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Early Life and Beginnings

Born on February 7, 1968, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Diego Olivera stepped into the world of acting at a young age. His career began at 12 with the play Escenas de la Calle (Scenes of the Street) at Teatro San Martín. Under the guidance of theater legends such as Alejandra Boero, Carlos Gandolfo, and Héctor Bidonde, he honed his craft, laying a solid foundation for a flourishing career in the entertainment industry.

Rise to Fame

Diego Olivera first gained widespread recognition as Darío in the Argentine television series Montaña Rusa. This role solidified his status as a beloved teen actor. His versatility as a performer soon led him to take on various roles in musicals, showcasing his singing talent in productions like La Bella y la Bestia (The Beauty and the Beast) and 101 Dálmatas (101 Dalmatians).

International Success

In 2006, while filming La Ley del Amor in Argentina, Olivera...

Marco Bellocchio is the 84-year-old Italian director behind films like “Fists in the Pocket” from 1965, “Vincere” from 2009, and “Devil in the Flesh” from 1986. His strict Catholic upbringing has led him to make films that take a critical eye toward the Church, condemning its politics and documented history of abuse. Now, he is taking the Church to task once again with his latest film, “Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara,” out May 24 from Cohen Media Group. Watch the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, below.

Here’s the official synopsis: “In 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education. Edgardo’s parents, distraught, will do...

If we don’t count the pandemic year, it will be four consecutive showings in Cannes for the maestro. The Traitor was in competition in 2019, docu item Il Traditore was a Cannes Premiere selection in 2021 and last year we got Esterno Notte – also a Cannes Premiere. This year Marco Bellocchio unveils classic moviemaking with Kidnapped (aka Rapito). This is the Italian filmmaker’s seventh trip (attempt) at the Palme d’Or after A Leap in the Dark (1980), Henry IV (1984), The Prince of Homburg (1997), The Nanny (1999), My Mother’s Smile (2002) and 2009’s Vincere.

The story of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy living in Bologna, Italy, who in 1858, after being secretly baptized, was forcibly taken from his family to be raised as a Christian.…...

At 83 years-old, Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio has been on a hot streak these past years, with the success both at home and abroad of his 2019 Sicilian mafia epic, The Traitor, and his first ever TV miniseries, Exterior, Night, playing well around Europe.

His latest feature — the 31st in a prolific career that began at age 24 with his breakout drama, Fists in the Pocket — is probably not his greatest, but that’s not really a put-down in a filmography filled with memorable work, including other recent movies like Vincere and Good Morning, Night.

Kidnapped (Rapito), a period piece about a Jewish boy taken away from his family to live in the Vatican in 1858, may not be on par with those titles, but it’s still an engaging and somewhat fascinating film, telling a true story that probes historic Italian antisemitism and the follies of the Catholic church.

Filled with the director...

Marco Bellocchio is always welcome in Cannes. The Italian maestro first landed a film in the Cannes FIlm Festival’s competition lineup back in 1980 with A Leap in the Dark and has been back regularly over the past two decades: in 1984 with Henry IV, 1987 for The Prince of Homburg, 1999 for The Nanny, 2002 for My Mother’s Smile, 2009 with Vincere, and 2019 with The Traitor. In 2021, the French festival gave him an honorary Palme d’Or for lifetime achievement.

Bellocchio’s latest feature, marking his eighth time in the Cannes competition is Kidnapped. Set in 1858, the film traces the true story of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish boy in Bologna who was secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby, transforming his fate. Back then, papal law for territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct rule of the Pope required all baptized children, regardless of their religious heritage, to receive a Catholic education.

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,...

“Cannes is going back to the future of cinema,” said Iris Knobloch, the new president of the Cannes Film Festival, unveiling the lineup for the 2023 event on Thursday. And looking at this year’s selection, it’s hard to argue with her.

The 76th Cannes International Film Festival looks like an all-killer, no-filler program, with some of the biggest names in international cinema, many of whom got their start on the Croisette, returning to that famed red carpet. The 2023 competition lineup includes new films from Wes Anderson, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ken Loach, Todd Haynes, Nanni Moretti and Aki Kaurismäki. In addition, Cannes has packed its out-of-competition screenings with blockbusters, including Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, as well as a new documentary from Oscar winner Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave).

Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, one of the director’s typically-quirky and star-studded affairs,...

Italian director, screenwriter and producer Marco Bellocchio has opened up about his career and upcoming projects during a masterclass at the 53rd edition of Visions du Réel, where he received an honorary award.

The 82-year-old master is guest of honor at the documentary film festival, which includes a retrospective of a dozen of his works and a screening of his latest film, “Marx Can Wait,” a documentary about his twin brother Camilo’s suicide in December 1968.

