News

Netflix’s latest European originals include scripted series out of Italy and Germany, another Too Hot to Handle remake and a doc on German soccer player Lukas Podolski.

Italian drama Motor Valley will follow a trio working for a famous racing car team and their journey to the Italian Gran Turismo Championship, while dark German miniseries Die Falle comes from the co-creator of Dear Child (Liebes Kind), Isabel Kleefeld. Poldi, meanwhile, explores the life of German World Cup winner Podolski as he reaches the end of his soccer career.

Synopsis for Motor Valley reads: “Arturo, Elena and Blu have lost almost everything in their lives, but one thing still lights them up: the love for cars and adrenaline. Elena, a young member of the Dionisi family, owner of a famous motorsport team, must regain a role in the family business, now in the hands of her brother; she hires Blu,...

Italy’s Groenlandia, the Banijay Entertainment-owned and Rome-based company headed by directors and producers Matteo Rovere and Sydney Sibilia, is on a roll with three shows launching this month respectively on Disney+, Sky Italia and Netflix. They include crime drama “This Is Not Hollywood,” which bows Friday at the Rome Film Festival.

The four-part crime series is based on the true story of a 15-year-old named Sarah Scazzi, whose body was thrown into a well after she was strangled in the a small Southern Italian town of Avetrana. A massive media storm ensued over the 42 days it took to find her body. The show, directed by Pippo Mezzapesa (“Burning Hearts”), will premiere Oct. 25 on Disney+ in Italy and across European, Middle East and Africa territories, plus some other countries, and also on Hulu in the U.S.

Rovere says the show’s catchy title refers to the fact that...

Greenlit is the international series showcase at Mia and a spot where juicy new titles are seen, often for the first time. The seven-strong lineup spans big-ticket sequels and prequels – step forward Italian giants Gomorrah and The Law According to Lidia Poët – new originals, adaptations and remakes. Paolo Ciccarelli, Head of Drama at Mia, manages the Greenlit program.

Each project is presented on Mia’s main stage by its producers, commissioners or talent. Gomorrah – The Origins is sure to grab attention. From Sky Studios and Cattleya and for Sky Italia, it was created by Leonardo Fasoli and Maddalena Ravagli, and tells the story of Pietro Savastano, from a boy the street who rises up the ranks to become the most important crime boss in Naples. Sandokan is a remake of the cult Italian pirate series produced by Lux Vide and Rai for the Italian pubcaster. Turkish star Can Yaman leads the cast,...

Netflix is putting toxic masculinity under the comedy microscope.

The streamer has ordered Maschi Veri, an eight-part comedy series from Italy in which four alpha male friends in their forties find themselves facing their own prejudices and the paradigms of toxic masculinity in a world that is moving towards social and gender equality. Without losing themselves, they are forced to rediscover their place in society and their relationships.

Maurizio Lastrico, Matteo Martari, Francesco Montanari and Pietro Sermonti star as the friends in the show, which is from Banijay’s Italian drama house Groenlandia. Furio Andreotti, Giulia Calenda and Ugo Ripamonti are the writers, with Groenlandia’s Matteo Rovere producing. Matteo Oleotto and Letizia Lamartire are directing.

Thony, Sarah Felberbaum, Laura Adriani, Alice Lupparelli, Corrado Fortuna and Nicole Grimaudo complete the cast. Show is slated for a 2025 launch.

For Netflix, the series is its latest out of Italy that explores contemporary masculinity.

Exclusive: Sky Studios and Groenlandia are readying feature film director Sydney Sibilia’s first TV drama series. Someone Killed Spiderman – Accidentally Famous (working title) is for Sky Italia and is about a non-conformist teenager who becomes on half of successful musical duo 883.

The show first came to attention last year, and the package has now come together with Sky Studios and Banijay-owned Groenlandia co-producing the show.

It will be set in 1980s Italy and follow frustrated teenager Max, who meets future musical partner Mauro and goes on to reach stardom. It is inspired by the story of how Italian pop band 883 was formed and the title is the same as duo’s iconic first album.

Sibilia is creating, writing and producing through his Banijay-owned production house, Groenlandia, which recently launched Netflix drama Supersex. This marks a first television venture for the film director, whose features include Can Quit Whenever I Want and Rose Island.

Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to Bruno Dumont’s recent Berlinale selection The Empire.

‘The Empire’: Berlin Review

Anamaria Vartolomei, Camille Cottin, Lyna Khoudri, and Fabrice Luchini star in the sci-fi farce about extraterrestrial forces who descend on Earth after the birth of a baby in a French village triggers a secret intergalactic war.

