James Franco will play a U.S. Navy sailor stationed in post-World War II Naples, where he fathers a child, in gritty Italian drama “Hey Joe.” Directed by Claudio Giovannesi, the film is now shooting in the southern port city.
Franco, who has recently been taking roles outside the U.S. following a now-settled 2019 lawsuit alleging that he sexually exploited young women who took his acting class, will be speaking both English and Italian to play the lead in “Hey Joe,” said producer Carlo Degli Esposti, head of Italy’s prominent Palomar shingle. Degli Esposti added that Palomar got a waiver from SAG-AFTRA for Franco to work on the film “since we are an indie production.”
In “Hey Joe,” Franco plays Dean Barry, an American sailor who in 1944, at age 23, disembarks in Naples which has been destroyed by bombing. He falls in love with a young, very poor, local woman named Lucia.
Franco, who has recently been taking roles outside the U.S. following a now-settled 2019 lawsuit alleging that he sexually exploited young women who took his acting class, will be speaking both English and Italian to play the lead in “Hey Joe,” said producer Carlo Degli Esposti, head of Italy’s prominent Palomar shingle. Degli Esposti added that Palomar got a waiver from SAG-AFTRA for Franco to work on the film “since we are an indie production.”
In “Hey Joe,” Franco plays Dean Barry, an American sailor who in 1944, at age 23, disembarks in Naples which has been destroyed by bombing. He falls in love with a young, very poor, local woman named Lucia.
- 10/19/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Mubi’s U.S. lineup for next month has been unveiled, including some essential recent releases, notably James Vaughan’s Friends and Strangers, Radu Muntean’s Întregalde, Alice Diop’s We (Nous), the Isabel Sandoval-led short The Actress, Ougie Pak’s Clytaemnestra, and the new restoration of Hong Sangsoo’s Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors.
As part of Pride month and fitting as his latest film arrives, Andrew Ahn’s Spa Night is among the selections, alongside And Then We Danced, Being 17, and Lilting. Lee Chang-dong’s Burning, a pair of films by Hirokazu Kore-eda, and Kim Bora’s House of Hummingbird are also in the lineup.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
June 1 – Wet Sand, directed by Elene Naveriani | Viewfinder | Pride
June 2 – And Then We Danced, directed by Levan Akin | Pride Unprejudiced: LGBTQ+ Cinema
June 3 – Friends and Strangers, directed by James Vaughan | Mubi Spotlight
June 4 – Final Set,...
As part of Pride month and fitting as his latest film arrives, Andrew Ahn’s Spa Night is among the selections, alongside And Then We Danced, Being 17, and Lilting. Lee Chang-dong’s Burning, a pair of films by Hirokazu Kore-eda, and Kim Bora’s House of Hummingbird are also in the lineup.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
June 1 – Wet Sand, directed by Elene Naveriani | Viewfinder | Pride
June 2 – And Then We Danced, directed by Levan Akin | Pride Unprejudiced: LGBTQ+ Cinema
June 3 – Friends and Strangers, directed by James Vaughan | Mubi Spotlight
June 4 – Final Set,...
- 5/24/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Antonia Nava’s Barcelona-based Neo Art Producciones has teamed with Rome’s Pupkin Production to co-produce gay romantic drama “Si las paredes hablasen” (“If Walls Had Ears”), the feature debut of Spanish femme director, Ceres Machado.
Scheduled to roll by this year-end or the first quarter of 2023 in Barcelona and Rome, the film will be produced by Nava and Pupkin’s Rita Rognoni.
Spanish actor Fernando Tejero is attached to star in a cast that will combine Spanish and Italian actors.
Co-written by Machado and scribe Salva Martos Cortés (“Maniac Tales”), “If Walls had Ears” will narrate, in 10 sequences, a Barcelona and Rome-set story of intense love, passion and pain between two men.
They are Juan, a 50 year-old married man who hides his homosexuality, and Leonardo, a 23-year Italian who arrives in Barcelona to try his luck as a soccer player.
Over a decade, they will live their romance, but...
Scheduled to roll by this year-end or the first quarter of 2023 in Barcelona and Rome, the film will be produced by Nava and Pupkin’s Rita Rognoni.
Spanish actor Fernando Tejero is attached to star in a cast that will combine Spanish and Italian actors.