Featuring footage filmed during a family get-together, personal archive material and clips from his films, it is an intimate and poignant documentary that explores how his brother’s death deeply influenced Bellocchio’s work over the decades.

At the time, Bellocchio explained, “the revolution of ’68 was underway, there were protests and riots, and I said to myself ‘I have to do something.’ So in September, together with friends who had founded the Maoist movement,...

The Cannes Film Festival will pay tribute to veteran Italian director Marco Bellocchio, giving the filmmaker behind The Traitor (2019), Vincere (2009), and The Nanny (1999) a lifetime achievement Palme d’Or.

Bellocchio is a regular on the Croisette, having screened seven films in competition in Cannes, starting with A Leap in the Dark in 1980 and most recently gracing the festival red carpet with the 2019 drama The Traitor. Bellocchio will receive his honorary Palme d’Or at the festival’s closing ceremony on July 17. On July 16, the director will also screen his latest, the documentary Marx Can Wait, as part of Cannes’ non-competition ...

The Cannes Film Festival will pay tribute to veteran Italian director Marco Bellocchio, giving the filmmaker behind The Traitor (2019), Vincere (2009), and The Nanny (1999) a lifetime achievement Palme d’Or.

Bellocchio is a regular on the Croisette, having screened seven films in competition in Cannes, starting with A Leap in the Dark in 1980 and most recently gracing the festival red carpet with the 2019 drama The Traitor. Bellocchio will receive his honorary Palme d’Or at the festival’s closing ceremony on July 17. On July 16, the director will also screen his latest, the documentary Marx Can Wait, as part of Cannes’ non-competition ...

Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio (“The Traitor”) is set to reconstruct the true-life drama of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish boy kidnapped and converted to Catholicism in 1858. It’s a story that Steven Spielberg was in advanced stages to bring to the screen a few years ago.

Mortara was a young Jewish boy living in Bologna, Italy, who in 1858, after being secretly baptized, was forcibly taken from his family to be raised as a Christian. His parents’ struggle to free their son became part of a larger political battle that pitted the papacy against forces of democracy and Italian unification. Mortara went on to become a priest in the Augustinian order.

Unlike Spielberg — who announced his Mortara drama in 2014 based on a book by U.S. academic David Kertzer — Bellocchio is basing his pic, titled “La conversione” (“The Conversion”), on first-hand documents. Spielberg’s project reportedly lost steam after he was unable...

NBC’s The Voice and ABC’s Dancing With the Stars tied for the night’s top ratings spot Monday in primetime. The Voice entered its first round of socially distanced battles to earn a 1.0 in the adults 18-49 demographic and 7.10 million viewers, steady in the demo compared with last week while slipping in viewership.

The two-hour episode was followed by Weakest Link, which dipped in the demo from its last fresh episode.

On ABC, DWTS grew three tenths in the demo from last week as the dancing competition revealed its semifinalists. The two-hour was a good lead-in to The Good Doctor which ticked up in the demo from last week’s premiere.

The network’s numbers are likely to be adjusted in the finals due to local NFL preemptions, but for now it swept the night overall in the demo and viewers. NBC was second in...

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...

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi has been cast as a morally and economically bankrupt matron in Italian director Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli’s movie adaptation of “The Time of Indifference,” author Alberto Moravia’s scathing critique of the Fascist-era bourgeoisie.

Seràgnoli, a young helmer known for “Last Summer” and “Likemeback” – which bowed at the Rome and Locarno fests, respectively – has started shooting his contemporary take on the widely translated novel in Rome. First published in 1929, when Moravia was 21, “Gli Indifferenti” captured the middle-class malaise of its time and established Moravia as a world-class writer.

The story sees members of an upper-crust Rome family reacting to a financial crisis that is undermining their social status. Mariagrazia, played by Bruni Tedeschi, is a widow with an unscrupulous lover, Leo, played by Edoardo Pesce (“Dogman”). She has two children by her dead husband: Carla, whom Leo has the hots for, and Michele, who is aware that...

Claudio Giovannesi with Anne-Katrin Titze on Francesco Di Napoli's Nicola in Piranhas (La Paranza Dei Bambini): "After this movie I met Giorgio Armani because Giorgio Armani watched the movie and fell in love with the main character." Photo: Lilia Blouin

Claudio Giovannesi's Piranhas (La Paranza Dei Bambini), co-written with Roberto Saviano (author of The Piranhas: The Boy Bosses Of Naples) and Maurizio Braucchi, stars Francesco Di Napoli with Luca Nacarlo, Viviana Aprea, Ar Tem, Ciro Vecchione, Alfredo Turitto, Pasquale Marotta, Ciro Pellechia, Carmine Pizzo, and Mattia Piano Del Balzo. As the director states, it "is a movie on adolescents who make a choice of a life of crime, but it starts out as a game. And then this game ends up evolving into a war."