The film won the Silver Bear Jury Prize in Berlin and is a Tessalit Productions production in co-production with Red Balloon Film, Ascent Film, Novak Prod, Rosa Filmes, and Furyo Films.

Jean Bréhat and Bertrand Faivre produced, and the co-producers are Dorothe Beinemeier,...

Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights to Bruno Dumont’s “The Empire,” a sci-fi satire starring Anamaria Vartolomei (“Happening”), Camille Cottin (“Call My Agent!”), Lyna Khoudri (“The Three Musketeers”) and Fabrice Luchini.

“The Empire” just world premiered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear Jury Prize. The movie marks Dumont’s follow up to “France,” a dark comedy starring Léa Seydoux which competed at the Cannes Film Festival.

Kino Lorber is planning a theatrical release later this year, followed by a home video, educational and digital release on all major platforms. The acquisition of “The Empire” marks the sixth time that Kino Lorber has collaborated with Dumont, with previous releases including “Li’l Quinquin,” “Coincoin and the Extra-Humans,” “Slack Bay,” “Camille Claudel 1915” and, most recently, “France.”

The film is set in a quiet and picturesque fishing village in Northern France, where a special...

Rocco Siffredi’s Thoughts on Netflix’s Supersex ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

When it comes to making shows inspired or based on real-life personalities, no one can beat Netflix. From documentaries to movies and web shows, the streaming platform has brought to life the stories of people who have inspired or shocked everyone with their actions and behaviour. The latest addition to their library is Supersex, an Italian adult drama series inspired by the life of adult star Rocco Siffredi.

The Netflix series was written by Francesca Manieri. Francesca directed the show with Francesca Mazzoleni and Matteo Rovere. The official Netflix synopsis reads, “Inspired by true events, this is the story of how Rocco Siffredi escaped a humble life and emerged as the world’s greatest adult movie star.”

Ever since Supersex was released, netizens haven’t stopped talking about it. The explicit content in it has baffled everyone. However, in an interview last year,...

Memoirs of Hadrian, a seminal novel about the life and death of a Roman emperor, is becoming a TV series.

The 1951 novel, which explores the life of Hadrian from his childhood through his ascent to leading the Roman Empire. It will be written and scripted for TV by Strega Prize winner Francesco Piccolo, who has penned screenplays for Nanni Moretti, Matteo Rovere and Marco Bellocchio among others.

Attached to produce is Iervolino and Lady Bacardi Entertainment (Ilbe), Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi’s film and TV production company that is currently producing Prime Video’s upcoming Cruel Intentions with Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios. No broadcaster or streamer has announced.

Synopsis reads: “From childhood, the life of a profound and sensitive man, aware of his imperial role and the burden he carries, is told. A wise and far-sighted diplomat and a human being marked by splendors and fears,...

The Berlin Film Festival today unveiled further titles for the 2024 edition of its Berlinale Special Presentations sidebar section alongside its classics program. Scroll down for the full list of titles announced today.

Highlights from the latest drop of Specials titles include Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, a feature documentary about influential British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger narrated by Killers of the Flower Moon filmmaker Martin Scorsese. The feature is directed by David Hinton and features rare archival material from the personal collections of Powell, Pressburger, and Scorsese.

Love Lies Bleeding, the latest feature from British filmmaker Rose Glass will debut in the Specials program. The feature stars Kristen Stewart alongside Katy O’Brian. A short synopsis describes the pic as “a romance fueled by ego, desire, and the American Dream.” The film will arrive at Berlin following it’s debut at Sundance.

Abel Ferrara is...

Netflix has dropped its first key art and several new images for Supersex, the hotly anticipated biographical series on Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi.

Alessandro Borghi, star of Netflix’s mafia drama series Suburra and 2022 Cannes jury prize winner The Eight Mountains, plays Rocco in the fictionalized take on the porn actor’s life. The seven-episode series — created and written by Francesca Manieri, Lorenzo Mieli for Fremantle-owned The Apartment and Matteo Rovere for Banijay’s Groenlandia — will bow on Netflix worldwide March 6, 2024. Rovere, Francesco Carrozzini and Francesca Mazzoleni are directing.

Netflix has said the series is “freely inspired” by Siffredi’s life and career, as well as from direct testimony from Siffredi. Supersex plans to tell the soup-to-nuts story of Rocco from his childhood and family origins through his “relationship with love” that led him to pursue a career in porn.

Jasmine Trinca plays Lucia, a fictional female character who...

Netflix has set a March 6 premiere date for “Supersex,” the series freely inspired by the real life of global porn star Rocco Siffredi, who has more than 1,500 hardcore films to his name.