Co-written by Machado and scribe Salva Martos Cortés (“Maniac Tales”), “If Walls had Ears” will narrate, in 10 sequences, a Barcelona and Rome-set story of intense love, passion and pain between two men.
They are Juan, a 50 year-old married man who hides his homosexuality, and Leonardo, a 23-year Italian who arrives in Barcelona to try his luck as a soccer player.
Over a decade, they will live their romance, but...
- 3/24/2022
- by Emiliano De Pablos
- Variety Film + TV
Emerging Italian helmer Claudio Giovannesi, who made a splash in Berlin with his prizewinning Neapolitan teen mob drama “Piranhas,” is set to direct immigration epic “Vita,” set in New York’s early 20th century Little Italy.
Based on Melania Mazzucco’s novel by the same title, winner of Italy’s prestigious Strega Prize, “Vita” is set in 1903 when two kids, a girl named Vita and a boy named Diamante, disembark alone in New York.
“Vita,” which means life in Italian, is grounded in authentic documentation, based on the true story of Mazzucco’s ancestors. The book was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the U.S.
From the extreme poverty of Italy’s rural south the two kids “are thrust in a modern, chaotic and hostile metropolis. Like all other Italian immigrants, in order to survive they have to work hard in Little Italy: a fierce neighborhood dominated by the Mano Nera,...
Based on Melania Mazzucco’s novel by the same title, winner of Italy’s prestigious Strega Prize, “Vita” is set in 1903 when two kids, a girl named Vita and a boy named Diamante, disembark alone in New York.
“Vita,” which means life in Italian, is grounded in authentic documentation, based on the true story of Mazzucco’s ancestors. The book was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the U.S.
From the extreme poverty of Italy’s rural south the two kids “are thrust in a modern, chaotic and hostile metropolis. Like all other Italian immigrants, in order to survive they have to work hard in Little Italy: a fierce neighborhood dominated by the Mano Nera,...
- 3/4/2021
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
“Nomadland” has received the Golden Lion Award as the best film of the 2020 Venice International Film Festival, a jury headed by Cate Blanchett announced on Saturday.
The Searchlight drama, a simultaneous premiere by the Venice, Telluride and Toronto festivals, was directed by Chloe Zhao and stars Frances McDormand as a woman who travels through the American West in a van after losing her job and her home. Apart from McDormand and David Strathairn, almost all of the actors in the film are actual “nomads” that Zhao cast on her own travels through the area.
“Nuevo Orden” (“New Order”) by Mexican director Michel Franco won the Silver Lion, the festival’s second-place award, while acting prizes went to Vanessa Kirby for “Pieces of a Woman” and Pierfrancesco Favino for “Padrenostro.”
Kiyoshi Kurosawa was named the festival’s best director for “Wife of a Spy.”
Ahmad Bahrami’s “The Wasteland” won the...
The Searchlight drama, a simultaneous premiere by the Venice, Telluride and Toronto festivals, was directed by Chloe Zhao and stars Frances McDormand as a woman who travels through the American West in a van after losing her job and her home. Apart from McDormand and David Strathairn, almost all of the actors in the film are actual “nomads” that Zhao cast on her own travels through the area.
“Nuevo Orden” (“New Order”) by Mexican director Michel Franco won the Silver Lion, the festival’s second-place award, while acting prizes went to Vanessa Kirby for “Pieces of a Woman” and Pierfrancesco Favino for “Padrenostro.”
Kiyoshi Kurosawa was named the festival’s best director for “Wife of a Spy.”
Ahmad Bahrami’s “The Wasteland” won the...
- 9/12/2020
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Venice chief Alberto Barbera addresses rumours of stalled collaboration plans with Cannes.
The directors of Europe’s leading film festivals put on a united front at the first news conference of this year’s Venice Film Festival on Wednesday (September 2), which is unfolding against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We’re here for two reasons: to show our solidarity to the other festivals and those colleagues who were not able to hold their festivals… but above all to show our support for all of those who make cinema – the directors, actors, producers, exhibitors,” said Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera.
The directors of Europe’s leading film festivals put on a united front at the first news conference of this year’s Venice Film Festival on Wednesday (September 2), which is unfolding against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We’re here for two reasons: to show our solidarity to the other festivals and those colleagues who were not able to hold their festivals… but above all to show our support for all of those who make cinema – the directors, actors, producers, exhibitors,” said Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera.
