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We’ve gotten a lot of werewolf movies over the decades and while some of them have been great, it still feels like we should have more great ones to turn to whenever we’re in the mood to watch some lycanthropic action. Lionsgate will be giving a new werewolf movie called Shadow of the Wolf a Digital and VOD release on March 25th, and while we’ll have to wait and see whether or not this one makes its way onto the list of great werewolf movies, we do know that it has a special ingredient none of the other greats have had: the Highlander himself, Christopher Lambert, is in the cast! You can see Lambert and a preview of some of the werewolf action in the trailer embedded above.

Directed by Alberto Gelpi (La mia seconda volta) from a screenplay by Viviana Panfili and Alessandro Riccardi, Shadow of the Wolf...

Italian distribution and production company Notorious Pictures is expanding into the TV series sphere by snapping up rights to buzzy literary property “Forbidden Notebook,” a 1952 novel by Italian-Cuban writer Alba de Céspedes that has been recently rediscovered and successfully republished in English.

De Céspedes has been described by the New York Times as “a bestselling novelist and political activist in her native Italy” admired for her sensitive depictions of women whose recently rediscovered work “has lost none of its subversive force.” She is considered a source of inspiration for Elena Ferrante, the Italian writer with legions of fervent fans around the world and whose four “Neapolitan Novels” have been adapted into the long-running “My Brilliant Friend” TV series by Italy’s Rai and HBO.

“We are pleased to announce the ambitious and important serial development of de Céspedes’ ‘Forbidden Notebook,’ said Notorious Pictures CEO Stefano Bethlen, who added that “we...

Friendship, mountains, growing up, and our changed rapport with the planet in the wake of the pandemic are the main elements in Cannes competition title “The Eight Mountains” by Belgian directors Felix van Groeningen (“Beautiful Boy”) and Charlotte Vandermeersch. (Watch the trailer above.)

The film is based on an Italian novel of the same title by Paolo Cognetti. It has won multiple awards in Italy and France and is also the author’s first book published in the U.S.

“The Eight Mountains” is a coming-of-age tale set over three decades about two young Italian boys — one, named Pietro, who is the son of a chemist, the other, Bruno, of a stonemason — who spend their childhoods together in a secluded Alpine village roaming the surrounding peaks and valleys before their paths diverge. Many years later, they reconnect in the same place.

The film marks the first foray into Italian-language filmmaking for Van Groeningen who,...

Closing out the summer, Mubi has unveiled their August 2021 lineup, kicking off most fittingly with Brett Story’s acclaimed recent documentary The Hottest August. Also among the lineup is Akira Kurosawa’s epic Ran, Fritz Lang’s hugely entertaining two-parter The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb. As his latest films arrive, Pablo Larraín’s The Club is also part of the lineup.

Xinyuan Zheng Lu’s Rotterdam winner The Cloud in Her Room is coming to Mubi in August, plus a “late film” special featuring Manoel de Olviera’s Gebo and the Shadow and The Last Sentence by Jan Troell. There will also be a canine double feature of Heddy Honigmann’s Buddy and Los Reyes by Bettina Perut and Ivan Osnovikoff.

See the lineup below and get 30 days of Mubi free here.

August 1 | The Hottest August | Brett Story

August 2 | Gebo and the Shadow | Manoel de Oliveria | Twilight...

The 70th Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled the six film professionals — three men and three women — who will join jury president Jeremy Irons in picking this year's Gold and Silver Bear winners.

Oscar-nominated French actress Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) and Oscar-winning screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea) will judge the competition lineup, alongside Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho (Bacurau, Aquarius) and Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir (Wajib, Salt of This Sea). Italian actor Luca Marinelli (Don't Be Bad, The Great Beauty) and German producer Bettina Brokemper, whose credits include Lars von Trier's Antichrist and The ...

The 70th Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled the six film professionals — three men and three women — who will join jury president Jeremy Irons in picking this year's Gold and Silver Bear winners.

Oscar-nominated French actress Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) and Oscar-winning screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea) will judge the competition lineup, alongside Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho (Bacurau, Aquarius) and Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir (Wajib, Salt of This Sea). Italian actor Luca Marinelli (Don't Be Bad, The Great Beauty) and German producer Bettina Brokemper, whose credits include Lars von Trier's Antichrist and The ...

Italy's Anica announced this morning that Claudio Caligari's "Don't Be Bad" (Non Essere Cattivo) will represent the country in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 88th Academy Awards. The film was selected from a 9-film shortlist.

The selection comes as a surprise given that most speculators considered Nanni Moretti's "Mia Madre" as the clear front-runner."Don't Be Bad" was veteran director Claudio Caligari's final film before he passed away in May of this year. Caligari was 67 years old. "Don Be Bad" swept the most recent Venice Film Festival winning a total of 10 awards. 

The official synopsis describes the film as follows:  "A story set in the 90s and in the outskirts of Rome to Ostia, the same places of the films of Pasolini. His characters, in the '90s, seem to belong to a world that revolves around hedonism. A world where money, luxury cars, night clubs, cocaine and synthetic drugs are easy to run. A world in which Vittorio and Cesare, in their early twenty, act in search of their success. Initiation for their existence has a very high cost and Vittorio, to save himself, abandons Cesare, who instead will inexorably sink. The bond that unites them is so strong that Vittorio really never shall abandon his friend, always hoping to be able to look to the future with new eyes. Together"

International sales are being handled by Rai Com. U.S. rights are still available.

Italy has the distinction of being the country with the most Academy Award wins in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Their most recent triumph came with Paolo Sorrentino's "The Great Beauty" in 2014.

Italy’s submission for best foreign-language film for the 88th Academy Awards is Non Essere Cattivo by Claudio Caligari. The film played out of competition in Venice this year. Detailing the high-partying life of two young friends, the film explores the life of excess in 1995 Ostia. In a life filled with clubs, cars, cocaine and booze, Vittorio (Alessandro Borghi) and Cesare (Luca Marinelli) can't be separated. When the call to find a greater purpose threatens to pull them and their lifestyles apart, they struggle to keep their bond strong. Caligari was influenced by Pier Paolo Pasolini in telling the

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Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl wins Queer Lion

Veteran director Marco Bellocchio’s Blood Of My Blood (Sangue Del Mio Sangue) has won the Fipresci Award at the 72nd Venice Film Festival (Sept 2-12).

The film is a vampire-themed period drama starring Alba Rohrwacher, who won last year’s Volpi prize for best actress with her performance in Hungry Hearts, as a 17th-century noblewoman who becomes a nun and seduces a young army officer and his twin brother. The film is sold by The Match Factory.

Venice’s ‘Collateral Awards’ - prizes assigned independently by film critics and cultural associations - also saw the Queer Lion Award go to Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, starring Eddie Redmayne as Danish artist Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of sexual reassignment surgery.

The film, which receives its North American premiere at Toronto tonight (Sept 12), is a hot contender for the upcoming awards season.

Fipresci AwardBest...