Claudio Giovannesi on Nicola (Francesco Di Napoli) with Letizia (Viviana Aprea) in Piranhas: "It is a film in which the age of the protagonists is a protagonist itself.

For decades Marco Bellocchio has been making films dealing with important moments of Italian history, most successfully with Good Morning, Night, his look at the Aldo Moro kidnapping by the Red Brigade, and Vincere, about Mussolini. He’s back in Cannes with a film in competition, this time looking at the maxi Mafia trials of the 1990s, which led to a slew of convictions, in part thanks to the traitor of the title, ex-Cosa Nostra ‘soldier’ turned state witness Tommaso Buscetta.

Buscetta is played by the extremely watchable Pierfrancesco Favino, whose portrayal of this don is both highly credible and somewhat disturbing. The latter is not due to Favino’s performance, which is one of his best, but to the director’s choice to depict Buscetta as a man of honour. Instances of Buscetta’s past are glimpsed throughout the film, but there is little evidence of what this man...

Master filmmaker Marco Bellocchio returns to Cannes (he was last there for 2016’s Sweet Dreams – a Directors’ Fortnight entry) for what will be his sixth trip to Palme d’Or comp. Dating back to A Leap in the Dark (1980), he has been there with 1984’s Henry IV, 1997’s The Prince of Homburg, 1999’s The Nanny, 2002’s My Mother’s Smile and 2009’s Vincere. The Traitor looks to see him continue with exploring what lurks behind the scenes with a look at one person who breaks the code of silence.

A return to form for the master filmmaker, this collected several rave reviews/critical reception over the past 24 hours.…...

Almost an hour into Marco Bellocchio’s “The Traitor” — a lively but scattershot and exasperating biopic about Tommaso Buscetta, the first Sicilian mob boss to become an informant for the authorities — the film’s charismatic protagonist (Pierfrancesco Favino) tells an interrogator a story about one of the first men he was ever assigned to kill. Bellocchio then cuts to a brief flashback that offers us more about his subject than the rest of this two-and-a-half hour film combined. The young Buscetta sees his target across a courtyard, and his target sees him. Knowing that Buscetta is there to kill him, the man takes his baby son into his arms for protection, hoping that his assassin wouldn’t risk endangering the life of an innocent child. Buscetta, a dignified man who sincerely believes his beloved Cosa Nostra was once a society of honor, can’t bring himself to take the shot.

What surprises most about Marco Bellocchio’s Mafia drama “The Traitor” is just how straightforward it is. Given its subject — Tommaso Buscetta, the highest-ranking Mafia don to sing to the authorities — there were expectations that the director would deliver a theatrical drama along the lines of “Vincere,” but notwithstanding a few operatic flourishes, his latest seems to realize the built-in theatrical elements are already so histrionic that it’s best to play them as direct as possible. Consequently, “The Traitor” feels a bit too anonymous. It’s clearly made by a master filmmaker questioning the nature of repentance, and as such is far from superficial; and yet while it never loses our attention, it also doesn’t deliver much of a punch.

Non-Italian audiences may feel a bit overwhelmed at first by the avalanche of names, helpfully spelled out on screen, but the characters who matter come to the fore...

Nineteen films are in contention for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which runs from May 14 to May 25. The history of a filmmaker at this festival can offer wisdom as to who could be out front to win the coveted Palme d’Or. Seven of the entries are by filmmakers that have been honored during past closing ceremonies. Newcomers to Cannes could end up being big winners with three filmmakers making their first appearance on the Croisette and another four having their films shown for the first time in competition. The jury will be headed by four-time Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu, who claimed the Best Director prize at Cannes in 2006 for “Babel.”

Below is a breakdown of the 19 films competing this year and the history of their helmers at the festival.

Pedro Almodóvar (“Pain and Glory”)

The acclaimed Spanish director is back at Cannes...

Ahead of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Screen looks back at the hits and misses of 2009 according to our jury of critics.

Screen’s jury of international critics has long been a strong diviner as to what will win the top prizes at the Cannes Film Festival – and 2009 was no different.

Topping the grid was Jacques Audiard’s crime drama A Prophet, starring then newcomer Tahar Rahim, which scored an impressive 3.4 out of 4 and went on to win to the festival’s Grand Prix.

The winner of the coveted Palme d’Or was Michael Haneke’s chilling pre-war drama The White Ribbon, which came a close joint second on the grid with 3.3 alongside Jane Campion’s period romance Bright Star.

While the Palme d’Or alluded Audiard in 2009, the French filmmaker returned in 2015 with Dheepan and picked up the festival’s top prize.

The 2009 line-up also featured a divisively generous portion of violence courtesy of [link...