- 9/2/2020
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
At the opening press conference, the actress said now was the time to address the impact of streaming on cinema.
Cate Blanchett described being in Venice as “a miracolo” at the opening press conference of the Venice Film Festival today. Blanchett, who is heading the Venice Competition jury this year, said she had remained committed for months to attending after first being announced in January, despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
“My conversations with Alberto [Barbera] over these months has been all about outreach and canvassing opinions and the needs and expectations and desires of industry members, filmmakers, all around the world – those...
Cate Blanchett described being in Venice as “a miracolo” at the opening press conference of the Venice Film Festival today. Blanchett, who is heading the Venice Competition jury this year, said she had remained committed for months to attending after first being announced in January, despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
“My conversations with Alberto [Barbera] over these months has been all about outreach and canvassing opinions and the needs and expectations and desires of industry members, filmmakers, all around the world – those...
- 9/2/2020
- by Matt Mueller
- ScreenDaily
Cate Blanchett will preside over this year’s Venice competition jury.
UK filmmaker Joanna Hogg, Austria’s Veronika Franz, Germany’s Christian Petzold, Romanian director Cristi Puiu, French actress Ludivine Sagnier and Italian writer Nicola Lagioia will comprise the main competition jury for this year’s Venice International Film Festival (September 2-12)
They join previously announced jury president Cate Blanchett.
French filmmaker Claire Denis will preside over the Orizzonti jury, which also includes Spanish directors Oskar Alegria and Italy’s Francesca Comencini; US producer Christine Vachon and Israeli producer Katriel Schory, the former executive director of the Israel Film Fund...
UK filmmaker Joanna Hogg, Austria’s Veronika Franz, Germany’s Christian Petzold, Romanian director Cristi Puiu, French actress Ludivine Sagnier and Italian writer Nicola Lagioia will comprise the main competition jury for this year’s Venice International Film Festival (September 2-12)
They join previously announced jury president Cate Blanchett.
French filmmaker Claire Denis will preside over the Orizzonti jury, which also includes Spanish directors Oskar Alegria and Italy’s Francesca Comencini; US producer Christine Vachon and Israeli producer Katriel Schory, the former executive director of the Israel Film Fund...
- 7/27/2020
- by 1101184¦Orlando Parfitt¦38¦
- ScreenDaily
The Venice Film Festival is setting up quite the internationally starry jury this year. Running September 2-12, the festival has revealed all its jury members as led by president Cate Blanchett. Joining her will be Austrian director Veronika Franz, British filmmaker Joanna Hogg (“The Souvenir”), Italian writer and novelist Nicola Lagioia, German filmmaker Christian Petzold, Romanian director Cristi Puiu, and French actress Ludivine Sagnier.
Together, they will award the festival’s top prizes, including the Golden Lion, which last year went to “Joker” under jury president Lucrecia Martel.
Meaning, in the Orizzonti, or Horizons, section running parallel to the main competition, French favorite Claire Denis will lead the jury comprised of Oskar Alegria (Spain), Francesca Comencini (Italy), Katriel Schory (Israel), and Christine Vachon (USA).
Heading the jury for the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film are Claudio Giovannesi (Italy) as president, Remi Bonhomme (France), and Dora Bouchoucha...
Together, they will award the festival’s top prizes, including the Golden Lion, which last year went to “Joker” under jury president Lucrecia Martel.
Meaning, in the Orizzonti, or Horizons, section running parallel to the main competition, French favorite Claire Denis will lead the jury comprised of Oskar Alegria (Spain), Francesca Comencini (Italy), Katriel Schory (Israel), and Christine Vachon (USA).
Heading the jury for the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film are Claudio Giovannesi (Italy) as president, Remi Bonhomme (France), and Dora Bouchoucha...
- 7/26/2020
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
The 77th Venice Film Festival (September 2 – 12) has revealed all jury members, with Competition jury president Cate Blanchett joined by Austrian director Veronika Franz (Goodnight Mommy), Brit filmmaker Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir), Italian writer Nicola Lagioia, German filmmaker Christian Petzold (Barbara), Romanian director Cristi Puiu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) and French actress Ludivine Sagnier (La Vérité).
