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Franco-Tunisian film and TV entrepreneur will be celebrated by Variety with its International Achievement in Film Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

An infallible dealmaker, resourceful problem-solver and filmmaker-friendly bon vivant, Ammar has played a pivotal, yet often behind-the-scenes role, in building cultural and cinematic bridges between Europe, the U.S. and the Arab world over the last 50 years.

Ammar, whose Eagle Pictures is currently Italy’s top independent film distributor and a growing production force, also owns France’s Studios de Paris, home of “Emily in Paris,” and is active in Saudi Arabia where he recently launched a film fund.

Ammar began his career in Italy and Tunisia in the late 1960s. He quickly became an ally to iconic filmmakers such as Roberto Rossellini, Georges Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Franco Zeffirelli. He opened the doors of Tunisia to the film world, helping build an industry there from scratch while...

Tarak Ben Ammar’s Italian outfit Eagle Pictures and Italy’s PiperFilm have announced a multi-pronged distribution partnership. Under their deal, PiperFilm will handle world sales on several Eagle-produced titles including upcoming comedy “Leopardi & Co” starring Whoopi Goldberg and Jeremy Irvine.

PiperFilm will launch sales on the English-language film, directed by Italy’s Federica Biondi, at the upcoming European Film Market. In “Leopardi & Co,” Goldberg portrays the agent of an American actor played by Irvine and lands him a part as the great Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi. But since her client knows nothing about Leopardi, a young Italian woman (played by Denise Tantucci) is hired to provide background information. Romance ensues.

The pact will see PiperFilm handling distribution of several Italian films produced by Eagle Pictures, while the Home Entertainment division of Eagle Pictures will handle the home video and transactional rights of PiperFilm’s lineup, starting with Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope.

Italy’s PiperFilm is to take on international sales for several films by leading producer and distributor Eagle Pictures, including Italian box office hitThe Boy With The Pink Trousers, as part of a new collaboration agreement between the two companies.

The partnership will also see Eagle Pictures handle the home video and transactional rights of PiperFilm’s releases, starting with Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope.

Distribution, production, and sales company PiperFilm launched last year. Its sales division, run by well-known executive Catia Rossi, will bring a slate of Eagle Films movies to EFM next week.

Margherita Ferri’s The Boy With...

The Italian box office held steady in 2024 with cinemas taking €493.9m in 2024 from admissions of 69.7 million.

The result is almost in line with 2023, representing a slight 0.4% dip in box office and a 1.3% fall in admissions, according to figures from Italian box office organisation Cinetel.

It is a decent result for Italy given the disruption to film releases caused by the US actors’ and writers’ strikes and competition from major sporting events during the summer. Notably, Italy held on to the strong box office gains of 2023, when the box office surged by 62% in the wake of the pandemic.

Top 30 films in Italy,...

Italy’s box office revenues remained stable in 2024, totalling roughly €494 million ($513 million) in grosses and 70 million admissions – which is just slightly below the country’s $514 million 2023 intake.

Disney landed the year’s top 3 titles with “Inside Out 2,” which grossed $48.3 million locally; “Moana 2,” which pulled $20 million; and “Deadpool & Wolverine” which clocked in at $18.7 in the Italian theatrical market, according to figures released by national box office compiler Cinetel.

But amid a dearth of Hollywood blockbusters, due to the impact of last year’s Hollywood strikes, it was local movies, such as Italy’s sleeper hit “The Boy With Pink Pants,” that proved crucial to keeping the market buoyant. “The Boy With Pink Pants,” a teen drama by relatively unknown director Margherita Ferri about the harrowing true tale of a 15-year-old boy who took his own life after enduring bullying at school and online, became the year’s surprise...

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

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

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

This film about the all-too short real life of Italian schoolboy Andrea Spezzacatena illustrates how heartfelt and fastidious commitment to a story doesn't always make for engaging cinema, no matter how good the intent. The screenplay by writer Robert Proia, based on the book by Andrea's mother Teresa Manes, is so diligent that it refuses to cut any element out of Andrea's life, whereas a fictional story might have become more streamlined and less unwieldy. Director Margherita Ferri also leans heavily into emotion at every opportunity, which threatens to stall the film in places.

We hear Andrea in a retrospective voiceover from the start, indicating early on that he is no longer with us. It is therefore no spoiler to say that he was the first documented victim of cyberbullying in Italy when he took his own life. That was in 2012 but the culture of cyberbullying continues globally, with...

The Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (known as PÖFF) has unveiled the full lineup of its flagship Official Selection, whose 18 features from 23 countries will compete for the coveted €20,000 Grand Prix.

They include 11 world premieres. The jury is helmed by acclaimed German director Christoph Hochhäusler.

Tiina Lokk, the founder and director of the festival, said “the Official Selection Competition has it all! There’s a psycho-thriller that approaches horror, a psychological family drama, and sci-fi genre is represented. The selection is broad, and so is the range of countries. We’re not trying to highlight a certain theme or a particular region, we are free in our choices,” she noted.

