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With the losses Sunday night for Greta Gerwig (“Little Women”) and Krysty Wilson-Cairns (“1917”) in Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay, respectively, the 2010s now carries a dubious badge in Oscar history: It’s the first decade since the 1960s without a female writing winner.

Gerwig fell to Taika Waititi (“Jojo Rabbit”), while Wilson-Cairns and co-writer Sam Mendes were bested by “Parasite’s” Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won — two historic victories in their own right, as Waititi is the first indigenous writer to win, and Bong and Han are the first Asian writing champs.

The last woman to win in either category, solo or as a co-writer, was Diablo Cody 12 years ago for 2007’s “Juno” in original. The adapted category has a longer drought at 14 years, with Diana Ossana, who co-wrote “Brokeback Mountain” (2005) with Larry McMurtry, being the most recent. Since Cody’s victory, 12 women have received bids in original,...

Exclusive: Second edition of event hosted with Greece’s Faliro House will support filmmakers from the region.

The participants for the second edition of the Faliro House Sundance Institute Mediterranean Screenwriters Workshop have been revealed.

The workshop, a collaboration between the Sundance Institute and Christos V Konstantakopoulos’ Greek production company Faliro House, supports emerging filmmakers from Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus (last year’s event is pictured above).

The five-day workshop, held in Costa Navarino, Greece from July 3-9, gives eight filmmakers the chance to work on their feature film scripts with advisors.

The advisors include filmmaker Gyula Gazdag, artistic director for the Sundance Institute in the Us, Lisa Cholodenko (Olive Kitteridge, The Kids Are Alright), Julie Delpy (Before Midnight, 2 Days In Paris), Jeff Nichols (Loving, Take Shelter), recent Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund (The Square, Force Majeure), Ira Sachs (Little Men, Love Is Strange), Zach Sklar (JFK), Eva Stefani (Bathers, Acropolis) and Athina Rachel Tsangari...

Exclusive: F&Me slate includes two projects with Ida writer Rebecca Lenckiewicz; plus Streetkids United III.

UK co-production specialists Film and Music Entertainment (F&Me) have boarded films to shoot in 2017 including The Dream Girl written and directed by Maurizio Braucci, best known for writing Matteo Garrone’s Gomorra and Reality.

Braucci co-wrote the film with Ida writer Rebecca Lenckiewicz and the UK-Ireland co-production is set to shoot from September. F&Me are working with accountants Grant Thornton in Ireland to access the section 481 tax credit. Windmill Lane is on board for post-production services.

F&Me are also working with Lenkiewicz on The Disciple, to be directed by Ivan Ostrochovsky and written by Lenkiewicz, Marek Lescak and Ostrochovsky. The film looks at two friends who go to a seminary in Communist Slovakia.

Also shooting by the end of 2017 will be the documentary Streetkids United III – The Road to Moscow. As with the past two films in the...

Pinocchio is probably a bit low on your list of classic tales that could use a 21st-century makeover, but a take that’s helmed by Matteo Garrone (Tale of Tales, Gommorah) and led by Toni Servillo (The Great Beauty) is, if nothing else, more interesting than most possible combinations. (I’m still a bit peeved the Paul Thomas Anderson-Robert Downey Jr. one never took off, though.) Per Variety, the director’s Archimede Productions is partnering with Jeremy Thomas’ Recorded Picture Company and Le Pacte on a project that will combine physical materials with CGI for the purposes of a “a unique fantasy world of mystery and wonder, with a story filled with luminous, funny and touching moments.” Whatever that actually means.

Garrone takes it as a continuation of his previous feature, Tale of Tales, but also says it’s “a dream of mine that goes back in time,...

Exclusive: HanWay to sell live-action feature produced by Jeremy Thomas and Jean Labadie; shoot set for spring 2017.

The Great Beauty star Toni Servillo is set to play Geppetto in Gomorrah and Tale Of Tales director Matteo Garrone’s anticipated live-action update of Carlo Collodi’s classic tale Pinocchio.

Writer-director Garrone is set to reteam with many of the creative team behind his 2015 fantasy-drama Tale Of Tales, which debuted at Cannes, using a mixture of prosthetics and CGI to create the characters.

HanWay has boarded sales on the intriguing project and will introduce it to buyers at the upcoming Afm. Additional casting is underway.

Producers include Garrone’s Archimede, Jeremy Thomas’s Rpc and Jean Labadie’s Le Pacte, in association with Rai Cinema. Rai Cinema will release the film in Italy, and Le Pacte will release the film in France.

Principal photography is due to get underway in spring 2017, reuniting Garrone with his Gomorrah star Servillo.

Speaking...