The Orizzonti jury will be presided over by French director Claire Denis (High Life), and comprise Oskar Alegria (Spain), Francesca Comencini (Italy), Katriel Schory (Israel) and Christine Vachon (USA).
The selectors of the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film are Claudio Giovannesi (Italy) as president, Remi Bonhomme (France) and Dora Bouchoucha (Tunisia).
The festival’s Venice Virtual Reality jury will be headed by Celine Tricart as president (USA), and also include Asif Kapadia (Great Britain) and Hideo Kojima (Japan).
The festival, the first major physical film get-together since the pandemic struck earlier this year,...
The Orizzonti jury will be presided over by French director Claire Denis (High Life), and comprise Oskar Alegria (Spain), Francesca Comencini (Italy), Katriel Schory (Israel) and Christine Vachon (USA).
The selectors of the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film are Claudio Giovannesi (Italy) as president, Remi Bonhomme (France) and Dora Bouchoucha (Tunisia).
The festival’s Venice Virtual Reality jury will be headed by Celine Tricart as president (USA), and also include Asif Kapadia (Great Britain) and Hideo Kojima (Japan).
The festival, the first major physical film get-together since the pandemic struck earlier this year,...
- 7/26/2020
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
The Venice Film Festival has revealed the rosters of its main juries — a move that indicates organizers expect a robust contingent of top international talent and industry executives to make the trek to the Lido for the fest’s planned physical edition in September.
The U.K.’s Joanna Hogg (“The Souvenir”), Germany’s Christian Petzold (“Undine”) and Romania’s Cristi Puiu (“Sieranevada”) are among the directors who will join the fest’s main jury, over which Cate Blanchett will preside, as previously announced.
Austrian auteur Veronika Franz (“The Lodge”), Italian writer Nicola Lagioia and French actor Ludivine Sagnier round out the Europe-centric main competition jury.
Meanwhile, French director, screenwriter and actor Claire Denis, whose “White Material” premiered in Venice in 2018, will oversee the jury for Venice’s more cutting-edge Horizons section.
Joining Denis on the Horizons jury are U.S. producer Christine Vachon, best known for shepherding Todd Haynes’ “Far From Heaven,...
The U.K.’s Joanna Hogg (“The Souvenir”), Germany’s Christian Petzold (“Undine”) and Romania’s Cristi Puiu (“Sieranevada”) are among the directors who will join the fest’s main jury, over which Cate Blanchett will preside, as previously announced.
Austrian auteur Veronika Franz (“The Lodge”), Italian writer Nicola Lagioia and French actor Ludivine Sagnier round out the Europe-centric main competition jury.
Meanwhile, French director, screenwriter and actor Claire Denis, whose “White Material” premiered in Venice in 2018, will oversee the jury for Venice’s more cutting-edge Horizons section.
Joining Denis on the Horizons jury are U.S. producer Christine Vachon, best known for shepherding Todd Haynes’ “Far From Heaven,...
- 7/26/2020
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Piranhas is set amongst the teenage street gangs of Naples. The young men and boys who make up these piranha gangs career around on mopeds committing acts of violence and petty crimes whilst indulging in low level drug dealing. The film charts a young gang leader's rise towards power as he cosies up to members of the Camorra. This is no epic like Scarface - it's about a kid who's a bit smarter than the others climbing the first rung of the ladder and becoming involved in organised crime.
The script for Piranhas was adapted by Claudio Giovannesi, Roberto Saviano and Maurizio Braucci from Saviano's novel La Paranza Dei Bambini. It should be the starting point for a strong film. Opening with the surprising theft of a huge Christmas tree from a shopping mall and the predictable bonfire is a good enough hook for the audience. With the right direction it.
The script for Piranhas was adapted by Claudio Giovannesi, Roberto Saviano and Maurizio Braucci from Saviano's novel La Paranza Dei Bambini. It should be the starting point for a strong film. Opening with the surprising theft of a huge Christmas tree from a shopping mall and the predictable bonfire is a good enough hook for the audience. With the right direction it.