Sweet Dreams

Director: Marco Bellocchio

Writer: Massimo Gramellini

Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio shows no signs of slowing down in his sixth decade of filmmaking. Hot off his Venice 2015 premiere of his intriguing historical drama/social comedy Blood of My Blood, Bellocchio set to work on filming Sweet Dreams, an adaptation of a novel by Massimo Gramellini about a secret kept sealed in an envelope for forty years, and a woman assisting a man who suffers from unresolved issues over the death of his mother when he was a young boy. French actress Bérénice Bejo joins a cast of notable Italian actors, including Valerio Mastandrea as the tortured protagonist.

Cast: Bérénice Bejo, Valerio Mastandrea, Fabrizio Gifuni, Barbara Ronchi

Production Co./Producers: Ibc Movie’s Beppe Caschetto, Kavac, Rai Cinema

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. Tbd (domestic) Match Factory (international).

Release Date: Though he premiered Vincere at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, Bellocchio...

As usual, the Masters programme is cholk-full of carryover items from world renowned auteurs who’ve already premiered last February (Berlin), this past May (Cannes) or as part of the upcoming action on the Lido (Venice). Of the thirteen titles and personalities that need no introduction, it’s the likes of Hong Sang-soo (Locarno) and the Venice preemed, and not yet picked up items from Skolimowski, Bellocchio & Sokurov (all potential Golden Lion winners) that are still sight unseen for several North American based cinephiles. Here are the baker’s dozen of items:

11 Minutes (11 Minut) – Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/Ireland

North American Premiere

A jealous husband out of control, his sexy actress wife, a sleazy Hollywood director, a reckless drug messenger, a disoriented young woman, an ex-con hot dog vendor, a troubled student on a mysterious mission, a high-rise window cleaner on an illicit break, an elderly sketch artist, a hectic paramedics...

While the Toronto International Film Festival has its fair share of both Hollywood and Canadian productions, the festival has also cultivated a strong look at foreign and arthouse films during its run. Most of these films get their own spotlight in the Masters programme, which featured films from Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Winterbottom, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan in its 2014 lineup. With the 2015 incarnation fast approaching, Tiff announced some of the films that will be seen as part of this year’s Masters lineup. The films, with their official synopses, can be seen below.

Masters

11 Minutes, directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, making its North American Premiere

A jealous husband out of control, his sexy actress wife, a sleazy Hollywood director, a reckless drug messenger, a disoriented young woman, an ex-con hot dog vendor, a troubled student on a mysterious mission, a high-rise window cleaner on an illicit break, an elderly sketch artist, a...

Alba Rohrwacher, whose filmmaker sister Alice Rohrwacher has a short film debuting at the fest this year, won Venice's Best Actress prize last year for her deranged and mesmerizing performance in "Hungry Hearts." She returns to the Lido this year with another creepy-looking film, "Blood of My Blood," from director Marco Bellocchio. He made 2009's splashy, flashy and gorgeous Mussolini romance "Vincere," and competed for the Golden Lion in 2012 with "Dormant Beauty." Venice awarded this prolific Italian auteur a lifetime achievement award in 2011. Check out the trailer for his 2015 Venice premiere, a period drama set in Northern Italy, 17th century when, in a monastery, "a nun accused of witchcraft seduces a young confessor who refuses to yield to his searing temptation. A fight of desires, illusions and lies that will unexpectedly vibrate until nowadays..." No subtitles, alas. Read More: 'The Danish Girl' and 'A Bigger Splash' Join...

Hong Sang-soo's Right Now, Wrong Then.The lineup for the 2015 festival has been revealed, including new films by Hong Sang-soo, Andrzej Zulawski, Chantal Akerman, Athina Rachel Tsangari, and others, alongside retrospectives and tributes dedicated to Sam Peckinpah, Michael Cimino, Bulle Ogier, and much more.Piazza GRANDERicki and the Flash (Jonathan Demme, USA)La belle saison (Catherine Corsini, France)Le dernier passage (Pascal Magontier, France)Der staat gegen Fritz Bauer (Lars Kraume, Germany)Southpaw (Antoine Fuqua, USA)Trainwreck (Judd Apatow, USA)Jack (Elisabeth Scharang, Austria)Floride (Philippe Le Guay, France)The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, UK/USA)Erlkönig (Georges Schwizgebel, Switzerland)Guibord s'en va-t-en guerre (Philippe Falardeau, Canada)Bombay Velvet (Anurag Kashyap, India)Pastorale cilentana (Mario Martone, Italy)La vanite (Lionel Baier, Switzerland/France)The Laundryman (Lee Chung, Taiwan)Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, USA) I pugni ni tasca (Marco Bellocchio, Italy)Heliopolis (Sérgio Machado, Brazil)Amnesia (Barbet Schroeder,...