The series is created and written by prominent Italian screenwriter Francesca Manieri who is known to be a militant feminist. It is described in promotional materials as a profound story that runs through Siffredi’s life since childhood and looks at his family, “his relationship with love” and how “Rocco Tano — a simple guy from Ortona [a small town in central Italy] — became Rocco Siffredi, the most famous pornstar in the world.”

“Supersex” directors are Matteo Rovere (“Romulus”), Francesco Carrozzini (“The Hanging Sun”) and Francesca Mazzoleni (“Punta Sacra”).

At the center of “Supersex” – which is being produced by Lorenzo Mieli’s The Apartment, a Fremantle company, and Groenlandia, which is part of the Banijay group – are unknown aspects of the Italian porn star, who...

Exclusive: Prime Video Italy has ordered a six-part comedy-drama in the “tone in the director of Fleabag” from Italian producer Groenlandia.

We can reveal Banijay Group-owned drama house Groenlandia and Fidelio are making Antonia, in collaboration with Prime Video. The series will form part of the streamer’s latest slate, which is due to be unveiled today in Rome. Each episode will be a half-hour.

Chiara Martegiani (Ride) stars in the title role. Valerio Mastandrea is providing creative supervision and also stars alongside Barbara Chichiarelli, Emanuele Linfatti, Leonardo Lidi and Anna Chiara Caselli. Elisa Casseri, Carlotta Corradi and Chiara Martegiani are the writers. Chiara Malta is directing.

Antonia will take an ironic, comedic tone and will follow the titular character, an actress who can’t help but clash with others. Having left her family as a teenager, she lives in Rome, which she sees...

Lyda Patitucci, whose first feature “Like Sheep Among Wolves” is launching from the Rotterdam Film Festival’s Harbor section, represents a rare case of an Italian female filmmaker who cut her teeth in the genre movie trenches.

Her extensive experience prior to her debut comprises being a second unit director, specialized in action scenes, on films such as Matteo Rovere’s drag race drama “Italian Race” and on Rovere’s non conventional ancient Rome origins epic “The First King.” Patitucci has also directed several episodes of supernatural Netflix Italian original series “Curon.”

In “Like Sheep Among Wolves,” the protagonist is an intrepid female undercover police agent named Vera who infiltrates a dangerous Serbian syndicate in Rome’s criminal underworld and wins the trust of its kingpins. All seems to be going right in the leadup to her big bust until – just as she is about to set up the gang...

Ten years ago, Lucca Comics & Games expanded its scope with a dedicated film and TV section run by Milan-based entertainment marketing company Qmi, headed by Giovanni Cova, who has been working in tandem on this strand with Lucca chief Emanuele Vietina.

During the course of this decade, Hollywood has become a more integral part of this unique geek meet. Initially with studio premieres, followed by streamers seeking to tap into the proselytizing power of thousands of cosplayers and fan-based communities that descend upon the medieval Tuscan town.

However this year, both Cova and Vietina are particularly proud of how the event is serving as a launching pad for local genre content in a spirit of Italy’s restart, they tell Variety.

It looks like Lucca has returned to its pre-pandemic level. Am I right?

Cova: I am literally moved about the fact that this year, besides the streamers, we have all the major studios,...

Click here to read the full article.

Matilda De Angelis is having a bit of a moment.

The Italian actress, who roared onto the European film scene as a race car driver in Matteo Rovere’s Italian Race (2016) and has been a regular feature since, named one of the European Shooting Stars in Berlin in 2018 and winning the David di Donatello honour for best actress in Venice for her performance in Rose Island in 2020. US audiences may recognise her from her supporting role in David E. Kelley’s HBO series The Undoing alongside Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant, or as Caterina da Cremona, a fictional noblewoman and muse to the legendary renaissance artist, played by Aidan Turner, in Rai’s Leonardo, which aired on The CW stateside.

International audiences are about to see a lot more of De Angelis. Her new feature, Robbing Mussolini, hits Netflix October 26 and she is...

The life of global porn icon Rocco Siffredi is the subject of a new Netflix original series titled ‘Supersex’, which has started shooting in Rome.

The seven-episode drama is freely inspired by the real life of Siffredi, who has more than 1,500 hardcore films to his name. But, in an interesting career twist, Siffredi has also shot two arthouse pics, Catherine Breillat’s ‘Romance’ and ‘Anatomy of Hell’. His Budapest-based Rocco Siffredi Prods. is a porn industry powerhouse.

Siffredi was also the subject of the documentary ‘Rocco’, directed by French duo Thierry Demaiziere and Alban Teurlai, which screened at the 2016 Venice Film Festival.