- 7/21/2020
- by Donald Munro
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
This week’s new release should satisfy a couple of interests to those still in “self-isolation”. First, it’s set in another country, so it’s a trip overseas, at least vicariously. The backdrop is Italy, specifically Naples which is one of the big tourist destinations (perhaps Steve and Rob had a nice bowl of pasta there during one of their movie “trips”). And second, for those not big on the scenery, it’s a crime profile. But it’s not a big sprawling epic like The Irishman and last February’s The Traitor. The story’s spread out over a few months in the last couple of years. Oh, and the other big, big difference: the mobsters at the center of the tale are younger, by several decades. Teenagers really, several of them couldn’t drive here legally. Oh but their crimes are much bigger than any traffic violations.
- 7/14/2020
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Todd Phillips' Joker, Peter Farrelly's Green Book, Bong Joon Ho's Parasite and Roman Polanski's J'accuse are the nominees in the best foreign film category of Italy's David di Donatello Awards.
The nominees in the best Italian film category are Matteo Garrone for Pinocchio, Pietro Marcello for Martin Eden, Claudio Giovannesi for La Paranza dei Bambini, Marco Bellocchio for Il Traditore and Matteo Rovere for Il Primo Re. Those five will also compete in the best director category.
The 2019 David di Donatello awards marked the first time that two women were nominated in the ...
The nominees in the best Italian film category are Matteo Garrone for Pinocchio, Pietro Marcello for Martin Eden, Claudio Giovannesi for La Paranza dei Bambini, Marco Bellocchio for Il Traditore and Matteo Rovere for Il Primo Re. Those five will also compete in the best director category.
The 2019 David di Donatello awards marked the first time that two women were nominated in the ...
- 2/18/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Todd Phillips' Joker, Peter Farrelly's Green Book, Bong Joon Ho's Parasite and Roman Polanski's J'accuse are the nominees in the best foreign film category of Italy's David di Donatello Awards.
The nominees in the best Italian film category are Matteo Garrone for Pinocchio, Pietro Marcello for Martin Eden, Claudio Giovannesi for La Paranza dei Bambini, Marco Bellocchio for Il Traditore and Matteo Rovere for Il Primo Re. Those five will also compete in the best director category.
The 2019 David di Donatello awards marked the first time that two women were nominated in the ...
The nominees in the best Italian film category are Matteo Garrone for Pinocchio, Pietro Marcello for Martin Eden, Claudio Giovannesi for La Paranza dei Bambini, Marco Bellocchio for Il Traditore and Matteo Rovere for Il Primo Re. Those five will also compete in the best director category.
The 2019 David di Donatello awards marked the first time that two women were nominated in the ...
- 2/18/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Edoardo Ponti’s The Life Ahead, the Italian drama that marks the big screen return of Sophia Loren, has had its worlds rights snapped up by Netlfix, with the streamer planning to release later this year.
The pic, co-written by Ugo Chiti (Dogman) and Ponti, sees Loren play a Holocaust survivor who takes in a 12-year-old boy who recently robbed her. The film is a contemporary adaptation of Romain Gary’s novel The Life Before Us.
The project comes from Rome-based outfit Palomar, which has credits including Rupert Everett’s Oscar Wilde movie The Happy Prince and Claudio Giovannesi’s 2019 Berlinale premiere Piranhas.
Ibrahima Gueye, Renato Carpentieri and Massimiliano Rossi also star.
“In my career, I’ve worked with the biggest studios but I can safely say that none have had the breadth of reach and the cultural diversity of Netflix, and that’s what I love about them. They...
The pic, co-written by Ugo Chiti (Dogman) and Ponti, sees Loren play a Holocaust survivor who takes in a 12-year-old boy who recently robbed her. The film is a contemporary adaptation of Romain Gary’s novel The Life Before Us.
The project comes from Rome-based outfit Palomar, which has credits including Rupert Everett’s Oscar Wilde movie The Happy Prince and Claudio Giovannesi’s 2019 Berlinale premiere Piranhas.
Ibrahima Gueye, Renato Carpentieri and Massimiliano Rossi also star.
“In my career, I’ve worked with the biggest studios but I can safely say that none have had the breadth of reach and the cultural diversity of Netflix, and that’s what I love about them. They...
