-virtual release shortly after cinemas reopen.

Modern Films has secured UK and Ireland rights to Marco Bellocchio’s mafia drama The Traitor from The Match Factory, and is planning a hybrid theatrical-virtual release shortly after cinemas reopen.

The UK distributor is in talks with cinemas to screen the film from July 24, three weeks after exhibitors are allowed to reopen venues after months of shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Virtual screenings will also be available from the same date, hosted online by individual cinemas, and will follow a virtual preview and Q&a on June 26 at the...

Distributor planning hybrid theatrical-virtual release shortly after cinemas reopen.

Modern Films has secured UK and Ireland rights to Marco Bellocchio’s mafia drama The Traitor from The Match Factory, and is planning a hybrid theatrical-virtual release shortly after cinemas reopen.

The UK distributor is in talks with cinemas to screen the film from July 24, three weeks after exhibitors are allowed to reopen venues after months of shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Virtual screenings will also be available from the same date, hosted online by individual cinemas, and will follow a virtual preview and Q&a on June 26 at the...

The Traitor Sony Pictures Classics Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Marco Bellocchio Screenwriters: Marco Bellochio, Ludovica Rampoldi, Valia Santela, Francesco Piccolo Cast: Pierfrancesco Favino, Luigi Lo Cascio, Fausto Russo Alesi, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Fabrizio Ferracane, Nicola Calì Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 5/8/20 Opens: May 12, 2020 […]

The post The Traitor Movie Review: The true story of the Cosa Nostra appeared first on Shockya.com.

The ceremony was run from an empty studio with winners acknowledging awards via video-link.

Marco Bellocchio’s mafia drama The Traitor swept Italy’s top David di Donatello awards on Friday evening (May 8), winning six prizes including best film, director and lead actor.

The biopic, which premiered in Competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, captures the life of Tommaso Buscetta, the late infamous mafia turncoat who began his organised crime career in Sicily and died in Florida incognito under the Us witness protection programme in 2000.

It marked the first time Bellocchio has won best film at the awards although he...

Marco Bellocchio’s mafia movie The Traitor topped last night’s David di Donatello Awards, Italy’s national film awards, scooping six prizes including Best Film.

The movie also won Director for Bellocchio, Screenplay, Actor for Pierfrancesco Favino, Supporting Actor for Luigi Lo Cascio, and Best Editing. It premiered at Cannes last year before going on to gross a healthy $5.3M in Italy via local outfit 01 Distribution. Sony Pictures Classics released in the U.S., taking $294,783.

There was no physical ceremony this year due to the ongoing lockdown but host network Rai instead put on a virtual ceremony, with winners appearing via video link.

As reported by Republica, Italian president Sergio Mattarella sent in a message of support for the Italian film industry during the coronavirus crisis. “To my great regret, this year, for the well-known reason of health , it was not possible to organize the presentation ceremony of the David di Donatellos,...

Marco Bellocchio’s film has scooped 6 prizes, while 5 Davids went to Pinocchio and 3 to Romulus & Remus – The First King, at an unusual edition that saw candidates and winners connect from home. The first edition of the David di Donatello Awards to be held during the era of Covid-19 and social distancing has seen the triumph of The Traitor by Marco Bellocchio, upon which the jury members of the Italian Film Academy bestowed six gongs, all of which were major wins: Best Film, Best Director, Best Lead Actor (for Pierfrancesco Favino), Best Supporting Actor (Luigi Lo Cascio), Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing. Hosted by Carlo Conti, who was alone in a studio, and aired live on Rai1 with the candidates connecting from home via computer, the ceremony unfolded with only a few minor connection glitches. But all things considered, it progressed...

Marco Bellocchio’s elegant mob drama “The Traitor,” about the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence, was the big winner at Italy’s 65th David di Donatello Awards, the country’s equivalent of the Oscars.

“The Traitor” scored six statuettes including best picture, director, and actor honors.

The prizes were announced – but not physically given out – during a no-frills ceremony conducted in primetime on pubcaster Rai by star host Carlo Conti in an empty studio with talents appearing in live web platform link-ups. The event served as a collective rebirth rite just when local coronavirus lockdown restrictions slowly begin to lift.

“My wish is for the Italian film community to start working again,” Bellocchio, who is a revered veteran auteur, said speaking from his home, before adding: “I’m 80, and I also hope to make a few more movies.”

“The Traitor,...