At the centre of ‘Supersex’, which is being produced by The Apartment, a Fremantle company and Groenlandia, which is part of the Banijay group, are unknown aspects of the Italian porn star, who is being played by Italian A-lister Alessandro Borghi (‘The Eight Mountains’).

The series is created...

Click here to read the full article.

Netflix has greenlit a new Italian series, Supersex, based on the life and career of notorious Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi, aka “Buttman.”

Alessandro Borghi, star of Netflix’s mafia drama series Suburra and 2022 Cannes jury prize winner The Eight Mountains, will play the lead character. Jasmine Trinca, Adriano Giannini co-star with Saul Nanni playing the protagonist as a young man.

Netflix said the seven-episode series would be “freely inspired” by Siffredi’s life and career, as well as from direct testimony from Siffredi. Supersex plans to tell the soup-to-nuts story of Rocco from his childhood and family origins through his “relationship with love” that led him to pursue a career in porn. Created and written by Francesca Manieri, the series is directed by Matteo Rovere, Francesco Carrozzini and Francesca Mazzoleni.

“Supersex is the story of a man who takes seven episodes and...

Netflix has unwrapped its latest Italian series, Supersex.

Produced by Fremantle producer The Apartment and Banijay-owned Groenlandia, it is inspired by the real life of European pornstar Rocco Siffredi. The seven-episode show will be available on Netflix globally in 2023.

Here’s the synopsis: “At the center of the story are unpublished aspects of the pornstar, a profound story that runs through his life since childhood. His family, his origins, his relationship with love, the starting point and the context that led him to embark on his path in pornography.”

Alessandro Borghi will play Rocco Siffredi, and also stars Jasmine Trinca, Adriano Giannini and Saul Nanni in the roles of Lucia, Tommaso and Rocco as a young man, respectively.

Francesca Manieri is creator and writer, with Matteo Rovere, Francesco Carrozzini and Francesca Mazzoleni the directors.

Manieri said: “Supersex is the story of a man who takes seven episodes and 350 minutes to say ‘I love you,...

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...

Grøenlandia has made films including ‘Rose Island’ and Sky series ‘Romulus’.

The Paris-based Banijay Group has acquired Italian production company Grøenlandia Group, whose credits include feature Rose Island for Netflix and series Romulus for Sky.

Grøenlandia, run by filmmakers Matteo Rovere and Sydney Siblia, will become part of Banijay’s local business Banijay Italy.

Ascent Film, the film-focused arm of Grøenlandia, will continue operating as part of the company.

Banijay Italy is responsible for shows for Italian broadcaster Rai, Mediaset (Light Of My Eyes) and Amazon.

Founded in 2014, Grøenlandia is behind numerous productions spanning film, documentary and TV, including Romulus And Remus: The First King,...

Banijay has added Italian premium scripted producer Grøenlandia Group to its local holding Banijay Italy.

Led by film directors and producers Matteo Rovere and Sydney Sibilia, the label has credits including films Romulus & Remus: The First King by Rovere; Masterclass and Ad Honorem – the two sequels of the I Can Quit Whenever I Want saga by Sibilia, as well as films directed by Simone Godano: Husband & Wife, An Almost Ordinary Summer, and Marilyn Has Black Eyes.

The company is also behind the TV series Romulus, winner of the Nastro d’Argento 2021 award as best series and TV movie, and Carosone, the biopic of the musician Renato Carosone, directed by Lucio Pellegrini.

Banijay Italy, which is run by President and Country Manager Paolo Bassetti, has a portfolio of 10 production companies including Banijay Italia, Endemol Shine Italy, Banijay Studios Italy, 4 Friends Film, Aurora TV, Atlantis Film & Video, Funwood Media,...

Banijay has acquired control of Italy’s expanding Groenlandia Group, which is a producer on ITV’s “Romulus” skein and made recent Netflix Italian original film “The Incredible Story of Rose Island,” among other titles.

The Rome-based company, headed by directors and producers Matteo Rovere and Sydney Sibilia, has been steadily growing since its founding in 2014. Besides “Romulus” — both the film and the TV series which Rovere directed, and “Rose Island,” helmed by Sibilia, Groenlandia’s recent output also includes Leonardo D’Agostini’s widely exported soccer comedy drama “The Champion,” starring Stefano Accorsi, and Ludovico De Martino’s actioner “The Beast,” co-produced with Warner Bros. and now streaming globally on Netflix.

Groenlandia also comprises Ascent Films, founded and managed by Andrea Paris, who will keep operating in the shingle, in which it has had a majority stake since 2014. Ascent is an incubator shingle focused on identifying and establishing new talent.