American pop culture is filled with stories of organized crime. From “The Godfather” to “The Sopranos,” many acclaimed films and TV shows have portrayed the inherent drama in mafia subculture. Now, American audiences have another compelling mob story to hold their interest, and this time it’s actually from Italy. The Italian crime drama “Gomorrah” follows Neapolitan organized crime and the complex interpersonal relationships between gangsters and ordinary citizens trying to live their lives. The series’ protagonist is Ciro (Marco D’Amore), or “The Immortal,” the right-hand man to feared crime boss Don Pietro Savastano (Fortunato Cerlino), who instigates a violent turf war between two rival factions. Watch an exclusive clip from the series below featuring Don Peitro accusing a subordinate of ratting him out to the cops.

Read More: Looking For the Next Great Mob Drama? It Might Be Italy’s ‘Gomorrah’

The series is based on Roberto Saviano...

★★★★☆ Once upon a time, fairytales were folk tales. Then they became children's stories, were made into Disney cartoons and now star Angelina Jolie or Charlize Theron. Into the woods strides Matteo Garrone's Tale of Tales, an anthology of 17th century folk tales by Giambattista Basile told with a verve and commitment to the strange. Best known for his neo-neo-realism with such films as the Naples based gangland drama Gomorrah (which showed in the Un Certain Regard sidebar in 2008) and Reality, which showed in competition in 2012, Tale of Tales is Garrone's first feature in English, but in a way the film is in an older language.

The actor on her new film, a fairytale for adults, her creepy character in Happy Valley and feeling lost in drama school

Shirley Henderson, 50, has starred in numerous television, film and theatre productions, including Wonderland, Topsy-Turvy, Happy Valley, Southcliffe and Hamish Macbeth. She plays Jude in the Bridget Jones films, and Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter franchise. She studied drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and lives in Fife with her partner. Her new film, Tale of Tales, is directed by the Italian Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah, Reality) and also stars Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel and Toby Jones. It’s based on a trio of Neapolitan poet Giambattista Basile’s ancient fantasy morality tales, which predate the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. Henderson plays Imma, an old woman who yearns to be like her sister, Dora, who has been transformed by magic into a beautiful young maiden, who has beguiled the king.

Tale of Tales is Matteo Garrone’s first English-speaking film. How did you find working with him?

Fascinating. Obviously there’s a language barrier, but he knows enough. He doesn’t tell you too much until you begin, then he’s very clear about what he wants. It was an Italian set, and you think everybody’s shouting at you, but they’re not – it’s just a hyped-up atmosphere. He’s very exciting to work with and I’d jump at the chance again.

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As Cannes approaches, Screen casts its eye back at the winners and losers of 2012 according to our jury of critics.

Screen International’s jury of international critics has long been a strong indicator as to what will take the top prizes at the Cannes Film Festival – and 2012 was no different.

Sharing the Jury Grid’s top spot in 2012 were Cristian Mungiu’s Romanian drama Beyond the Hills and Michael Haneke’s heart-breaking Amour.

Both films scored 3.3 out of 4 and Amour went away with the festival’s coveted Palme d’Or.

Amour was Haneke’s second film to win the Cannes top prize, after 2009’s chilling pre-war drama The White Ribbon.

Beyond the Hills also performed strongly, winning awards for best screenplay and best actress for its two leading ladies Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan. Director Mungiu has another shot at the Palme d’Or this year with Graduation (Bacalaureat).

Tie-breaker

It was a year for ties, with...

You really don’t know what you’re getting when you settle in for a new Matteo Garrone film. The Italian director has been making feature films for twenty years, but he achieved international renown for his stunning and brutal crime film Gomorrah in 2008. He then shifted gears in a major way for Reality, a comic drama about […]

The post ‘Tale of Tales’ Trailer: In Which Salma Hayek Eats a Sea Monster’s Heart appeared first on /Film.

Matteo Garrone, the Italian filmmaker behind such efforts as Reality, is poised to make his English-language debut with Tale of Tales, the fantasy horror flick set for release in the States in little over a month’s time.

Emerging from last year’s Cannes Film Festival, the movie was entered into the running for the coveted Palme d’Or award. Rooted in the mythology of 17th century fairytales – fairytales that would go on to inspire Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen and Charles Perrault among others – Salma Hayek headlines the feature as a barren Queen of Longtrellis. It’s got quite the ensemble cast in tow, too, including the likes of Vincent Cassel, John C. Reilly, Toby Jones, and Stacy Martin.

Tale of Tales opens via limited release on April 24. For now, you can check out our brief verdict of Garrone’s English-language debut via our capsule review.

In one yarn,...

Tale of Tales comes from director Matteo Garrone's who's Gomorrah and Reality were incredibly well received. From the goodwill following those films he's assembled a stellar cast to bring the early fairy tale work of Giambattista Basile to life.

