News

Exclusive: Vmi Worldwide has taken international sales rights to A Sudden Case of Christmas and will present the holiday flick starring Danny DeVito, Andie MacDowell, Wilmer Valderrama, and Lucy DeVito buyers at this week’s Cannes Market.

The pic is from director Peter Chelsom (The Space Between Us) with a screenplay penned by Chelsom, Tinker Lindsay, Gianluca Bomprezzi, Neri Parenti, Dederico Baccomo, and Francesco Patierno.

The film follows Lawrence (DeVito), who runs a grand hotel in the mountains of Italy. Every winter, he hosts the extended family for Christmas – but this year, his daughter (Lucy DeVito) and her husband (Valderrama) are bringing their 10-year-old, Claire (Antonella Rose), to visit in August. The young couple comes with shocking news, they are divorcing and tasked Lawrence with being the bearer of bad news to Claire. When Claire realizes her soon-to-be broken family won’t be returning in December, she insists on having...

Italian production designer Tonino Zera, whose credits include Roman Polanski’s upcoming drama The Palace, will be feted with the Campari Passion Award at the 80th edition of Venice Film Festival, running from August 30 to September 9.

The prize, which was launched at the 75th Venice Film Festival, pays tribute to cinema crafts professionals who have made a “remarkable contribution” to the films on which they have worked.

Previous recipients span U.S. film editor Bob Murawski, Italian cinematographer Luca Bigazzi, U.S. jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, UK production designer Marcus Rowland, and U.S. artist and costume designer Arianne Phillips.

Zera will be presented with the award on September 2 ahead of the Out of Competition world premiere of The Palace in the Sala Grande.

“To receive the prestigious Campari Passion for Film Award during the Venice Film Festival is not only a personal honor, it is also a...

Italian sales agent unveils Cannes market slate.

Italy’s Minerva Pictures has unveiled its Cannes Market slate which includes Ukrainian historical epic Dovbush as well as Italian family comedy And Suddenly it’s Christmas and Mexican thriller Black Minutes.

Dovbush is an action film directed by Oles Sanin about Oleksa Dovbush, a real-life 18th-century Robin Hood of sorts who formed a group of outlaws that robbed rich landowners in the Carpathian Mountains to give to poor Ukrainian villagers.

The film is set to be released in August after suffering substantial delays due to the Ukraine conflict. Potential buyers will be...

The Rome Film Festival has unveiled its first line-up under the new management team of former Rai executive Paola Malanga as artistic director and Cineteca di Bologna director Gian Luca Farinelli as president, who were both appointed to their roles last March.

“Putting together a festival in five months was a big challenge. If we succeeded it’s thanks to the extraordinary team and the institutions,” Farinelli said at a news conference in Rome on Thursday.

The festival’s 17th edition, October 13-23, will host 130 titles on 28 screens across the Italian capital.

Highlights include a career tribute for James Ivory and the launch of an international competition strand under the banner “Progressive Cinema – Visions Of Tomorrow’s World”, showcasing 16 new films.

“We tried to bring recognition to the festival on the international scene… guided by a simple polar star. The festival is not Cannes, Venice or Berlin. So what is it?...

It is the first edition under artistic director Paola Malanga.

Paola Malanga, the new artistic director of the Rome Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for the 2022 edition, taking place from October 13-23.

The international competition will showcase 16 titles including Lila Neugebauer’s Causeway, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Mounia Meddour’s Houria and Firam Khoury’s Alam and Wang Xiaoshuai’s The Hotel.

Francesca Archibugi’s The Hummingbird, starring Pierfrancesco Favino, Bérénice Bejo, Nanni Moretti and Laura Morante will open the festival out of competition, fresh from its world premiere at Toronto and just ahead of its Italian release on October...

The 17th annual Rome Film Festival will fete James Ivory with a career honor, a mini retrospective and the Italian launch of the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s personal new documentary “A Cooler Climate.”