Italian director and producer Roberto De Paolis, whose 2017 debut “Pure Hearts” launched from Cannes, is stepping up activity of his Young Films shingle and has completed his follow-up feature, “Princess,” about a young African woman who’s a victim of the sex trade.

Described by De Paolis as “the unfiltered story of a young Nigerian who prostitutes herself in Ostia, outside Rome, in a seaside pine forest,” “Princess” (first look image above) features Glory Kevin, a real victim of the sex trade, in the title role plus other non-professional actors with similar backgrounds. Rounding out the cast are Lino Musella (“The Young Pope”), Salvatore Striano (“Caesar Must Die”) and Maurizio Lombardi (“The New Pope”).

The film, which is produced by Young Films and Indigo Film (“The Great Beauty”) with Rai Cinema, is “an attempt to discover the complexity of the inner conflicts that run through the protagonist,” said De Paolis,...

ITV has revealed a first look at “Romulus 2,” the second season of Cattleya’s innovative Rome origins skein enacted in archaic Latin.

The outfit is also launching global sales on the series, which has just wrapped shooting and is being touted as more “fast paced and in your face” than the first instalment, as Lisa Perrin, the company’s chief of international productions, puts it.

The first season of the lavish Sky Italy original produced by Sky and Cattleya — which is owned by ITV Studios — in collaboration with show runner Matteo Rovere’s Groenlandia shingle, has now attained cult status, if not stellar ratings, in Italy. It won this year’s Silver Ribbon prize given by Italy’s critics for best Italian series made for the international market.

The second serving of “Romulus” — for which there is not yet a firm Italian launch date on Sky — has several new young...

Currently shooting her upcoming Netflix series “Lidia,” about Italy’s first female lawyer, Lidia Poët, actor Matilda De Angelis was joined by her agent Gianni Chiffi for a masterclass at Torino Film Festival.

“When we decided to open our agency in 2014, Matilda was the first person we met. She was about to begin her cinematic journey and if I hadn’t met her, I wouldn’t be here. That’s the truth,” said Chiffi, who co-founded Volver alongside Consuelo De Andreis. When receiving the David di Donatello award in 2021 for Netflix drama “Rose Island,” De Angelis thanked both, calling them “her angels.”

Born in 1995 in Bologna, the actor made her international breakthrough in Susanne Bier’s “The Undoing,” alongside Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant.

“As agents, we are the ones driving the car and they are the passengers, but there comes the moment when you finally let them drive,” said Chiffi,...

Netflix Reveals Italian Series Slate

Netflix has revealed a handful of new series out of Italy and confirmed the imminent start of shoot on Elena Ferrante adaptation The Lying Life Of Adults, which will star Valeria Golino. Scroll down for the series (synopses translated from Italian). Netflix’s VP of Italian Originals Tinny Andreatta, the former Rai exec, said: “Being able to show the world Italy as it really is, in its authenticity, in its culture, in its beauty and contradictions, in its roots and infinite reserves of imagination, through the voice of the best authors and directors, and taking it to 190 countries, is our great challenge: it’s a challenge that we want to face together with our production partners and Italian talent.” Previously announced Italian series include Luna Park, out on September 30th; Guida Astrologica per Cuori Infranti (Astrological Guide for Broken Hearts); and Strappare Lungo I Bordi...

Netflix is moving forward with its Elena Ferrante series adaptation, “The Lying Life of Adults,” which will start shooting in Naples in October with Neapolitan helmer Edoardo De Angelis (“Indivisible”) directing and Valeria Golino playing a prominent role.

“Lying Life of Adults” leads a slate of Netflix Italian original series projects — several of which are literary adaptations — that were announced in Rome on Thursday by Eleonora “Tinny” Andreatta in her first meeting with the press since joining the streaming giant last year as VP of Italian Original series after a long stint as head of drama at Italian public broadcaster Rai.

Golino, who kickstarted her acting career in Hollywood co-starring with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman in Barry Levinson’s “Rain Man,” will soon be seen again by U.S. audiences in season 2 of Apple Original “The Morning Show.”

In “Lying Life,” Golino will play Vittoria whom Andreatta described as...

Deals were facilitated through the platform of Sino-us producers association Bridging The Dragon.

Sino-eu producers association Bridging The Dragon (Btd) has announced a raft of co-production and remake deals facilitated through its platform, including Lian Ray Pictures’ acquisition of remake rights to Italian features Italian Race and 18 Presents.