Basille is chiefly remembered for writing the collection of Neapolitan fairy tales titled "Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille" ("The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones"). If you don't remember your parents telling you these ones, it's likely because they were a bit to... thematic.

Tale of Tales stars John C. Reilly, Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel and Toby Jones among others.

Synopsis:

Sea monsters, monarchs, ogres, and sorcerers: Salma Hayek and John C. Reilly star in th [Continued ...]...

The latest film from Matteo Garrone, the director behind Gomorrah and Reality, is The Tale of Tales, which premiered at Cannes Film Festival last year and will finally land on U.S. shores next month. Compiling stories from a set of 17th-century fairytales, the strong ensemble feature Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, John C. Reilly, Toby Jones, and Stacy Martin.

We said in our review, “As Pasolini amply demonstrated with his Trilogy of Life, also based on classic fable anthologies (which preceded and influenced the Pentamerone), the grotesque style of such tales demands a healthy dose of irony to work on film. When Garrone allows for such irony, Tale of Tales shines. The shot of Hayek in an opulent and pristinely white dining room digging her face into a massive bloody heart is delightful, as is the sight of Jones lovingly feeding and embracing the Cronenbergian flea. Unfortunately, Garrone plays it...

One thing I love, that is apparent from this wave announcement, is that Fantastic Fest not only celebrates new genre cinema but relishes in repertory genre cinema! We have some awesome martial arts films and a 35mm screening of Evilspeak to coincide with Kier-La Jannise & Paul Corupe’s Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980’s. We are also getting the new horror anthology from V/H/S alumni (Producer Roxanne Benjamin, director David Bruckner and directing team Radio Silence) with Southbound! Read on fiends, read on.

Fantastic Fest announces its final wave of highly anticipated features and epic events for the annual celebration of all things genre. With signature smackdown Fantastic Debates and Comedy Central’s The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail, this year’s Fantastic Fest promises more thrills than ever before as it rages through Austin from September 24 – October 1st. Joining Fantastic Fest for the first time, Charlie Kaufman...

Austin, TX – Wednesday, September 9, 2015 – Fantastic Fest announces its final wave of highly anticipated features and epic events for the annual celebration of all things genre. With signature smackdown Fantastic Debates and Comedy Central’s The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail, this year’s Fantastic Fest promises more thrills than ever before as it rages through Austin from September 24 – October 1st. Joining Fantastic Fest for the first time, Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson will be in attendance to share their wildly inventive world of stop motion animation Anomalisa, Cannes Grand Prix winner Son Of Saul is screening in glorious 35mm, the stunning adult fairytale from Gomorrah director Matteo Garrone Tale Of Tales will unfurl, Jerusalem Film Festival’s top prize winner Tikkun, and we welcome the World Premiere of the action-thriller Camino with Zoe Bell and Fantastic Fest veteran / mayor Nacho Vigalondo as a religious psychopath — a prospect that should fill...

The final wave of Fantastic Fest 2015 has finally been announced and it features a crop of festival darlings along with Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson’s highly anticipated stop-motion animation film Anomalisa. The Cannes Grand Prix winner Son of Saul joins the list as well as the new film from director Matteo Garrone, Tale of Tales. PopOptiq will be present once again this year so be sure to check out our coverage in the upcoming weeks. Check out the full list below.

****

Anomalisa

United States, 2015

Regional Premiere, 90 min

Directors – Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson

Charlie Kaufman’s newest story, a revolutionary and emotional stop-motion animation, follows an unhappy customer service guru looking for an escape from the monotony of his life.

The Assassin

Taiwan, 2015

Us Premiere, 104 min

Director – Hou Hsiao-hsien

After failing to dispatch a corrupt government official, an assassin is disciplined by her master with a mission to...

Salma Hayek rarely picks up her cell phone when the number is unlisted. But one day she did so while driving around Los Angeles, and the man on the other end was Italian director Matteo Garrone. Having been introduced to modern Italian cinema by her friend Valeria Golina, Hayek was flabbergasted. Garrone’s films Gomorrah and Reality were two of her favorite recent pictures. Not only that, but Garrone was offering her the role in a period film bringing to life the tales of 17th century Neapolitan scribe Giambattista Basile. She would play the role of a Spanish queen, the film would […]...

Salma Hayek rarely picks up her cell phone when the number is unlisted. But one day she did so while driving around Los Angeles, and the man on the other end was Italian director Matteo Garrone. Having been introduced to modern Italian cinema by her friend Valeria Golina, Hayek was flabbergasted. Garrone’s films Gomorrah and Reality were two of her favorite recent pictures. Not only that, but Garrone was offering her the role in a period film bringing to life the tales of 17th century Neapolitan scribe Giambattista Basile. She would play the role of a Spanish queen, the film would […]...