Emphasizing the various topics covered, Lokk cites old age, the end of life and euthanasia “perhaps due to the influence of Covid,” domestic violence and war, “not tackled in the traditional form” but rather via psychological dramas.

“Last year there were...

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Poff) has selected a further 14 features, including 11 world premieres, to complete the lineup of its Official Selection Competition.

The new titles include the world premiere of Serhii Kastornykh’s Ukrainian feature The Mousetrap. Shot during a break between Kastornykh’s military service periods, the film follows a soldier trapped alone in a bunker on the frontline of the Russian war.

Scroll down for the full list of Poff Official Selection Competition titles

Also selected is the world premiere of Juris Kursietis’ third feature The Exalted, in which a world-renowned German organist uncovers her Latvian husband...

Producer Lorenzo Mieli, who has brought to the screen top Italian TV series such as “The Young Pope” and “My Brilliant Friend,” is launching two new crime shows with innovative elements: “The King” and “Bang Bang Baby.”

Both stem from his bent to push boundaries of genre storytelling that is “borne from authenticity,” he says.

“The King,” which is Italy’s first prison drama, recently bowed positively in Italy on Comcast-owned Sky’s pay-tv service and also premiered internationally at the Series Mania fest.

The dark show stars Luca Zingaretti, best known as the titular character in Italy’s widely exported “Inspector Montalbano” series. He plays Bruno Testori the sometimes psychopathic director of a maximum security penitentiary located on an unspecified Italian border territory that is not subject to Italian law. There Testori, who is a mixture of good and evil, can apply his totally personal idea of justice.

The fifth edition will see the TV festival return to its original springtime slot to run alongside MipTV.

French Oscar-winning director Xavier De Lestrade’s investigative thriller The Inside Game, Seeds Of Wrath and Danish bio-series The Dreamer – Becoming Karen Blixen are among the 10 new series selected for competition in the upcoming edition of French TV festival Canneseries (April 1-6).

The fifth edition sees the event return its traditional springtime slot coinciding with the MipTV content market (April 4-6), after the festival moved to September in 2021 due to the Covid-pandemic.

Political thriller The Inside Game, Seeds Of Wrath stars Alix Poisson...

This Italian series led by a young man who turns his social invisibility into a superpower is dropping today on Netflix, in a triumph for multiculturalism, inclusion and the fight against prejudice. Invisibility in the eyes of society is transformed into a superpower in Zero, the new Italian Netflix original series created by Menotti (They Call Me Jeeg), based upon an idea by the writer of Angolan origin Antonio Dikele Distefano. This eight-episode production sees an Italian series placing a young, Italian man of colour at the heart of its story, for the very first time, supported by a wholly multicultural cast of young, second generation immigrants, to tackle themes such as diversity, inclusion, gentrification and the sense of belonging within an outer suburb of Milan which has never been shown before. Directed by Paola Randi, Ivan Silvestrini, Margherita Ferri and Mohamed Hossameldin, Zero’s protagonist is Omar (newcomer Giuseppe Dave.

Italian author Antonio Dikele Distefano, who grew up in the northern Italian city of Ravenna, is the originator of new Netflix Original series “Zero,” which marks the first series centered around the present-day lives of Black Italian youth. The groundbreaking skein centers on a shy Black kid named Zero who can become invisible, and uses his superpower to try and save Milan’s Barrio neighborhood from gentrification.

The 28-year-old Distefano, who was born in Italy to Angolan parents, co-wrote the series, which was inspired by one of his books. The show was also created by comic book artist and screenwriter Menotti together with Stefano Voltaggio (who is also its creative executive producer), Massimo Vavassori, Carolina Cavalli and Lisandro Monaco.

The eight-episode “Zero” is produced by Fabula Pictures with the participation of Milan’s Red Joint Film. It will drop on Netflix on April 21. The episodes are directed by Paola Randi,...

Produced by Fabula Pictures, the series’ nine episodes directed by Paola Randi, Ivan Silvestrini, Margherita Ferri and Mohamed Hossameldin will be available from the beginning of 2021. Filming has kicked off on a new Italian Netflix Original Series Zero, which was born out of an idea from young Lombardian writer of Angolan origin Antonio Dikele Distefano and created by Menotti (the co-author of They Call Me Jeeg). Written by Dikele Distefano and Menotti, together with Stefano Voltaggio (who’s also Creative Executive Producer on the series) Massimo Vavassori, Carolina Cavalli and Lisandro Monaco, Zero tells the tale of a shy boy with the extraordinary superpower of invisibility. He’s not so much a superhero as a modern hero who discovers his powers when Barrio, a peripheral neighbourhood in Milan from which he longs to escape, finds itself in peril. Zero will have to step into the uncomfortable shoes of a hero,...

Take a large serving of The Others, throw in a few pinches of The Village and add a dash or two of the 2018 art house critical darling Happy as Lazarro, and you’ll wind up with something close to The Nest (Il Nido).

Far from original, yet intriguing and well-realized enough to keep you in your seat until the final, rather predictable, reveal, Italian director Roberto De Feo’s debut feature premiered in Locarno’s Piazze Grande section and seems like a decent candidate for streaming services beyond the boot.