Exclusive: New Alba Rohrwacher drama among trio.

Indie sales powerhouse The Match Factory has struck a three-film deal with Cannes regular Marco Bellocchio, which includes the acclaimed director’s next two films and his directorial debut Fists in the Pocket (I Pugni in Tasca).

Alba Rohrwacher, star of Hungry Hearts and The Wonders, is set to reteam with the Dormant Beauty director on Blood of my Blood (Sangue Del Mio Sangue).

The actress stars alongside Filippo Timi (Vincere), Roberto Herlitzka (The Great Beauty), Pier Giorgio Bellocchio and Lidyia Liberman in the film currently near completion which Bellocchio describes as a story about “love for the past and the need to make a clean break with it”.

The film is a co-production between Simone Gattoni of Kavac Film, Beppe Caschetto of Ibc Movie, Tiziana Soudani of Amka Films Production, Fabio Conversi of Barbary Films and Rai Cinema.

The deal will also include Sweet Dreams (Fai Bei Sogni) - announced...

L’ultimo Vampiro

Director: Marco Bellocchio // Writer: Marco Bellocchio

Marco Bellocchio is a key figure from mid-60s radical Italian cinema with his 1965 film Fists in the Pocket. He’s gone on to enjoy a steady filmography with intermittent renewals of interest in his work, such as critical hits with titles like Good Morning, Night (2003), and, most recently with his scalding Vincere (2009). While we found his Isabelle Huppert/Toni Servillo headlined euthanasia film Dormant Beauty (2012) to be a bit overwrought (we interviewed the filmmaker then) , we’re excited to see his latest, which has received a provocative new title, L’ultimo Vampiro (The Last Vampire)—formerly known as La Monaca. Bellocchio reunites with Rohrwacher and his regular cast mate Roberto Herlitzka for this tale based on the true tale of a 17th century noblewoman forced to become a nun, but whose free-spirited love affairs inside the convent lead to incarceration.

A still from Vinay Shukla and Khushboo Ranka’s Proposition for a Revolution

Nfdc Film Bazaar’s Work-in-Progress Lab has announced its selection in Fiction and Documentary categories.

The Work-in-Progress (Wip) Lab gives filmmakers a chance to have their rough-cut feature-length films viewed by an eminent panel of international advisers. These advisers have a one-on-one discussion with the filmmaker with an intention to help the filmmaker achieve an accomplished final cut of the film.

Nfdc Film Bazaar 2014 will be held from November 20-24 in Goa Mariott Resort.

Work-in-Progress Lab 2014:

Fiction :

Bokul by Reema Borah Highway by Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni Nil Battey Sannata by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari Tathagat by Manav Kaul Thithi by Raam Reddy

Documentary :

12 Acres by Rajesh Thind Maidaan (Home Ground) by Kavita Carneiro Nehi Mozo Hanü Dizo Le (Without You, I am Nothing) by Anushka Meenakshi and Iswar Srikumar Proposition for a Revolution by Khushboo Ranka...

A Summer’s Tale

Not Rated, 1 Hr., 54 Mins.

Originally released in 1996 in France (but never before in the U.S.), Eric Rohmer’s sun-kissed love quadrangle remains as fresh and romantically profound as it was 18 years ago. Melvil Poupaud plays Gaspard, a mopey young man who heads to a seaside resort in Brittany looking for a girl…and ends up finding three. Quelle chance! It’s obvious from the start that Amanda Langlet’s pixieish Margot is the One, especially after a series of long platonic walks and soul-searching talks. But Rohmer would rather torture the poor cad for not...

Sleepytime Drama: Bellocchio Messy Message Movie

After yet another career peak with his 2009 film Vincere, Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio continues his examination of Italian society with Dormant Beauty, a treatise on Italy’s hot button issue of euthanasia. Bellocchio managed to score one of the cinema’s most talented actresses ever to appear on screen when he signed French actress Isabelle Huppert (no stranger to Italian cinema (see a 1996 Goethe adaptation, Elective Affinities from Vittorio and Paolo Taviani), so it’s so unfortunate that this latest endeavor is so unconvincing in all regards.

At the core, based on a true story, the film revolves around three separate storylines, all going on in the last 8 days of Eluana Englaro’s life in February, 2009. Her father, Beppe Englaro, had decided to take his daughter off of life support after she’d been in a coma for 17 years, which divided the country concerning...