Italian director Matteo Garrone is no stranger to Cannes. He picked up the Grand Prix twice for his previous films Gomorrah (2008), exploring the Camorra mafia, and Reality (2012), about society’s obsession with reality TV. With his third film in competition, Garrone has once again completely switched gears, debuting his first period piece and his first film shot in English, Tale of Tales. Based on the fairytales of Giambattista Basile, the film has been the buzz of Cannes with its rich storytelling, outstanding performances, and lush cinematography. Going back to the raw and oftentimes brutal storytelling of early fairytales (Basile’s […]...

Italian director Matteo Garrone is no stranger to Cannes. He picked up the Grand Prix twice for his previous films Gomorrah (2008), exploring the Camorra mafia, and Reality (2012), about society’s obsession with reality TV. With his third film in competition, Garrone has once again completely switched gears, debuting his first period piece and his first film shot in English, Tale of Tales. Based on the fairytales of Giambattista Basile, the film has been the buzz of Cannes with its rich storytelling, outstanding performances, and lush cinematography. Going back to the raw and oftentimes brutal storytelling of early fairytales (Basile’s […]...

Matteo Garrone is one of the most talented directors working today who American audience have never seen or heard of. His 2008 feature, “Gomorra,” a look at Italy’s crime families, won the jury prize in Cannes that year. His next feature, “Reality,” about a man obsessed with becoming a reality television star, won the jury prize in Cannes in 2012. His new film, “Tale of Tales,” his first film shot in English, is screening in competition and is one of the most talked-about at the festival. It is a sharp departure from his previous, contemporary stories, a visually stunning set of.

Marking another strong year for Italian cinema vying for the Palme d’Or, Matteo Garrone is the first out of the gates for the green, white, and red with his eighth feature film. Making his, no less, third straight trip in the Main Comp, there are lofty expectations for Tale of Tales, this is of course due to his back to back “silver” 2nd place wins, landing the Grand Prix for Gomarrah in 2008, and Reality in 2012. In the context of this year’s Cannes, this is one among several auteur-driven (Yorgos Lanthimos, Joachim Trier, Michel Franco) Main Comp films to have made the leap to English language film territory and was a top seeded contender for Palme.

Starring Salma Hayek, John C. Reilly, Vincent Cassel and Toby Jones, Tale of Tales found both friends and foes among our panel with an average of 2.9. As indicted prior to Cannes with its heavily appetizing trailer,...

In the photo above, John C. Reilly and Salam Hayek play the king and queen of a small kingdom in a fairy tale land far far away. There are rock canyons a lot like the world of Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings," and mossy deep forests for the likes of hunter kings (Vincent Cassel is one here) and crazy oversized beasts (of the deep, of the canyons, of the forest, and another king's pet flea). How many kings rule one kingdom? This question is never answered. This fantasy fable is a terrible misfire for Italian director Matteo Garrone, who is heading more in the direction of his last film "Reality" than his more naturalistic Cannes hit "Gomorrah." The accents, predictably, are all over the place.  And so are the incredulities. How does a tightrope walker cross a gorge? How does a man in a deep-sea diving suit breathe underwater?...

If you’re lucky enough to be Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone you’re three for three at the Cannes Film Festival. His last two films, “Gomorrah” (which won the festival’s Grand Prix award in 2008) and "Reality," have hit the Croisette, and so too does his third picture, “Tale Of Tales.” But for this one, Garrone has taken a left turn into a dark fairytale world. Read More: The 20 Most Anticipated Films Of The 2015 Cannes Film Festival “Perhaps not everyone knows this, but 'Tale of Tales’ was the first book of fairytales to be written in the 17th century and inspired many great authors, such as the Brothers Grimm, Andresen, and Perrault,” Garrone said in a recent Cineuropa interview. Evidently it was a risky endeavor, more than just creatively. “It wasn’t easy for me to secure funding for a fantasy film after producing such seemingly different work in the past,...

Matteo Garrone wowed us with Gamorrah in 2008 and, personally, left me wanting with Reality in 2012, but now he's back at Cannes with his latest movie, The Tale of Tales (Il racconto dei racconti), based on the 17th century Italian author Giambattista Basile's collection of fairy tales. The film serves as Garrone's English-language debut and will interweave three separate story strands bookended by brief bits in which Italians Alba Rohrwacher and Massimo Ceccherini will play a street circus family. In one tale Salma Hayek will play a jealous queen who forfeits her husband's life. In another, Vincent Cassel plays a king whose passion is stoked by two mysterious sisters. A pair of new pictures from the movie have just arrived and I've included them in full just below along with the previously released, not safe for work first trailer. sb id="1513159" height="360" width="640"...