Ivory is expected in Rome to receive the award and present the doc about his life as a traveler that takes its cue from boxes of film the director shot during a life-changing trip to Afghanistan in 1960. The film premieres beforehand at the New York Film Festival.

Rome’s Ivory mini-retrospective will comprise his films “Maurice”; “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge,” starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward; “The Remains of the Day”; and “A Room With a View.”

The Rome fest – which has undergone a management change and is now headed by former Rai Cinema executive Paola Malanga as artistic director and Gian Luca Farinelli as president – on Thursday unveiled a mixed bag lineup comprising a competitive section largely made up of first works,...

The Drama Pitching Forum will present badge-holders with 15 projects hailing from 11 countries, as well as hosting a series of encounters with industry leaders. This year, the Drama Pitching Forum will once again be offering a wide market overview to those attending Rome’s Mia - Mercato Internazionale dell’audiovisivo di Roma (14-18 October), homing in on 15 projects hailing from 11 countries and divided into 4 separate categories. Among the works in the Drama Series category we find the French series Lafayette, a costume drama set during the American Revolution, produced by Wild Horses, created by Nicolas Deprost and written by David Franzoni (who won an Oscar for Gladiator); Miss Fallaci Takes America, the story of the great journalist Oriana Fallaci’s journey to America in 1958, created by Alessandra Gonnella and written in collaboration with Justin Trefgarne and Edoardo Perazzi; Cult, a series created by Francesco Patierno and Sergio Nazzaro,...

As atmospheric as a narrative film and as thought-provoking as a seriously wrought documentary, Camorra retraces the origins of large-scale criminality in the territory around Naples with melancholy fatalism. Scanning a socially degraded area made familiar in films and on TV series like Matteo Garrone’s ruthless Gomorrah, Neapolitan-born writer-director Francesco Patierno reveals the foundations for today’s violent mess. He artfully weaves the history of the Camorra clans from period footage in the Rai-tv videotheque to create an extraordinarily authentic work that is gripping and more than a little depressing.

Its fictional feel is not the only thing that distinguishes Camorra from ...

As atmospheric as a narrative film and as thought-provoking as a seriously wrought documentary, Camorra retraces the origins of large-scale criminality in the territory around Naples with melancholy fatalism. Scanning a socially degraded area made familiar in films and on TV series like Matteo Garrone’s ruthless Gomorrah, Neapolitan-born writer-director Francesco Patierno reveals the foundations for today’s violent mess. He artfully weaves the history of the Camorra clans from period footage in the Rai-tv videotheque to create an extraordinarily authentic work that is gripping and more than a little depressing.

Its fictional feel is not the only thing that distinguishes Camorra from ...

In a surprise twist no one saw coming The Coen Brothers’ initial anthology series, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, will be featuring at the 2018 Venice Film Festival as a full-length feature in the competition.

The film, which was declared a Netflix original, is made up of 6 of chaptered stories revolving around the American Frontier. As for chapter plot details, information is hard to find. Tim Blake Nelson stars as Scruggs alongside a cast that features names like Zoe Kazan, Liam Neeson and Tom Waits.

“We’ve always loved anthology movies, especially those films made in Italy in the Sixties which set side-by-side the work of different directors on a common theme,” the Coens said in a statement. “Having written an anthology of Western stories we attempted to do the same, hoping to enlist the best directors working today. It was our great fortune that they both agreed to participate.”

The...

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

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

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

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

The festival runs from August 29 – September 8.

The line-up of the 75th Venice Film Festival (August 29 – September 8) is being announced today at around 10am GMT.

The titles will be revealed at a press conference which is being live-streamed.

As previously announced, Damien Chazelle’s ‘First Man’ will open the festival in competition.

Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut A Star Is Born will also have its world premiere out-of-competition at the event.

We’ll update this story with the films as they are announced below. Refresh the page to get the latest titles.

Orizzonti

Sulla Mia Pelle (Alessio Cremonini) Kraben Rahu/Manta...