- 2/17/2020
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Pietro Marcello in front of an Andrei Tarkovsky Stalker and Satyajit Ray Apu Trilogy posters: “For me Martin Eden is a very contemporary character. So my objective was to span over the entire 20th century …” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Pietro Marcello’s Martin Eden star Luca Marinelli (Andrea in Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning The Great Beauty) in the title role won the Best Actor Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival where the film had its world première. Based on the 1909 novel by Jack London, with a screenplay co-written with Maurizio Braucci, Martin Eden, shot by Alessandro Abate and Francesco Di Giacomo, represents the 20th Century unlike any other film. Jessica Cressy, Vincenzo Nemolato, Marco Leonardi, Carlo Cecchi, Denise Sardisco and Carmen Pommella feature in the excellent ensemble surrounding our troubled hero.
Pietro Marcello on Luca Marinelli in Martin Eden: “We do love Martin Eden in the first part of the film because he's authentic,...
Pietro Marcello’s Martin Eden star Luca Marinelli (Andrea in Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning The Great Beauty) in the title role won the Best Actor Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival where the film had its world première. Based on the 1909 novel by Jack London, with a screenplay co-written with Maurizio Braucci, Martin Eden, shot by Alessandro Abate and Francesco Di Giacomo, represents the 20th Century unlike any other film. Jessica Cressy, Vincenzo Nemolato, Marco Leonardi, Carlo Cecchi, Denise Sardisco and Carmen Pommella feature in the excellent ensemble surrounding our troubled hero.
Pietro Marcello on Luca Marinelli in Martin Eden: “We do love Martin Eden in the first part of the film because he's authentic,...
- 10/11/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Other winners at the 40th edition of the second-oldest festival dedicated to cinematographers included The Wild Goose Lake, Piranhas and Ayka. The 40th edition of the Manaki Brothers International Cinematographers' Film Festival (14-21 September) in Bitola, North Macedonia, saw French DoP Hélène Louvart scoop the main award of the event, the Golden Camera 300, for her work on Karim Aïnouz's Cannes Un Certain Regard winner The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmāo. The Silver Camera 300 went to Jinsong Dong, the DoP on Diao Yinan's Cannes competition entry The Wild Goose Lake, while Daniele Cipri received the Bronze Camera 300 for his work on Claudio Giovannesi's Berlinale competition title Piranhas. In addition, Poland's Jolanta Dylewska received a Special Mention for Sergey Dvortsevoy's Ayka. The short-film competition was also dominated by Cannes pictures, with Argentina's Constanza Sandoval picking up the Small Camera 300 for her work on Augustina San Martin's Monster God...
Laughing (Ride) director Valerio Mastandrea photographs Piranhas director Claudio Giovannesi during the Film at Lincoln Center and Istituto Luce Cinecittà Open Roads: New Italian Cinema Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
At the centre of Laughing (Ride) is Carolina (Chiara Martegiani), whose husband died in a work-related accident. While everybody else around her is wailing and sobbing, she cannot shed a single tear. Her 12-year-old son Bruno (Arturo Marchetti) even attacks her for this perceived coldness and she herself wonders what could be wrong with her for not going through the emotions and motions of the grieving widow.
Valerio Mastandrea on Chiara Martegiani's Carolina in Laughing (Ride): "It's not her fault that she can't respond to a cultural code that says women have to cry and be desperate." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Valerio Mastandrea had a duel role in the Open Roads: New Italian Cinema programme of films in New York. The director...
At the centre of Laughing (Ride) is Carolina (Chiara Martegiani), whose husband died in a work-related accident. While everybody else around her is wailing and sobbing, she cannot shed a single tear. Her 12-year-old son Bruno (Arturo Marchetti) even attacks her for this perceived coldness and she herself wonders what could be wrong with her for not going through the emotions and motions of the grieving widow.
Valerio Mastandrea on Chiara Martegiani's Carolina in Laughing (Ride): "It's not her fault that she can't respond to a cultural code that says women have to cry and be desperate." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Valerio Mastandrea had a duel role in the Open Roads: New Italian Cinema programme of films in New York. The director...
- 7/23/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
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.
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.
- 7/11/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
With Netflix (hopefully) releasing “The Irishman” at the end of this year, it’s natural for moviegoers to have gangsters on the mind. But if you can’t wait five months for a “Goodfellas”-inspired movie, “Piranhas” has you covered. Claudio Giovannesi’s latest, a crime story set in the mean streets of Naples, seeks to chart new territory without hiding its debt to classic mob cinema.