Whatever Matteo Garrone is cooking up for Cannes, it certainly looks to be the most visually ambitious effort yet by the filmmaker behind "Reality" and "Gomorrah." And today brings another intriguing peek at his next effort, one that will surely provide a memorable experience for those on the Croisette. Starring Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, John C. Reilly, Toby Jones, Stacy Martin, Alba Rohrwacher and Massimo Ceccherini, the film is a loose screen adaptation of the fairy tales by Italian poet Giambattista Basile. And indeed, Garrone makes the most of the canvas he gets to play with here, with arresting imagery among these pics. And we're curious to see how they all coalesce in the final film. "The Tale Of Tales" opens in Italy on May 14th. There's no U.S. distribution yet. Check out the new TV spots and images below.

[Editor's Note: Be sure to like Quiet Earth on Facebook for news and contests on-the-move, discussions with our staff and readers, and more!]

Fairy tales have some of the most vivid imagery of monsters and magic and are certainly some of the most violent stories around. Why they are not crafted for an adult audience more often is beyond me. Terry Gilliam lives in this world comfortably for sure, but guys, this is something else entirely and I'm so excited about this film.

Tale of Tales comes from director Matteo Garrone's who's Gomorrah and Reality were incredibly well received. From that goodwill he's assembled a stellar cast to bring the work of Giambattista Basile to life.

Basille is [Continued ...]...

Fresh off a nomination for the Palme D’Or at this year’s upcoming Cannes film festival is Matteo Garrone’s The Tale of Tales, a fantasy based on 17th Century Italian fairy tales by Giambattista Basile. The director behind Gomorrah and Reality is taking a foray into the English language, and this first look at his latest suggests something much darker, strange, yet fantastical than his previous entries.

There’s no full synopsis just yet, but The Tale of Tales stars John C. Reilly, Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, and Toby Jones in a series of three stories, all done in a period setting, that intertwine. This French trailer announces its premiere July 1, but it’ll first play in Cannes followed by a release in Italy starting May 14. Watch it above, and consider it Nsfw:

The post Watch the disturbing, Nsfw trailer for Cannes ’15 entry ‘The Tale of Tales’ appeared first on Sound On Sight.

French distributor Le Pacte has dropped a teaser for Cannes Film Festival competition entry Tale Of Tales. The movie is one of a trio in the section that hails from an Italian director. Reality and Gomorra helmer Matteo Garrone here turns his lens on a collection of 17th century fairy tales by Giambattista Basile. In English, though there’s virtually no dialogue in the trailer above, the film is a fantasy that stars Salma Hayek (digging with gusto into the bloody heart of…...

Matteo Garrone’s Reality won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2012. He’s back in competition next month with The Tale of Tales “loosely based on stories from a 17th-century...

Shooting straight to the top of any self-respecting fantasy fan's must-watch list should be Matteo Garrone's (Gomorrah, Reality) latest, Tale Of Tales, which has just been announced as debuting in competition at next month's Cannes Film Festival. Brimming with kings & queens, monsters & magic, blood, gore and sex, The Tale Of Tales is a classic medieval fantasy that looks to out-crazy even the likes of John Boorman's Excalibur and Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits. With an all-star cast including John C. Reilly, Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel and Toby Jones, Tale Of Tales is based on the writings of 17th Century Italian author Giambattista Basile, and judging by this slightly unsafe for work trailer, looks absolutely fantastic. Check it out for yourself....

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

With the world’s most prestigious film festival just around the corner, cineastes have been lasciviously salivating about what’s going to show up at Cannes, with wish lists appearing almost immediately after Berlin (a fest that had one of their most impressive line-ups ever) announced their awards. The remainder of the 2015 fest circuit looks to be a plentiful, diverse porridge, with many of the world’s most renowned auteurs’ sporting brand new titles. While many prognosticators will be sharing the same lists, more or less, hopes are incredibly high for a handful of sure bets, and a gaggle of hopefuls. The main competition always seems easier to postulate, though Thierry Fremaux always throws a few curves, (After the Battle in 2012, The Hunt in 2013 or last year’s Timbuktu, which won the Cesar for Best Picture recently, are a couple ready examples of under-the-radar titles).

Italy seems primed for saturation at the fest.

From BAFTA to DGA, the Latest Winners this Awards Season

With the Oscars upon us, the awards season is almost over! But the last trek to the Academy Awards include many guild awards and of course, BAFTA! So here.s the latest congratulatory awards list of the winners from BAFTA to DGA, from Annie to Ace and everything in between!

