News

The news that two hitherto heterosexual patriarchs are getting married — to each other — roils both of their families in amiable “An Almost Ordinary Summer.” This slickly produced . Released last February on its home turf, the Italian comedy was selected to open this year’s Palm Springs Film Festival following several other prominent American fest screenings. Wolfe will give it a limited U.S. theatrical release on Jan. 10, with a home-formats launch on Jan. 21.

A spectacularly situated cliffside villa in coastal Gaeta is the getaway home for wealthy art dealer Toni (Fabrizio Bentivoglio), who has gathered his Earth Mother sister (Lunetta Savino) and his daughters there for his birthday. Somewhat to their surprise, he’s supposedly rented out the guest house to a clan of working-class strangers led by Roman fishmonger Carlo (Alessandro Gassmann).

But this turns out to be a ruse. In fact, Toni and Carlo have been seeing each other for over a year,...

With a focus on Italian films accompanying a large selection of international features, most of which are competing for Oscars, the 31st annual Palm Springs Intl. Film Festival will run Jan. 3-12.

“An Almost Ordinary Summer,” directed by Simone Godano, will kick off the festival on Jan. 3. Other Italian films to unspool are “The Champion,” “Simple Women,” “The Disappearance of My Mother,” “A Soul Journey,” “Martin Eden,” “Sole” and “The Traitor.”

The festival will close Jan. 12 with “Military Wives,” directed by Peter Cattaneo.

Last year, Psiff attracted more than 136,000 attendees and festival organizers anticipate just as many in 2020.

“Some of our guests get a chance to see 40 movies in 10 days,” says festival chairman Harold Matzner. “I don’t know how they do it, but they do, and it’s an incredible cultural experience.”

For her inaugural year, artistic director Lili Rodriguez added big awards season contenders including “Pain and Glory,...

In today’s film news roundup, Jesse Eisenberg is starring and exec producing “Wild Indian”; Jason Bateman is directing “Shut In”; “Saturday Night Live” veteran Paula Pell is honored; and the Palm Springs Film Festival sets its opening and closing films.

Casting

Jesse Eisenberg is starring in and executive producing the independent thriller “Wild Indian,” Variety has learned exclusively.

“Wild Indian,” written and directed by Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr., also stars Michael Greyeyes, Chaske Spencer, Kate Bosworth and Scott Haze (“Venom”). The film, shooting in Oklahoma City, was developed as part of the Sundance Institute Writers and Directors Lab as well as Sundance Catalyst.

The story follows two Anishinaabe men who are inextricably bound together after covering up the savage murder of a schoolmate. After years of separation following wildly divergent paths, they must finally confront how their traumatic secret has irrevocably shaped their lives. Greyeyes plays a character who...

One hundred eighty-eight films films from 81 countries including 51 premieres highlight the lineup for the 31st annual Palm Springs International Film Festival, which kicks off January 2 with a star-studded gala that has become a must-stop during awards season for Oscar hopefuls. The festival, which runs through January 13, also is known for showcasing a large number of submissions in the Motion Picture Academy’s International Film (formerly Foreign Language) competition and will feature 51 of those entries.

The opening-night film on January 3 is the Italian farce An Almost Ordinary Summer, while the closer is director Peter Cattaneo’s heartwarming dramedy Military Wives in which Kristin Scott Thomas, Sharon Horgan and Jason Flemyng lead a superb ensemble cast. The film had its world premiere at September’s Toronto International Film Festival and became an instant crowd-pleaser. Bleecker Street releases it in 2020.

Among the previously announced honorees at the January 2 gala are Antonio Banderas, Renee Zellweger,...

The 2020 Palm Springs International Film Festival will open on Jan. 3 with Simone Godano’s Italian farce “An Almost Ordinary Summer” and close on Jan. 12 with Peter Cattaneo’s Kristin Scott Thomas/Sharon Horgan film “Military Wives,” Psiff organizers announced on Tuesday.

The festival will screen 188 films from 81 different countries, including 51 of the 91 Oscar entries in the Best International Feature Film category. Those films will include Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” Pedro Almodovar’s “Pain and Glory,” Ladj Ly’s “Les Miserables,” Karim Ainouz’s “Invisible Life,” Halina Reijn’s “Instinct,” Yaron Zilberman’s “Incitement,” Vaclav Marhoul’s “The Painted Bird,” Kantemir Balagov’s “Beanpole,” Lila Aviles’ “The Chambermaid” and Antoneta Kastrati’s “Zana.”

Other programs will include the Talking Pictures series of conversations with filmmakers and authors from “Hustlers,” “Jojo Rabbit” and “Motherless Brooklyn”; Focus on Italy, featuring seven Italian films including “The Traitor”; Modern Masters, which will present new films from Roy Andersson,...

The 2020 Palm Springs International Film Festival will open with the Italian comedy An Almost Ordinary Summer and screen 51 submissions for best international feature film Oscar consideration, among many other titles, the festival announced Tuesday.

The event, which is set to run Jan. 3-12, will close with the Peter Cattaneo dramedy Military Wives; feature a special sidebar for Italian film; and play host to authors whose books were adapted into the films Hustlers, JoJo Rabbit and Motherless Brooklyn (it will also screen those films). One-hundred eighty-eight films in total will play across the festival from 81 countries. The fest will include seven world ...

The 2020 Palm Springs International Film Festival will open with the Italian comedy An Almost Ordinary Summer and screen 51 submissions for best international feature film Oscar consideration, among many other titles, the festival announced Tuesday.

The event, which is set to run Jan. 3-12, will close with the Peter Cattaneo dramedy Military Wives; feature a special sidebar for Italian film; and play host to authors whose books were adapted into the films Hustlers, JoJo Rabbit and Motherless Brooklyn (it will also screen those films). One-hundred eighty-eight films in total will play across the festival from 81 countries. The fest will include seven world ...

Leading Italian sales company True Colors has closed a slew of sales at the Cannes Market and landed North American deals on horror pic “In The Trap” and gay-themed comedy “An Almost Ordinary Summer,” acquired respectively by Mpi Media Group and Wolfe Releasing.

The English-language “In The Trap” (pictured) directed by Italy’s Alessio Liguori as his feature-film debut, and produced by Italian shingles Dreamworld Movies and Mad Rocket Entertainment generated a flurry of deals, confirming the growing global appetite for horror titles and the resurgence of Italy’s capability to churn out chillers that can travel.

“In The Trap,” which features an international cast comprising South Africa’s David Bailie (“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”), and Sonya Cullingford (“The Mummy”), is about a solitary proof reader trapped by fear in his apartment where he is tortured by an unknown evil force. Besides the U.S. and Canada,...