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Exclusive: Wild Bunch International has made an eleventh-hour addition to its European Film Market slate, signing international sales on Swedish Morbius director Daniel Espinosa’s upcoming drama Madame Luna.

Inspired by real-life events, the film follows an Eritrean refugee who gets stuck in Libya and becomes a notorious human trafficker known as “Mama Luna” with deep ties to the Italian Mafia.

When she is forced to flee to Italy due to a change in fortunes, she experiences the same hardships endured by the people she exploited.

Desperate to find a way out of the situation before she is recognized and brought to justice, she forms a bond with a younger version of herself.

The film was shot in Sicily and Calabria last August and September and is now in post-production.

Wbi has teased a first image of newcomers Meninet Abraha and Hilyam Weldemichael, who are both of Eritrean origin, in...

Titles include Sundance Jury prize winner ‘Utama’

Transilvania International Film Festival has unveiled the 12 films that will screen in its official competition.

Each title competing for the Transilvania Trophy will receive its Romanian premiere at the 21st edition of the festival, which is set to take place in the city of Cluj-Napoca.

The line-up features Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s Utama, a Bolivian drama about an indigenous couple trying to survive a drought, which took home the Jury prize at Sundance Film Festival early this year.

Other titles include the directorial debut by French filmmaker Vincent Maël Cardona - Magentic Beats.

Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God” and Gabriele Mainetti’s “Freaks Out” lead the pack at the David di Donatello Awards this year with 16 nominations each.

Here’s the complete list of nominees:

Picture

“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Leonardo Di Costanzo

“The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino

“Ennio,” Giuseppe Tornatore

“Freaks Out,” Gabriele Mainetti

“Qui Rido Io” (The King of Laughter), Mario Martone

Director

“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Leonardo Di Costanzo

“The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino

“Ennio,” Giuseppe Tornatore

“Freaks Out,” Gabriele Mainetti

“Qui Rido Io” (The King of Laughter), Mario Martone

Debut Director

“The Bad Poet,” Gianluca Jodice

“Maternal,” Maura Delpero

“Small Body,” Laura Samani

“Re Granchio” (The Legend of King Crab), Alessio Rigo De Righi, Matteo Zoppis

“Una Femmina” (The Code of Silence), Francesco Constabile

Producer

“A Chiara,” Jon Coplon, Paolo Carpignano, Ryan Zacarias, Jonas Carpignano (Stayblack Productions) — Rai Cinema

“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Carlo Cresto...

“Atlantide” is the Italian name for Atlantis, the fictional island utopia imagined by Plato, supposedly cursed by the gods and swallowed by the sea. It’s a pointed legend to evoke in a film about Venice, the sinking city that, real as it is, feels like a place we collectively dreamed into being, that could somehow be taken from us at any moment. The crumbling fragility of this impossible city and the defiant ennui of its native sons are both richly illustrated in Italian video artist Yuri Ancarani’s dazzling hybrid documentary, which navigates Venice’s various secondary islands and the waterways that separate them through the heavy-lidded eyes of young men who live for rollicking motorboat action and, it seems, not much else. All life here is made to feel as beautiful and vulnerable as the city itself.

Since premiering at (where else?) Venice last year, “Atlantide” has made...

The films by audiovisual artist Yuri Ancarani have often emerged from the interstices of documentary and fiction, but nowhere has that divide felt more porous than in his latest, Atlantide. A close-up study of teenage life on Sant’Erasmo, an island on the edges of the Venice lagoon, the film follows a smattering of teens as they fritter away their adolescence chasing each other aboard modified barchini (speedboats) in a quest to become the fastest rider this side of the Adriatic. Among them is Daniele (Daniele Barison), the closest Atlantide comes to a protagonist. A sullen teen with high cheekbones and a sorrowful gaze, his barchino races and tumultuous relationship with girlfriend Maila (Maila Dabalà) offer something of a narrative backbone Ancarani returns to in between all the film’s meanderings. But Atlantide, much like its predecessors, doesn’t unspool as a linear three-act drama so much as a succession of images and vignettes.

by Nathaniel R

Elisa and Nathaniel on one of several drink between movies breaks

That's a wrap on Venezia 78, otherwise known at the 2021 edition of the Venice Film Festival. The Golden Lion went to the excellent French abortion drama L'Evenement / Happening with Parallel Mothers, Spencer, and a trio of Netflix movies Hand of God, The Lost Daughter, and Power of the Dog  also emerging as hot future awards-prospects from the competition. I cannot begin to describe how beautiful the city is (my first time visiting), or what it's like to take a boat ride to the movies each day. Or especially to hang with Elisa in person who was such a great translator for me both linguistically and culturally. There was definitely a learning curve as a first-timer (I missed way too many of the hot ticket titles) but overall it was a good experience.  We hope you enjoyed our coverage.

“Woody Allen loves Venice. But Woody Allen’s Venice is not the real Venice. It’s the Las Vegas version of Venice, and it’s not only him,” says Italian director Yuri Ancarani, whose youth drama “Atlantide,” which makes its world premiere in Venice in the Horizons section, might be described as the ultimate Venice landscape film.

Think beautiful shot after shot of the lagoons, peppered with sun-tanned youths working out their interest in speed (the motoring kind) through boats whizzing across one of the world’s most painterly waterscapes.

The music has also been updated, along with Allen’s postcard vision of the city.

“Vivaldi is always the music you associate with Venice but they play Trap,” says Ancarani, who is an award-winning visual artist and filmmaker that had his first solo show in the U.S., featuring three shorts, at the Hammer Museum in 2014.

Using the Red Monstro...

Nathaniel reporting from Venice. Day 2

"Atlantide" is a stunner. And better yet, Venice specific!

My second day of the fest was a day of high highs and low lows. The high (other than the movies) was that it was a full social day. That doesn't always happen at festivals but it is like a shot of energy for extroverts like myself. The fun began meeting two Spanish journalists on the ferry to the Lido who introduced themselves since they read The Film Experience. We had a great conversation about the new Almodóvar and they totally sold me on the idea of the San Sebastian Film Festival -- new goal! Then between films a quick drink with longtime friend Boyd van Hoeij (who you've heard on the podcast a couple of times) and then a late night very Italian dinner with our own Elisa Giudici. She's been our Italian correspondent at...