Your full BAFTA winners (winners are highlighted):

Best Film

Birdman Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher, James W. Skotchdopole

Boyhood Richard Linklater, Cathleen Sutherland

The Grand Budapest Hotel Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson

The Imitation Game Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky, Teddy Schwarzman

The Theory Of Everything Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, Anthony McCarten

Director

Birdman Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Boyhood Richard Linklater

The Grand Budapest Hotel Wes Anderson

The Theory Of Everything James Marsh

Whiplash Damien Chazelle

Leading Actor

Benedict Cumberbatch The Imitation Game

Eddie Redmayne The Theory of Everything...

I've already listed my top ten most anticipated blockbusters of the new year and now I'll take a look at the rest of the field as I've done my best to whittle things down to an even twenty films. So before you get in a huff that your favorite franchises aren't listed, just remember you can view all my anticipated blockbusters right here, I simply didn't know how to write the headline other than to just say these were my most anticipated movies without any further distinction. That said, I think I have a nice rounded list for you here. Obviously several from the major studios, but also a few overseas entries to spice things up. Plenty of Tom Hardy and Jake Gyllenhaal and a couple starring Rachel Weisz along with several of my favorite directors coming with new films for the new year. If you're wondering where films such...

The Tale of Tales

Director: Matteo Garrone // Writers: Matteo Garrone, Edoardo Albinati, Ugo Chiti, Massimo Guadioso

Italian director Matteo Garrone reached international renown in 2008 with Gomorrah, which took home the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. However, it was actually Garrone’s sixth feature, a director who started making films only slightly before fellow countryman Paolo Sorrentino, and Garrone’s 2002 title The Embalmer played in the Director’s Fortnight, and he’s made appearances in Venice (Roman Summer, 2000) and Berlin (First Love, 2004) as well. After the success of Gomorra, Garrone’s next film, Reality, would also score the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes 2012. While 2015 will see the second English language feature film from Sorrentino, Garrone makes his English language debut with The Tale of Tales, a film that will be a giant fresco of the Baroque period, based on “Tale of Tales” by Giambattista Basile, the famous author of Neapolitan tales from the 17th century.

"The Great Beauty," Paolo Sorrentino's splashy valentine to Roman high society, was the most lauded foreign-language film of the last awards season -- it ruled the European Film Awards, and scooped Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Oscars. (At all but the last of these, it beat out its Cannes conqueror, "Blue is the Warmest Color.") So you'd think it'd be a shoo-in at Italy's own Academy Awards, right? Wrong. At yesterday's David di Donatello Awards, handed out annually by the Academy of Italian Cinema, Sorrentino's film was the night's biggest winner in terms of numbers -- taking nine awards, including Best Director and Best Actor for Toni Servillo. But its other wins were limited to below-the-line categories -- trust the Italians to have separate awards for Best Makeup and Best Hairstyling -- as Paolo Virzi's "Human Capital" took Best Picture. Virzi's film, a blend...

Welcome back to Cannes Check, In Contention's annual preview of the films in Competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off on May 14. Taking on different selections every day, we'll be examining what they're about, who's involved and what their chances are of snagging an award from Jane Campion's jury. Next up, one of the clear (or not-so-clear) wild cards of the lineup: Alice Rohrwacher's "The Wonders." The director: Alice Rohrwacher (Italian, 33 years old). Amid the laundry list of usual-usual auteurs returning to the Competition, a few names raised eyebrows when Thierry Fremaux announced the lineup last month, and Rohrwacher's was one of them. After making a strong impression in Directors' Fortnight three years ago with her debut feature, the Catholic Church-themed coming-of-age drama "Corpo Celeste," an Un Certain Regard berth seemed the logical next step for her follow-up, but this was an unexpected promotion for the young Italian,...

Exclusive: When seasoned agents leave one major percentery for another, the tale is told by how many clients change addresses with them. Back in March, Stuart Manashil made the leap to Wme after spending the past 6 1/2 years at CAA and before that spent six years at UTA. In what marks the third case — Dan Aloni and Warren Zavala were the first two — where agents pried their clients away from CAA, Manashil has strengthened Wme’s writer-director roster quite a bit. Related: Selena Gomez Signs With Wme Here’s who he brought with him: Alex Graves, who helmed the most recent Game Of Thrones episode; Pixar’s Day Of The Dead writer Matt Aldrich; Evil Dead‘s Fede Alvarez & Rodo Sayagues; Carlos helmer Olivier Assayas; Simon Barrett (You’re Next); Henry Bean (Internal Affairs); Simon Brand (Default); Juan Campanella (The Secret In Their Eyes); John Dowdle & Drew Dowdle (Quarantine); Kieran Fitzgerald...

Which should be exciting news for those unaware we even had an annual Italian Film Festival here in St. Louis. We do, and it’s been going on for ten years now. It’s not well-promoted in general but it must be in the local Italian community because I’ve attended on the past and they always draw huge crowds (the free admission probably doesn’t hurt).