The official synopsis from Music Box Films says the film “follows fifteen year-old Nicola (newcomer Francesco Di Napoli) who lives with his mother and younger brother in the Sanità neighborhood of Naples, a place that has been controlled by the Camorra mafia for centuries. Dreaming of a life lush with designer clothing and elite nightclub bottle service, Nicola and his group of friends begin selling drugs, an entryway into the violent, power-hungry world of crime that begins to threaten their innocence, relationships, and safety of their families.
The official synopsis from Music Box Films says the film “follows fifteen year-old Nicola (newcomer Francesco Di Napoli) who lives with his mother and younger brother in the Sanità neighborhood of Naples, a place that has been controlled by the Camorra mafia for centuries. Dreaming of a life lush with designer clothing and elite nightclub bottle service, Nicola and his group of friends begin selling drugs, an entryway into the violent, power-hungry world of crime that begins to threaten their innocence, relationships, and safety of their families.
- 7/10/2019
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
Nicola is a decent kid in a dirty world. A 15-year-old boy who’s mired in the usual mess of pubescent crises — raging hormones, idiot friends, hostile bullies — Nicola stands out for the attention that he still manages to afford his single mom and younger brother; whether motivated by love or by the unfulfilled masculinity that his absent father left behind, there’s no denying that he’s motivated. Alas, that’s kind of the problem. In most places, it might be a good thing for a teenager to be a real go-getter with ambition to burn and a savvy head for business. In the corrupt heart of Naples, which 2008’s “Gomorrah” effectively minted as the new epicenter of mafia cinema, those same traits are more like a death sentence.
A familiar but arrestingly visceral crime story with a coming-of-age twist, Claudio Giovannesi’s “Piranhas” has an unusual relationship with its own predictability.
A familiar but arrestingly visceral crime story with a coming-of-age twist, Claudio Giovannesi’s “Piranhas” has an unusual relationship with its own predictability.
- 6/11/2019
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
The Chicago Critics Film Festival Runs May 17th – 23rd. Stephen Tronicek is covering the event for We Are Movie Geeeks
After a week and (checks schedule) 23 programs, all of this had to come to an end. Tonight, it did and while there is a bit of sadness in watching the Chicago Critics Film Festival go, there is also adulation at the movies that screened tonight.
Piranhas, directed by Claudio Giovannesi, is a marvelous little gangster film that captures the misadventures of an Italian gang of fifteen-year-olds, out to face the world. What’s surprising is how restrained the ride actually is. The filmmaking is mostly handheld but the storytelling isn’t explosive and that’s perfect. We observe, through the workman lens, the lives of these young men and women. We observe them as they struggle, succeed, die, and party and it goes by in a rush of 105 minutes. Definitely...
After a week and (checks schedule) 23 programs, all of this had to come to an end. Tonight, it did and while there is a bit of sadness in watching the Chicago Critics Film Festival go, there is also adulation at the movies that screened tonight.
Piranhas, directed by Claudio Giovannesi, is a marvelous little gangster film that captures the misadventures of an Italian gang of fifteen-year-olds, out to face the world. What’s surprising is how restrained the ride actually is. The filmmaking is mostly handheld but the storytelling isn’t explosive and that’s perfect. We observe, through the workman lens, the lives of these young men and women. We observe them as they struggle, succeed, die, and party and it goes by in a rush of 105 minutes. Definitely...
- 5/24/2019
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
With most top Italian production companies — Cattleya, Wildside and Palomar — now owned by non-Italian players, and Italian pubcaster Rai also increasingly thinking internationally, cinema Italiano is striving to break out of national confines more than ever.
This means bigger budgets and auteurs turning toward genre — in particular, crime movies and biopics.
Marco Bellocchio’s Cannes competition entry “The Traitor,” which follows Tommaso Buscetta, the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence, is case in point, with an auteur taking on a genre pic.
Buscetta is played by local A-lister Pierfrancesco Favino, who will next be seen as disgraced late Italian socialist prime Bettino Craxi in upcoming biopic “Hammamet,” directed by veteran auteur Gianni Amelio. The title refers to the Tunisian seaside city where Craxi fled from Italian justice in the 1990s after being indicted for massive corruption.
Italian cinema no longer stems “from self-contemplation,...
This means bigger budgets and auteurs turning toward genre — in particular, crime movies and biopics.
Marco Bellocchio’s Cannes competition entry “The Traitor,” which follows Tommaso Buscetta, the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence, is case in point, with an auteur taking on a genre pic.