Matteo Rovere’s Italian Race, a rally racing drama produced and sold by Fandango, was a big winner at the David di Donatello Awards in 2017. Francesco Amato’s 18 Presents, produced by Lucky Red and sold by True Colors, is based on the true story of a woman who left her daughter...

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

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

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

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

Series

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

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

Starz Picks Up ‘Death & Nightingales’

Starz has acquired BBC period drama Death And Nightingales, which features The Americans actor Matthew Rhys and Fifty Shades of Grey’s Jamie Dornan. The three-part drama, which is based on Eugene McCable’s modern Irish classic, is written by The Fall creator Allan Cubitt and is produced by Imaginarium Productions and Soho Moon. Premiering on May 16 in the U.S., the series is a story of love, betrayal, deception, and revenge, set in the haunting countryside of Fermanagh in 1885. Red Arrow Studios International is overseeing global sales. Other buyers include HBO Europe, Sky Network Television (New Zealand), Yes (Israel), and DirecTV (Latin American markets excluding Brazil). Death And Nightingales first premiered on BBC Two in 2018.

Sky Italia Chiefs Exit

Sky Italia’s managing director Maximo Ibarra and programming chief Nicola Maccanico are leaving the Comcast-owned broadcaster. Ibarra’s...

Giorgio Diritti’s biopic of an obscure artist “Hidden Away,” Gianni Amelio’s “Hammamet,” about scandal plagued Italian leader Bettino Craxi, and dark drama “Bad Tales” by the D’Innocenzo Brothers lead the race for Italy’s David di Donatello Awards, the country’s top film prizes, for which this year there is no clear frontrunner.

Interestingly, “Hidden Away,” which scooped 15 nominations, and “Bad Tales,” which tallied 13 noms, both star actor Elio Germano. Germano also stars in another film in the Davids race, Netflix Italian Original “The Incredible Story of Rose Island,” which scooped 11 nominations, including one for Matteo Rovere, its producer.

During a virtual press conference Piera Detassis, who heads the David nods, underlined the strong presence this year of women directors, citing Susanna Nicchiarelli’s “Miss Marx,” a biopic of Karl Marx’s proto-feminist daughter Eleanor, and also Emma Dante’s Sicily-set “The Macaluso Sisters,” that are both nominated for film and director.

As Italy’s film and TV industry forges ahead after bearing the brunt of the pandemic in 2020, the Filming Italy — Los Angeles fest, which is a bridgehead between Italy and Hollywood, is pulling out all the stops to drive and promote the country’s restart effort.

After Filming Italy miraculously managed to hold its sister shindig as a physical edition on the island of Sardinia last summer, the upcoming March 18-21 Los Angeles event will be mostly online. But going virtual has just prompted Italian marketing guru Tiziana Rocca, a longtime Italian industry promoter, to double her efforts.

This year the former Taormina Film Festival general manager is serving up twice the number of titles — a selection of more than 50 features, TV skeins, docs and shorts — and a marathon medley of 25 master classes, starting with Edoardo Ponti, director of Oscar-buzzed Sophia Loren-starrer “The Life Ahead,” in conversation with Diane Warren,...

Italy’s expanding production company Groenlandia — the shingle behind ITV’s “Romulus” skein and recent Netflix Italian original film “The Incredible Story of Rose Island” — is launching a groundbreaking new unit dedicated to women directors and writers.

Called Lynn, the new female-driven label is a first for Italy. They have partnered on a feature film with Amazon Studios and on another movie with Rai Cinema.

Projects in various stages in the Lynn pipeline comprise romantic comedy “Blackout Love” (pictured), toplining rising Italian star Anna Foglietta, who served as master of ceremonies at the 2020 Venice Film Festival.

In “Blackout Love,” which is being directed by first-timer Francesca Marino, Foglietta (“Perfect Strangers”) plays the coach of a female volleyball team whose love life is disrupted by the arrival of an old flame. Shooting started in December on the pic, which is being produced by Lynn with financing from Amazon Studios.

Lynn has...

Alessia Polli, head of project development at Groenlandia, will supervise the diversion alongside renowned novelist and essayist Eleonora Marangoni.

Matteo Rovere and Sydney Sibilia’s Italian production company Groenlandia has launched Lynn, a division dedicated to producing features, series and shorts directed by established and emerging female writers and directors.

Alessia Polli, head of project development at Groenlandia, will supervise the diversion alongside renowned novelist and essayist Eleonora Marangoni. Fabia Fleri, who has worked in production at Italian TV and film giant Taodue, will coordinate the line-up.

”We know we live in the best moment for women to have a spotlight and be creative,...