St. Louisans can enjoy the local premiere of eleven recent Italian films at this year’s Italian Film Festival USA of St. Louis. The films are shown in their original language with English subtitles at 3 venues on the campus of Washington University: Lab Sciences 300, Brown Hall and Steinberg Auditorium.

For more details such as directions, times, sponsors, and a complete schedule go to the Italian Film Festival USA site Here

http://www.italianfilmfestivalstlouis.com/index.html

Highlights of this year’s fest include The Best Offer,...

Projects to receive a share of $7.5m also include new films from Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah), Alex van Warmerdam (Borgman), the Taviani Brothers (Caesar Must Die), Tudor Giurgiu (Of Snails and Men) and Susanne Bier collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen.Scroll down for full list of titles including funding amount and co-producers

Paolo Sorrentino’s upcoming project, In the Future (Il Futuro), is to receive €460,000 ($640,000) from the Council of Europe’s Eurimages Fund. The film marks the Italian director’s follow-up to Oscar-winner The Great Beauty and is set set to start shooting in May, starring Michael Caine.

The intimate drama about “friendship between two old people” is from Sorrentino’s regular producers, Nicola Giuliano and Francesca Cima through Indigo Films with French co-producer Bis Films. Co-financing comes from Italian distributor Mediaset/Medusam, which looks set to release in Italy later this year.

It is one of 19 films, which includes a documentary and an animated feature, that will receive...

Exclusive: Contemporary love story set against Rome’s criminal underworld is an Italian-French co-production.

Indie Sales has acquired international rights to Italian director Michele Alhaique’s Senza Pieta starring Pierfrancesco Favino as a loner and Mafia henchman who lands on the wrong side of his boss.

“The script stood out and I felt I could help in putting this movie together. Michele Alhaique has a new voice that deserves to be heard,” said Favino.

One of Italy’s most respected actors, Favino is best known for his award-winning performances in Michele Placido’s Romanzo Criminale, and more recently Stefano Sollima’s Acab ­ All Cops Are Bastards and Marco Tullio Giordana’s Piazza Fontana.

He has also made appearances in a dozen international pictures, including most recently World War Z and Rush.

Working-titled Senza Pieta is 34-year-old Alhaique directorial debut. The actor and filmmaker is best known at home for his performances in TV show and films such as...

New year, new news! (How will I introduce these news posts come February? I'd better start thinking of something now...) Let's kick it off with a double bit of casting news about Vincent Cassel, everyone's favourite menacing Frenchman, who has boarded two European flicks. First is the thriller, “Rien ne sert courir," the next film from French mono-name director Maiwenn, whose “Polisse” played Cannes to some acclaim in 2011. The other new gig for polyglot Cassel is Italian project “The Tale of Tales,” where he'll be joined by Salma Hayek and directed by Matteo Garrone, the filmmaker behind “Gomorrah” and “Reality.” And by the way, the original 17th century Italian title of the source material, is a collection of morality tales, “Lo cunto de li cunti.” Just in case that ever, uh, comes in handy. [Variety/Variety]Also coming in over the wires is some news about a couple of aging action men.

Salma Hayek and Vincent Cassel have signed on to star in The Tale of Tales for Italian director Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah).

While no specific story details were released, the project is based on three stories from Italian author Giambattista Basile's Lo cunto de li cunti (The Tale of Tales), which was published in two volumes in 1634 and 1636. The stories went largely unnoticed until the Brothers Grimm offered high praise, calling it the first "national" collection of fairy tales. Among the stories included are the earliest known versions of Rapunzel and Cinderella. It isn't known which three stories The Tale of Tales will be based on, but the project is described as an ambitious period fantasy piece.

Matteo Garrone is directing from his own adapted script, with the filmmaker also producing through his Archimede Film company, alongside Jean Labadie's Paris-based production company, Le Pacte. Production is scheduled to begin this spring in Italy.

Matteo Garrone may be one of Italy's finest and most innovative filmmakers working today, having had back-to-back Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize jury winners with the crime-thriller Gomorra and the modern-day spoof on fame and celebrity with Reality . Now he's getting ready to helm his first English language film The Tale of Tales and he's just signed on Salma Hayek and Vincent Cassel to play the leads. The film will start shooting in Italy in the spring, claiming to be Garrone's most ambitious film to date as it will give traditional Italian tales a modern twist. Garrone's production company Archimede Film is producing with Jean Labadie.s Paris-based leading arthouse shingle Le Pacte, who will distribute in France, while HanWay Films will handle international sales....

Chicago – Like Sebastián Silva’s equally mesmerizing and maddening “Magic Magic,” Matteo Garrone’s “Reality” explores a psyche as it slowly unravels, obscuring the line between truth and fiction until it becomes hopelessly blurred. In fact, both filmmakers utilize a similar technique in portraying their heros’ delusions by occupying their peripheral vision with eerie apparitions.