Written by De Feo, Lucio Besana and Margherita Ferri, the script follows a ...

Take a large serving of The Others, throw in a few pinches of The Village and add a dash or two of the 2018 art house critical darling Happy as Lazarro, and you’ll wind up with something close to The Nest (Il Nido).

Far from original, yet intriguing and well-realized enough to keep you in your seat until the final, rather predictable, reveal, Italian director Roberto De Feo’s debut feature premiered in Locarno’s Piazze Grande section and seems like a decent candidate for streaming services beyond the boot.

Written by De Feo, Lucio Besana and Margherita Ferri, the script follows a ...

Inside Out Toronto, Canada’s leading Lgbtq film festival, announced its full lineup for its 29th edition today, including news that the Taron Egerton-starring Elton biopic “Rocketman” will open the festival following its Cannes premiere. Mindy Kaling’s “Late Night” will close the festival, with Netflix’s update to “Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City” featured as a centerpiece presentation.

The festival also announced Thursday a new four-year partnership with Netflix in support of Lgbtq filmmakers in Canada. The strategic partnership will begin with the 2019 edition of the festival, which runs May 23 – June 2. Through Inside Out’s Lgbtq Film Financing Forum, the first of its kind in the world, the Netflix funds will be used to expand Inside Out’s professional development and mentorship programming to develop the next generation of Canadian creators and talent.

“Inside Out is committed to establishing itself as the home of Lgbtq filmmakers,...

The Venice Film Festival will join its European festival brethren and will sign a gender parity protocol recently embraced by Cannes, Locarno, and Sarajevo. Variety reports that the festival’s parent organization, the Venice Biennale, will sign the 5050×2020 pledge at a news conference today. As the outlet reports, “the protocol involves pledges to practices that Venice officials say are already in place at their event: issuing statistics on the number of films submitted; being transparent about the members of the selection and programming committees; and reaching an even gender ratio in the organization’s top management.”

At today’s news conference, the Biennale is expected to sign the protocol alongside Italian organizations Dissenso Comune and Women in Film, TV & Media Italia. Per Variety, “the agreement follows what the two organizations say have been friendly and constructive discussions that were protracted in part because the Biennale is a multidisciplinary organization extending to other arts beyond film,...

This year’s Venice Film Festival lineup has some world class auteurs on display — from Alfonso Cuaron to the Coen brothers — but once again, female filmmakers didn’t fare so well. Among the 21 films announced as part of this year’s competition lineup, only one is directed by a woman: Jennifer Kent’s “The Nightingale,” the Australian filmmaker’s followup to her lauded “The Babadook.” Moreover, among the 60 films picked as part of the festival’s “Official Selection”, just eight were directed by women. Other female filmmakers represented on the slate include Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Mary Harron, Sarah Marx, and Margherita Ferri.

In recent years, the annual festival has similarly fallen short when it comes to women-directed films, averaging just one in a field of 18 to 22 selections over the past six years. It wasn’t always this way: in 2012, 2011, 2009, the festival hosted four competition titles from women, but their representation has seriously dipped.

Non-FictionThe programme for the 2018 edition of the Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, and includes new films from Tsai Ming-liang, Frederick Wiseman, Sergei Loznitsa, Olivier Assayas, the Coen Brothers, and many more.COMPETITIONFirst Man (Damien Chazelle)The Mountain (Rick Alverson)Non-Fiction (Olivier Assayas)The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard)The Ballad of Buster ScruggsVox Lux (Brady Corbet)Roma (Alfonso Cuarón)22 July (Paul Greengrass)Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino)Werk ohne autor (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent)The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos)Peterloo (Mike Leigh)Capri-revolution (Mario Martone)What You Gonna Do When the World's On Fire? (Roberto Minervini)Sunset (László Nemes)Frères ennemis (David Oeloffen)Where Life is Born (Carlos Reygadas)At Eternity's Gate (Julian Schnabel)Acusada (Gonzalo Tobal)Killing (Shinya Tsukamoto)Out Of COMPETITIONFeaturesThe Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles)They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (Morgan Neville)L'amica geniale (Saverio Costanzo)Il diario di angela - noi...

The Venice Film Festival is celebrating its 75th year in 2018 with a star-studded lineup that includes world premieres from Damien Chazelle, Bradley Cooper, Luca Guadagnino, and Alfonso Cuarón. The festival takes place August 29 to September 8 and marks the official kickoff of the 2018 fall awards season.

As has been previously announced, Damien Chazelle will open the festival with the world premiere of “First Man.” The space race drama stars Chazelle’s “La La Land” Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong and recounts the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. The world premiere will be Chazelle’s second Venice opener after “La La Land.” Also confirmed prior to the announcement lineup was Bradley Cooper’s “A Star Is Born,” which marks the actor’s directorial debut.

Check out the full lineup for the 2018 Venice Film Festival below. This year’s competition jury is led by Guillermo del Toro, who won the...