An atmospheric attempt to conjure war-torn Naples through a string of appropriate film clips and the writings of an especially eloquent writer, Francesco Patierno's Naples '44 adapts the wartime memoir of Norman Lewis, a British intelligence officer who served there for a year. Reading the author's words beautifully, Benedict Cumberbatch gives this thoughtful but unconventional doc most of its commercial appeal. Even so, it will be a niche release in art houses.

For those unfamiliar with Lewis, who went on to an influential career in journalism and travel writing, the film's first half-hour is mildly off-putting. Pretty, to be sure,...

Though she’s not quite the household name that her contemporaries Anna Magnani and Alida Valli are, Italian actress Valentina Cortese had an impressive career both on screen and on stage. Besides her romantic and professional relationship with Italian theater legend Giorgio Strehler, she worked with such film luminaries as Robert Wise, Jules Dassin, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Terry Gilliam, William Dieterle — as well as Fellini, Antonioni and Truffaut — even garnering an Oscar nomination for her supporting part as an alcoholic and aging actress in Truffaut’s Day for Night.

Italian director Francesco Patierno pays homage to her life, talent and...

ZamaThe programme for the 2017 edition of the Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, and includes new films from Darren Aronofsky, Lucrecia Martel, Frederick Wiseman, Alexander Payne, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Abdellatif Kechiche, Takeshi Kitano and many more.COMPETITIONmother! (Darren Aronofsky)First Reformed (Paul Schrader)Sweet Country (Warwick Thornton)The Leisure Seeker (Paolo Virzi)Una Famiglia (Sebastiano Riso)Ex Libris - The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman)Angels Wear White (Vivian Qu)The Whale (Andrea Pallaoro)Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh)Foxtrot (Samuel Maoz)Ammore e malavita (Manetti Brothers)Jusqu'a la garde (Xavier Legrand)The Third Murder (Hirokazu Kore-eda)Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno (Abdellatif Kechiche)Lean on Pete (Andrew Haigh)L'insulte (Ziad Doueiri)La Villa (Robert Guediguian)The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)Suburbicon (George Clooney)Human Flow (Ai Weiwei)Downsizing (Alexander Payne)Out Of COMPETITIONFeaturesOur Souls at Night (Ritesh Batra)Il Signor Rotpeter (Antonietta de Lillo)Victoria...

On the heels of the Toronto International Film Festival announcement earlier this week, Venice Film Festival have now delivered their full lineup and while there’s no Terrence Malick as rumored, there’s a plethora of highly-anticipated titles. Along with the previously-announced opener Downsizing and the expected Suburbicon, mother!, The Shape of Water, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, there’s Lucrecia Martel’s Zama, Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete, Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue is the Warmest Color follow-up Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno, and Brawl In Cell Block 99, the latest film from Bone Tomahawk director S. Craig Zahler.

Also in the lineup is Errol Morris’s Netflix crime drama Wormwood, Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, Frederick Wiseman’s Ex Libris – New York Public Library, Hirokazu Koreeda’s The Third Murder, Takeshi Kitano’s closing night film Outrage Coda, Michaël R. Roskam’s Racer and The Jailbird, the Kirsten Dunst-led Woodshock,...

Guests attending this year to include Bernardo Bertolucci, Don DeLillo, Ralph Fiennes.Scroll down for full line-up

The Rome Film Festival (Oct 13-23) has revealed its line-up for 2016.

The festival will present 44 films and documentaries in its official programme, selected from 26 countries.

Rome will open with Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, which premiered in Toronto.

Further titles in the Official Selection include Gavin O’Connor’s The Accountant [pictured], starring Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick, Nate Parker’s The Birth Of A Nation, Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester By The Sea, and Oliver Stone’s Snowden.

The festival’s previously announced Alice In The City line-up will include John Carney’s Sing Street and Matt Ross’s Captain Fantastic.

The Everybody’s Talking About It strand, which highlights films that has generated exceptional buzz following their international debuts, will showcase Yeon Sang-ho’s Train To Busan, Michael Grandage’s Genius, David Mackenzie’s Hell Or High Water, and [link=nm...