In 1968, idealistic Italian engineer Giorgio Rosa founded an independent micro nation on a tiny island he built on a platform supported by steel pylons off the coast of Rimini, Italy, outside Italian territorial waters. He named the platform — which had its own bar/restaurant, post office and radio station — the Republic of Rose Island.

This anarchic act is the subject of “Rose Island,” a dramedy rooted in real history marking the first Netflix International Original film out of Italy. The streaming giant worked closely with director Sydney Sibilia and production company Grøenlandia (“The First King”) to shepherd the picture, conceived from the outset for an international audience. The film stems from Netflix’s stepped-up drive under David Kosse, vice president of international film and Teresa Moneo, director of international film, to produce and acquire significant non-English language titles with worldwide appeal.

Partly shot in Malta, “Rose Island” boasts a top-tier...

Mia Threapleton, who is the daughter Kate Winslet and British film director Jim Threapleton, makes her acting debut in Ireland-set chiller “Shadows,” directed by Italy’s Carlo Lavagna and mostly shot in an abandoned hotel in the woods near the village of Howth.

“Shadows” premiered last month at the Rome Film Festival’s Alice in the City section. The innovative pic combining psychological thriller elements, horror and coming-of-age tropes is centered on family dynamics in a post-apocalyptic world where a controlling mother, played by Saskia Reeves (“Luther”) and her two daughters, played by Threapleton and fellow rising young British talent Lola Petticrew (“A Bump Along the Way”), must avoid contact with daylight and its shadows in order to survive.

Shadows is produced by Andrea Paris and Matteo Rovere for Ascent Film with Rai Cinema, in coproduction with Feline Films. Vision Distribution is launching international sales at AFM.

Threapleton, who is...

Italy’s Minerva Pictures — the company specialized in genre fare such as teen chiller “Shortcut” that recently made a U.S. splash — is launching world sales at AFM on “Mondocane,” a dystopian drama about the struggle of two 13-year-old orphan boys in a Southern Italian gangland.

“Mondocane” toplines Alessandro Borghi (“Devils”).

In “Mondocane,” Borghi (pictured) plays the leader of one of two gangs vying for control of the Southern Italian port city of Taranto which in a dystopian near-future that has become a no man’s land surrounded by barbed wire and abandoned by police. The film is being marketed as an “Oliver Twist tale in a ‘Mad Max’ setting,” Minerva Pictures international sales chief Francesca Delise told Variety.

Delise noted that for Minerva, “Mondocane” segues from the international success it saw with Alessio Liguori’s “Shortcut,” which despite the pandemic recently went out theatrically on almost 700 U.S. screens via Gravitas Ventures.

ITV Studios has announced new international sales on “Romulus,” the TV series shot in Archaic Latin that takes its cue from the mythical tale of twins Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome. The drama is world premiering Friday at the Rome Film Festival.

The hotly anticipated skein, which is a Sky original in Italy, has been acquired for Germany by Deutsche Telekom for play on its MagentaTV streaming service, and by More TV Russia for Russia and all Cis territories. It has also been licensed by Greece’s Cosmote, which is the country’s top telco.

ITV Studios previously sold the innovative Rome origin show to HBO Europe for a slew of territories comprising all of the Nordics and Central Europe, as well as Spain, Portugal and Portuguese-speaking territories such as Angola, Cape Verde and Mozambique.

Talks are also underway with broadcasters in the U.S. and U.K. where Sky U.

The first two episodes of Sky’s Euro series Romulus, about the events that led to the foundation of Rome, will launch at the Rome Film Festival next month. Produced by Sky, Cattleya and Groenlandia, the show comes from director Matteo Rovere, marking his TV debut, and will star Andrea Arcangeli, Marianna Fontana and Francesco Di Napoli. The ten episodes were filmed in archaic Latin by Rovere alongside Michele Alhaique ed Enrico Maria Artale. Set eight centuries before Christ, the series charts an archaic and brutal world where the tribes of the Lega Latina have lived for years under the leadership of the king of Alba, but drought and famine are threatening peace and the life of the cities. ITV Studios is handling international sales. The show will debut in Italy on Sky.

A joint New York-based office for German Films and the Goethe-Institut will open from October 1 with €50,000 in support from the German government.

The actor who won a David di Donatello award for his part in On My Skin plays the lead in Alessandro Celli’s debut film, produced by Matteo Rovere. Shooting is underway on Mondocane, the first feature film by the forty-three-year-old director and TV writer Alessandro Celli which is produced by Matteo Rovere on behalf of Groenlandia and Rai Cinema, and which sees Alessandro Borghi step into the shoes of a gang leader in a future world frightening similar to our own. Written by Alessandro Celli and Antonio Leotti, the film is set in a not-too-distant future universe. Taranto (for the record, the Apulian city which has been in the news for years as a result of the environmental pollution pumped out by the...