Marco Bellocchio is one of the great filmmakers of Italian cinema, and, still working at 74, he may be the greatest of those living. But his movies, when they're released in the States at all, come and go like zephyrs. Even filmgoers who take all kinds of cinema seriously had to work to seek out Vincere, Bellocchio's stark 2009 drama about Mussolini and his secret first wife, Ida Dalser (featuring a blazing lead performance by Giovanna Mezzogiorno), or his 2003 thriller Good Morning, Night, about a Red Brigade revolutionary who suffers a crisis of conscience over her involvement in the kidnaping of Aldo Moro. And now, at last, Bellocchio's persuasive, delicately textured 2012 Dormant Beauty is getting a U.S. release. Don't let this one slip through your fingers. </...

La Monaca (La Prigione di Bobbio)

Director: Marco Bellocchio

Writer: Marco Bellocchio

Producer: Simone Gattoni

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Ambra Angiolini, Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, Lidiya Liberman, Alberto Bellocchio

Bellocchio-ian themes of the church, the state and politics appear will likely all be sewn into a project that the Italian helmer has been trying to get off the ground for some time now and the reasoning for this is that after a glossed biopic-truth story of Bella addormentata, Marco Bellocchio is, according to Variety, working in “the free-flowing spirit” of Sorelle Mai (a rare experimental film in his filmography) and uses a mix of both professional and non-pro actors. In terms of incarcerated or held against their will female figures, look for La Monaca to be definitely be less-polished than Vincere.

Gist: Based on the true tale of a 17th century noblewoman forced to become a nun, but whose...

On a rainy Friday at high noon in New York City, I met for a conversation with Marco Bellocchio on his latest film, the provoking Dormant Beauty (Bella addormentata), which screens in this year's Open Roads: New Italian Cinema at the city's Lincoln Center. His drama, starring Isabelle Huppert and Toni Servillo, explores Italian concerns in the wake of the famous real-life euthanasia case of Eluana Englaro. We discussed how he used Hillary Clinton as a marker of time, what it takes to awaken a sleeping giant, and Isabelle Huppert. We talked about the contrast in style and form of his 2009 film Vincere and the socio-political religious climate of a more contemporary Italy through sleeping beauties.

Anne-Katrin Titze: I would like to start with the fascinating structure of your film. You interweave three or four stories around the real life case of Eluana Englaro, who had been...

★★☆☆☆ Marco Bellocchio has often used real-life dramatic Italian events as the backdrop to his films. Good Morning, Night (2003) dealt with the Aldo Moro kidnapping in the 1970s, whilst Vincere (2009) focussed on Mussolini's lover Ida Dalsa. Dormant Beauty (Bella Addormentata, 2012) revolves around the story of Eluana Englaro, a young woman who lived in a vegetative state for 17 years before her death in 2009. Her death was a media sensation and provoked a nationwide and political debate on the question of euthanasia. The film is a collection of different stories, each connected to Eluana's predicament.

Read more »...

Always a favorite of ours, French actress Isabelle Huppert has taken things to the next level this year, juggling a handful of arthouse/festival flicks from filmmakers such as Hong Sang-Soo, Brilliante Mendoza and Michael Haneke, with upcoming roles in more mainstream efforts such as that in "Dead Man Down" opposite Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace, David Gordon Green's upcoming "Suspiria" remake, and two-parter "The Disappearnce Of Eleanor Rigby" with Jessica Chastain. Falling under the first category of Huppert's recent choices is the actress' teaming with Italian helmer Marco Bellocchio ("Vincere," "Fists In The Pocket") on "Dormant Beauty," which now has a teaser trailer on the eve of its appearance at the Lido later this month. The film also stars Toni Servillo ("Il Divo"), Alba Rohwacher ("I Am Love"), Michele Riondino and Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, and is inspired by the...

Toronto – On July 24th, Piers Handling, CEO and Director of Tiff, and Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director, unveiled some of the films that will headline the 37th Toronto International Film Festival.

According to Bailey, Tiff 2012 will include the “most diverse Gala programme to date with films from Japan, China, India, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Italy, USA and Canada”.

Handling describes this year’s festival as looking “particularly strong” with a wide variety of work from “established and emerging filmmakers.”

Toronto audiences will be first in line to see many “exciting and prestigious films” with further announcements slated in the coming weeks. Until then, here is a sample of what you can expect to see:

Looper (Opening Night film, World Premiere)

Rian Johnson, USA

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels

Directed by Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom), Looper is a futuristic action thriller set in a...

Isabelle Huppert continues to stay busy on the festival circuit after two films (Michael Haneke‘s Amour and Sang-soo Hong’s In Another Country) saw premieres at Cannes. The talented actress is back, this time at Toronto International Film Festival, leading a film titled Dormant Beauty.

From Italian director Marco Bellocchio, who brought us Vincere, Fists in the Pocket and Good Morning, Night, the film takes us through the true-life events of Eluana Englaro. The woman went into a vegetative state for 17 years and this drama takes a look at the final six days of her life as we bounce around between interconnected characters. The real-life event sparked many debates about euthanasia and now we can see a glimpse at Bellocchio’s take below with the first teaser, as well as a batch of new photos.