Screen rounds up the films from across the globe that could launch at Cannes…

With less than a month to go until the Cannes Film Festival announces its line-up at its annual Paris press conference on April 14, Screen looks at what could make it into Official Selection and the parallel sections of Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week.

UK and Ireland

The UK could have one of its strongest Cannes for years with hot favourites for a competition slot including Andrea Arnold’s Shia Labeouf-starring Us road movie American Honey and Ken Loach’s gritty Northern England-set drama I, Daniel Blake. It would be Loach’s 12th time in competition.

Ben Wheatley is also reportedly gunning for an Official Selection slot for his 1970s Boston-set, gangland thriller Free Fire, potentially Out of Competition or in Midnight Screenings. He was last in Cannes with Sightseers in Directors’ Fortnight.

Other UK hopefuls include Stephen Frears’ Florence Foster Jenkins and Indian...

Anomalisa wins Grand Jury Prize; Robert Pattinson-starrer The Childhood Of A Leader wins best debut.Scroll down for full list of winners

From Afar (Desde Alla), the first Venezuelan production to appear in Competition at the Venice Film Festival, has won the Golden Lion for Best Film.

The directorial debut of Lorenzo Vigas concerns a middle-aged man (Alfredo Castro) who pays young boys to spend time with him. One day he befriends an 18-year-old delinquent (Luis Silva), a development that affects both profoundly.

The film, sold by Celluloid Dreams, is produced by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, who co-wrote the script.

The Silver Lion for Best Director went to Argentinian film-maker Pablo Trapero for kidnap drama The Clan (El Clan).

Trapero has a good relationship with Venice, having won two prizes for his 1999 debut, Crane World, returning in 2004 with Rolling Family and sitting on the Golden Lion jury in 2012.

The Clan is based on the real-life exploits...

For the first time in Venice, the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement has been given “carte blanche” to select rare, forgotten or underestimated films for the Venice Classics section. This year's festival runs September 2-12, 2015. French cinema auteur (and dedicated film critic) Bertrand Tavernier will present four masterpieces he has personally chosen as Guest Director of the Venice Classics section: "White Paws" by Jean Grémillon (France, 1949, 92’, B&W), "The Vixen" by Alberto Lattuada (Italy, 1953, 93’, B&W), "Ray of Sunshine" by Pál Fejös (Germany/Austria, 1933, 87’, B&W) and "A Matter Of Life and Death" by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (UK, 1946, 104’, Color). Read More: Fellini Restoration Makes World Premiere in Venice Also, Italian film director Francesco Patierno will chair the Jury of film students which, for the third time, will award Best Restored Film and Best...

While it does not seem likely that anyone would have expected that Nicole Kidman would have something of a career resurgence at the hands of a hack like Lee Daniels and a film that sees her peeing on Zac Efron in an apparent act of love but, hey, Hollywood is insane (as evidenced by the fact that Daniels gets to even make movies). As part of that resurgence, Kidman will be honored with a Gala Tribute at this year’s New York Film Festival. The tribute will include both an on-stage conversation with Kidman and a screening of The Paperboy (don’t let my disdain for Daniels obscure the fact that I cannot wait to see this film and am deeply jealous of all the Gothamites who will see it at Nyff). The festival has also announced that they will be holding another Gala Tribute during the second half of the festival to honor their own Film...

You could count me as enthusiastic for this year’s initial New York Film Festival lineup — no, I won’t even bother listing all the auteurs — so hats off to Lincoln Center for making it all the better. In unveiling their Masterworks, Cinema Reflected, On the Arts, and Special Events selection, it’s become evident that 2012 will bring forth a glut of outside-the-lines works.

The most notable of these would be an 8k Lawrence of Arabia restoration; a documentary “preview” from Oliver Stone; Odd Man Out, the follow-up to 2008′s excellent Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired; the acclaimed Kubrick documentary, Room 237; something about Ingmar Bergman & Liv Ullmann; and even The Princess Bride. Talk about something for everybody.