This supernatural drama directed by Fabio Mollo and Lyda Patitucci boasts an exceptional setting and a captivating plot, but the results are mixed. If you want to get an idea of how powerful the setting of an audiovisual work can be, we give you Curon, Netflix’s new Italian original series, available from today in 190 countries around the world, courtesy of the global streaming platform. The driving force of the story, in this mystery-thriller-paranormal seven-parter series directed by Fabio Mollo and Lyda Patitucci (once Matteo Rovere second unit director), is an old church bell tower rising out of a lake, a ghostly and evocative image which stays with the viewer throughout. The series’ location is a real-life place found in Curon Venosta, in Italy’s Alto Adige region, where an old town encircled by mountains was flooded by an artificial dam, with only this...

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 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,...

With Italy gradually lifting some lockdown restrictions, local film and TV producers are busy drafting safety protocols to start shooting again, with June targeted as the start of the industry’s road map to recovery.

With close to 30,000 deaths, Italy has the second deadliest coronavirus outbreak in Europe, behind the U.K., but is now flattening the curve. On May 4, it entered its so-called “phase two” with some workplaces reopening.

The same day, the central Lazio region, which is the Italian industry’s main hub comprising Rome and Cinecittà Studios, announced that productions could start up again, prompting some premature trumpeting in local media that physical production of films and TV series has already restarted. However, the reality of reviving production is a far more complicated picture.

“Production activity as a whole can indeed restart, but there are many aspects to this, including preparation and opening offices again,” says Francesca Cima,...

Cinema Italiano was thriving prior to the pandemic so Italy’s David di Donatello Awards, the country’s top film prizes, will serve as a collective rebirth rite just when coronavirus lockdown restrictions slowly begin to lift.

The ceremony marking the Davids’ 65th anniversary to be aired May 8 on pubcaster Rai in primetime obviously sans red carpet and with stars linked-in by remote, is timed shortly after May 4 when Italy entered “Phase Two” of its lockdown as local producers are busy drafting safety protocols and planning the road map for shoots to restart, hopefully in June.

Meanwhile the David academy’s 1,600 voters and, hopefully, millions of Rai viewers will be cheering a pack of nominees that is led by veteran auteur Marco Bellocchio’s elegant mob drama “The Traitor” – released by Sony stateside in January – and Matteo Garrone’s live-action “Pinocchio” alongside edgier titles by up-and-comers such as Matteo Rovere...

Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Todd Phillips' Joker, Peter Farrelly's Green Book, Bong Joon Ho's Parasite and Roman Polanski's J'accuse are the nominees in the best foreign film category of Italy's David di Donatello Awards.

The nominees in the best Italian film category are Matteo Garrone for Pinocchio, Pietro Marcello for Martin Eden, Claudio Giovannesi for La Paranza dei Bambini, Marco Bellocchio for Il Traditore and Matteo Rovere for Il Primo Re. Those five will also compete in the best director category.

The 2019 David di Donatello awards marked the first time that two women were nominated in the ...

Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Todd Phillips' Joker, Peter Farrelly's Green Book, Bong Joon Ho's Parasite and Roman Polanski's J'accuse are the nominees in the best foreign film category of Italy's David di Donatello Awards.

The nominees in the best Italian film category are Matteo Garrone for Pinocchio, Pietro Marcello for Martin Eden, Claudio Giovannesi for La Paranza dei Bambini, Marco Bellocchio for Il Traditore and Matteo Rovere for Il Primo Re. Those five will also compete in the best director category. 

The 2019 David di Donatello awards marked the first time that two women were nominated in the ...

French distributor Destiny Films has acquired rights for France to Italian soccer dramedy “The Champion” from Italy’s True Colours in the runup to the De Rome a Paris festival and confab, which kicks off Friday.

Produced by Matteo Rovere’s Groenlandia (“Romulus”), “The Champion” turns on the uneasy relationship between a young male soccer star and a shy academic, also male, who becomes his tutor. This rare representation of the soccer world’s money-crazed star system recently won several Silver Ribbon prizes from Italy’s film journalists’ union, including best producer and best feature debut for director Leonardo D’Agostini.

Destiny Film’s David Chhouy said he hopes “The Champion” will resonate in France, where the plan is for a summer 2020 release in local multiplexes. “We need French audiences to perceive it not as an Italian arthouse movie, but something more mainstream,” he noted.

That said, two Italian arthouse titles,...