Tiff kicks off on September 6th.

Toronto – On July 24th, Piers Handling, CEO and Director of Tiff, and Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director, unveiled some of the films that will headline the 37th Toronto International Film Festival.

According to Bailey, Tiff 2012 will include the “most diverse Gala programme to date with films from Japan, China, India, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Italy, USA and Canada”.

Handling describes this year’s festival as looking “particularly strong” with a wide variety of work from “established and emerging filmmakers.”

Toronto audiences will be first in line to see many “exciting and prestigious films” with further announcements slated in the coming weeks. Until then, here is a sample of what you can expect to see:

Looper (Opening Night film, World Premiere)

Rian Johnson, USA

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels

Directed by Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom), Looper is a futuristic action thriller set in a...

Is there anyone whose worked with a more diverse range of helmers in recent times than Isabelle Huppert? Probably not. Brilliante Mendoze, Hong Sang-soo, David O. Russell, Michael Haneke, Joachim Lafosse, Oliver Assayas, Raul Ruiz, Anna Fontaine and Claire Denis are just some the folk she's teamed with over the last decade or so, and only this morning she added David Gordon Green to the list, signing on to his remake of "Suspiria." And hot on its heels, another European helmer is now added to the list, in the shape of "Vincere" director Marco Bellocchio.

The duo will unite for "Dormant Beauty," a film inspired by the controversial true story of a woman named Eluana Englaro who died in 2009 after living in a vegetative state for 17 years, which sparked major debate on euthanasia in Italy. In actuality, though, Bellocchio's tale follows an over-the-hill actress (Huppert) caring in her home for her beautiful daughter,...

After making his directorial debut four decades ago with “Fists in the Pocket,” Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio has tackled many genres and styles, but one consistent characteristic has been his savage socio-political themes and undertones. His 2010 film, “Vincere,” proved to be the most explosive yet, capturing disgraced Italian leader Benito Mussolini’s rise to power from his abandoned wife’s perspective, and now he plans to do it again, this time with one of the world’s most talented actresses in tow.

Cineuropa reports that Bellocchio will explore the right-to-die issue with “Sleeping Beauty,” which follows three interconnected storylines against the backdrop of Italy’s 2009 Eluana Englaro controversy. “The Best of Youth” scribe Stefano Rulli and novelist Veronica Naimo supplied the script, which follows in one storyline a retired movie star, played by Isabelle Huppert, as she cares for her comatose daughter, and in another thread, Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher...

As with the 2009 original, the basic model for The Hangover Part II isn’t the Ferrell-Sandler-Carrell-Vaughn comedies but the noir quicksands of Maté’s D.O.A. and Nolan’s Memento, where dying or amnesic protagonists scramble to decipher the vortexes they’re in. The first film remained fairly repellent in its view of frat-house regression unquestioningly papered over with massive smirks, so it’s a nifty surprise to see Todd Phillips’s sequel willing to smear a dash of grime on the original’s outlandish morning-after routines even as it virtually recreates them. As the action shifts from Las Vegas to Bangkok and their dazed characters experience severed body parts and invaded orifices, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis amp up their screen personas—Alpha douchebag, elongated nervous Nellie and Zen Lou Costello, respectively—to an interestingly unpleasant degree, positing a stark comic version of the Hostel films...

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides looks to heat up the summer box-office this weekend, but what if that's not exactly your cup of tea? Luckily the art houses are offering up a solid slate of films for maybe the first time in 2011. There's a little something for everyone, so seek these films out if they happen to be playing in your city.

Everything Must Go Everything Must Go features the darkest role of Will Ferrell's career, that of a relapsed alcoholic who loses his job and his wife on the same day. While still funny, charming and everything else you'd expect from a great American indie, Everything Must Go also delivers a raw portrait of the horrors of alcoholism. Ferrell's "less is more" approach to the role knocks it out of the park and Christopher "Cj" Wallace, the son of the late Notorious B.I.G., is delightful as...

The International Cinephile Society announced their annual award winners this weekend, with Jacques Audiard's "A Prophet" leading a very eclectic and against-the-grain set of winners. None of them even nominated for Oscars, the five acting winners consisted of Édgar Ramírez taking best actor for "Carlos," Lesley Manville and Giovanna Mezzogiorno tying for best actress for "Another Year" and "Vincere," respectively, Olivia Williams winning best supporting actress for "The Ghost Writer," ...

• Marco Bellocchio hits out at withdrawal of producers

• 'New air of censorship' blamed for lack of cash

One of Italy's most successful and critically acclaimed film directors has hit out at a creeping climate of censorship in the country after he was refused funding for a dark satire about Silvio Berlusconi.