Read the list below:

Masterworks

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962, UK/USA)

The screen’s greatest epic returns in a magnificent 8K restoration. A Sony Pictures Repertory release.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand,...

Following up an already stellar initial line-up, the Toronto International Film Festival 2012 has announced additional sections including Midnight Madness, Documentaries and Vanguard. When the clock strikes 12, some titles one will be able to see include the highly anticipated Seven Psychopaths, from In Bruges director Martin McDonagh. There’s also the world premiere of the horror anthology The ABCs of Death, as well as Dredd and Eli Roth‘s Aftershock and new films from Rob Zombie and Barry Levinson.

The documentary section brings new films from Alex Gibney, Ken Burns and an interesting one titled How to Make Money Selling Drugs, featuring interviews with 50 Cent, Eminem and more. Rounding out the Vanguard section is many titles screened elsewhere, including the excellent documentary on The Shining, Room 237, as well as the next from Kill List director Ben Wheatley, Sightseers (Cannes review). We also have Luis Prieto‘s Pusher remake, and Michel Gondry...

By Silvia Aloisi

Venice, Italy (Reuters) - Immigration in Italy is a big theme at the Venice film festival this year, with several home-grown movies taking a critical look at how the country's authorities and its people are struggling to deal with a growing wave of newcomers.

The issue could hardly be more topical in a year when tens of thousands of illegal immigrants fleeing political turmoil in North Africa and civil war in Libya have arrived in Italy and hundreds more have drowned at sea.

"Terraferma," or "Mainland," by director Emanuele Crialese, explores how the lives of a fisherman and his family on a remote island off the Sicilian coast are transformed when they rescue a pregnant Ethiopian woman at sea and hide her in their house.

The film, which is in the main competition at the festival, tells a fictional story and does not identify the island, but...

Now that we've got an entry collecting trailers for the films competing at this year's Venice Film Festival, here's another gathering trailers for films screening in the other sections as well as in the two autonomous programs, Venice Days and International Critics' Week. What we've got here, obviously, is a pretty mixed bag, but here we go:

Out Of Competition

Rolando Colla's Giochi d'estate:

Ugo Gregoretti, Carlo Lizzani, Francesco Maselli and Nino Russo's Scossa:

Tomás Lunák's Alois Nebel:

Kike Maillo's Eva:

Takashi Shimizu's Tormented:

Tony Ching Siu-tung's The Sorcerer and the White Snake:

Steven Soderbergh's Contagion:

Orizzonti

Yves Caumon's L'Oiseau (The Bird):

Clarissa Campolina and Helvecio Marins Jr's Swirl:

Amiel Courtin-Wilson's Hail:

Jonathan Demme's I'm Carolyn Parker: The Good, the Mad and the Beautiful:

And here are a couple more clips.

Michael Glawogger...

Dueling festival lineups! It seems that for every announcement for the Toronto International Film Festival lineup comes a competing (and often overlapping)  one from Venice.  Here we're collecting the finalized Venice lineups so far. (Above image: Philippe Garrel's A Burning Hot Summer.)

Competition

The Ides of March (George Clooney, USA) (opening night) 4:44 Last Day on Earth (Abel Ferrara, USA) Alps (Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece) A Burning Hot Summer (Philippe Garrel, France) Carnage (Roman Polanski, France/Germany/Spain/Poland) Chicken With Plums (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, France/Belgium/Germany) A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg, Canada) Dark Horse (Todd Solondz, USA) The Exchange (Eran Kolirin, Israel/Germany) Faust (Alexander Sokurov, Russia) Himizu (Sion Sono, Japan) Killer Joe (William Friedkin, USA) Life without Principle (Johnnie To, Hk) Quando la notte (Cristina Comencini, Italy) Seediq Bale (Wei Desheng, Taiwan) Shame (Steve McQueen, UK) Terraferma (Emanuele Crialese, Italy) Texas Killing Fields (Ami Canaan Mann,...