This might make “Reality” sound like a horror film, but it’s actually a Felliniesque comedy—at least for its first act. A surprising portion of the film’s running time is devoted to detailing the modest life of Luciano (Aniello Arena), a fishmonger with an adoring wife (Loredana Paone) and family who harbors an exuberant love of performance. We first see him greeting a Reality TV show star, Enzo (Raffaele Ferrante), in full drag, playing the role of a smitten ex. Though the faces of his surrounding audience are delighted, the scene straddles the line between amusing and squirm-inducing.

Winner of the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize in 2012, and traveling around the globe landing in Karlovy Vary, Leeds, Tokyo, São Paulo, Göteborg, Rotterdam and more, Matteo Garrone's "Reality" certainly made some waves on the circuit last year. But if you missed the movie when it landed in arthouse theaters this spring, not to worry, as we've got a pretty nice prize pack for those looking to check out the latest from the director of "Gomorrah," or for those who are already fans of the flick.The film presents a scathing but amusing look at the destruction caused by one man's obsession with reality shows. The film follows Luciano, a well-liked Italian fishmonger who walks down a dangerous path as he seeks to become a contestant on "Big Brother." His attempts at gaining his fifteen minutes of fame slowly erodes his mental state, fractures his relationship with family and friends,...

★★★★☆ The Taviani brothers explored a Shakespeare production performed by a group of prison inmates earlier in the year with Caesar Must Die (2012). Matteo Garrone, who arrived on the international scene to great acclaim with hard-hitting Mafioso drama Gomorrah (2008), has now gone one step further. Out on DVD this week is Reality (2012), a film for which he enlisted the incarcerated Aniello Arena; who attended the shoot whilst on day release from his life sentence. Bringing an unmistakable sense of wonderment to proceedings, he proves an irresistible protagonist in Garrone's biting satire of cultural degeneration.

The Roman director may have returned to the familiar streets of Naples for his latest piece, but it adopts a markedly different tone to that of its predecessor. Exploring the pervasive modern preoccupation with celebrity, the film delves into the somewhat queasy world of a man desperate to appear on reality television. Luciano (Arena) is a fishmonger in an unassuming Neapolitan piazza.

Beware of Mr Baker; White Elephant; Reality; Jack the Giant Slayer; The ABCs of Death

Jay Bulger's boisterous rock-doc Beware of Mr Baker (2012, Curzon, 15) opens with the infamously cantankerous drummer Ginger Baker striking the director hard across the nose with a cane, drawing blood. The rest of the movie is interspersed with Baker regularly telling Bulger that he's an idiot. This would be more problematic were it not for the fact that, with very few exceptions, Baker seems tirelessly hostile to everyone. No wonder his closest associates – friends, family, band members – struggle to find anything nice to say about him, with Jack Bruce's assessment that "he's the best Ginger Baker in the world" coming as close as it gets to a personal endorsement.

Only on the subject of his drumming is there agreement that he's a genius, which is fitting, since the sole quality that Baker appears to...

‘The Best Offer’ Leads Field With Six David di Donatello Awards Giuseppe Tornatore’s La migliore offerta (The Best Offer) won a leading six trophies Friday at Italy’s David di Donatello Awards, including Best Film and Best Director. The English-language film, starring Geoffrey Rush as an auctioneer obsessed with a wealthy art collector (Sylvia Hoeks), beat out Bernardo Bertolucci’s Io e te (Me and You) and Gabriele Salvatores’ Educazione siberiana (Siberian Education) in both top categories. The latter two films went home empty-handed. Daniele Vicari’s Diaz took four Donatello prizes, including Best Producer for Domenico Procacci, and Matteo Garone’s Reality, which won a Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, collected three. PictureBox Films Begins Streaming to UK And Ireland NBCUniversal‘s PictureBox Films originally launched in 2006 as a digital TV Svod service. It’s just undergone a redesign and rebranding to offer streaming to UK and Ireland customers via desktop computer,...

Finally, Italian cinema might be enjoying a resurgence fit for grown-ups. First came the Tavianis' Caesar Must Die and Matteo Garrone's Reality and now, punching out of the Walter Reade's annual Italian survey this week, Marco Tullio Giordana's Piazza Fontana, a darkling slice of history originally titled Story of a Massacre. One of the best and creepiest political espionage reportage-thrillers since Costa-Gavras's Z, Giordana's movie tracks the revolutionary tumult in 1969 Italy as authorities try to handle terrorist threats from communist, anarchist, and neo-fascist rebel brigades, leading to and spiraling out from the Piazza Fontana bank bombing. Whodunit? Our man in this gothic web—which becomes impenetrable once the rightists and lef...