Marco Bellocchio, whose recent film Vincere has received rave reviews in the Us, said that he was abandoning his next project, Italia Mia (My Italy), after 10 potential backers had run scared.

Describing the film as a study of power in today's Italy, Bellocchio told the daily Corriere della Sera his protagonist would be a young girl caught up in "well-known circumstances that have ended up in all the newspapers", climaxing at a "huge party at a luxurious island villa, maybe in Sardinia or Sicily, where shocking things happen".

In a week in which Silvio Berlusconi – famous for throwing wild...

Apa has signed a slew of actors. Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile) was previously repped by Paradigm. He is managed by Industry Entertainment. Adam Beach, who will next be seen in Cowboys & Aliens, was formerly with Icm. He is managed by Industry. Giovanna Mezzogiorno (Vincere) is managed by Principal Entertainment. She was formerly at Paradigm. Matthew Modine will next be seen in the HBO film Too Big to Fail. He is managed by Untitled Entertainment and was formerly at Innovative. Former ER star Eriq Lasalle will next appear in the miniseries Black Out. He is managed by Principato Young. Burt Reynolds, managed by Klwg Entertainment, was formerly repped by Icm. CAA has signed 2 production companies: Firecracker Films, a U.K.- and U.S.-based reality production company that recently produced the two-hour My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding for Channel 4 in the U.K., and Zig Zag Prods.

iTunes Movie Trailers: Focus Features finally releases a clip of Julianne Moore’s show-stopping soliloquoy about marriage in “The Kids Are All Right” — and, as a fan of Moore’s, I’m furious. This should have been done months ago when it really could have made a difference, not five days before Oscar nomination ballots are due. At this point, virtually all of the heat for the film has been guided towards Moore’s co-star Annette Bening, and it seems doubtful that Moore’s prospects can be salvaged by anything.

The Facebook Effect: Today, several awards bloggers, including yours truly, received a copy of “The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World,” David Kirkpatrick’s authorized history of Facebook, from a prominent PR firm that is promoting its paperback release on February 1. The timing of this delivery struck some of us as a little strange,...

David Fincher's "The Social Network" topped the National Society of Film Critics Awards winning four categories including Best Picture, Best Actor (Jesse Eisenberg), Best Director for Fincher, and Aaron Sorkin winning Best Screenplay.

The best part of me? Olivia Williams from "The Ghost Writer" won Best Supporting Actress yay! Check out my interview with the actress when I met her for "Ghost Writer" and I told her -- she deserved to win Best Supporting Actress! Watch my interview with Williams right here.

Check the complete list of winners below (winners are highlighted -- numbers by names show total votes):

Best Actor

*1. Jesse Eisenberg 30 . The Social Network

2. Colin Firth 29 . The King.s Speech

2. Edgar Ramirez 29 . Carlos

Best Actress

*1. Giovanna Mezzogiorno 33 . Vincere

2. Annette Bening 28 . The Kids Are All Right

3. Lesley Manville 27 . Another Year

Best Actor In A Supporting Role

*1. Geoffrey Rush 33 . The King.s Speech

2. Christian Bale 32 . The Fighter

3. Jeremy Renner...

Rooney Mara and Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network

Photo: Columbia Pictures Over the last few days The Social Network has racked up a few more awards, this time taking home the top prize from both the National Society of Film Critics (Nsfc) and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists (Awfj).

Network virtually swept the Nsfc awards winning best picture, director (David Fincher), actor (Jesse Eisenberg) and screenplay (Aaron Sorkin). It also won picture, director and screenplay from the Awfj where it also won best score (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), but Colin Firth won the actor award for his performance in The King's Speech.

So, The Social Network continues its run, but this weekend is where it will face its first big tests at the Broadcast Film Critics Awards on Friday, January 14 and the Golden Globes on Sunday, January 16. Neither award show will serve to be the end all,...

The National Society of Film Critics, consisting of 61 of the top film critics in the country, released their 2010 awards, and The Social Network took most of the prizes including Best Picture, Best Director (David Fincher), Best Actor (Jesse Eisenberg), and Best Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin) [Roger Ebert's Blog].

The King’s Speech was reasonably well represented also, taking Best Supporting Actor with Geoffrey Rush, while garnering a number of runner-up awards. Elsewhere, True Grit took home Best Cinematography with Roger Deakins, cementing it as one of the only real genuine front-runners for the Oscars.

The documentary award went to Inside Job giving us one of our first looks into a tightly contested awards season race for documentaries. What might be more surprising there was the runner-up: Exit Through the Gift Shop. If Banksy‘s genre bending piece can pick up some momentum, we might be in for a 5-way dog-fight for this category.

Check...