Buscetta is played by local A-lister Pierfrancesco Favino, who will next be seen as disgraced late Italian socialist prime Bettino Craxi in upcoming biopic “Hammamet,” directed by veteran auteur Gianni Amelio. The title refers to the Tunisian seaside city where Craxi fled from Italian justice in the 1990s after being indicted for massive corruption.
Italian cinema no longer stems “from self-contemplation,...
- 5/16/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Flesh Out (Il Corpo Della Sposa) director Michela Occhipinti with Anne-Katrin Titze on being a Tribeca Film Festival Highlight at Eye For Film: "First I saw the photo of Naomi Watts, and then the mentioning of Daniel Day-Lewis and then - my name! Then I thought something is going terribly but fantastically wrong here." Photo: Virginia Cademartori
Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, presented by Film at Lincoln Center and Istituto Luce Cinecittà is set to open next month with Claudio Giovannesi's Piranhas (La Paranza Dei Bambini) and will have a screening of La Commare Secca, Bernardo Bertolucci's début feature in honour of the director who died last year. Other films of note include Paolo Sorrentino's Loro, starring Toni Servillo (from the Oscar-winning The Great Beauty) and Riccardo Scamarcio, Paolo Virzì's Magical Nights (Notti Magiche), Valerio Mastandrea's Laughing (Ride), Alba Rohrwacher as Lucia in Gianni Zanasi...
Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, presented by Film at Lincoln Center and Istituto Luce Cinecittà is set to open next month with Claudio Giovannesi's Piranhas (La Paranza Dei Bambini) and will have a screening of La Commare Secca, Bernardo Bertolucci's début feature in honour of the director who died last year. Other films of note include Paolo Sorrentino's Loro, starring Toni Servillo (from the Oscar-winning The Great Beauty) and Riccardo Scamarcio, Paolo Virzì's Magical Nights (Notti Magiche), Valerio Mastandrea's Laughing (Ride), Alba Rohrwacher as Lucia in Gianni Zanasi...
- 5/15/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Mediawan, the listed company launched in late 2015 by three media industry veterans, saw its annual revenues increase by 13% to 276.1 million euros ($331.10) at constant perimeter and doubled its profits to $32.5 million in 2018. The company also saw its Ebitda margin reach 19% to $55.3 million, a near 100% year-on increase.
An integrated media group specializing in production and distribution for both film and TV, Mediawan was launched by Xavier Niel, the founder of Lliad, the company that operates France’s third-biggest telco group, Free; Mathieu Pigasse, the CEO of Lazard Banque and the founder of Les Nouvelles Editions Independantes, which owns Le Monde, Les Inrocks and Nova Radio; and Pierre-Antoine Capton, the owner of Troisieme Oeil Productions, France’s No. 1 independent TV producer.
Within the last year, Mediawan scored a flurry of major acquisitions to feed its pipeline of premium fiction, animation and documentaries. After acquiring the documentary production company Clarke Costelle & Co. (“Apocalypse: The Second World War...
An integrated media group specializing in production and distribution for both film and TV, Mediawan was launched by Xavier Niel, the founder of Lliad, the company that operates France’s third-biggest telco group, Free; Mathieu Pigasse, the CEO of Lazard Banque and the founder of Les Nouvelles Editions Independantes, which owns Le Monde, Les Inrocks and Nova Radio; and Pierre-Antoine Capton, the owner of Troisieme Oeil Productions, France’s No. 1 independent TV producer.
Within the last year, Mediawan scored a flurry of major acquisitions to feed its pipeline of premium fiction, animation and documentaries. After acquiring the documentary production company Clarke Costelle & Co. (“Apocalypse: The Second World War...
- 4/11/2019
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
South Korea’s second biggest film festival, the Jeonju International Film Festival, will open its 20th edition with Italian director Claudio Giovannesi’s crime drama “Piranhas.” It will close with “Skin,” an American biographical drama written and directed by Guy Nattiv.
Festival organizers announced their film selection at a live-streamed press conference in Jeonju on Wednesday and dispensed with the traditional second presentation in Seoul. Under the slogan, “Cinema, Liberated and Expressed,” they unveiled a selection comprising 202 feature films and 60 shorts from 56 countries.
The international competition includes “Breathless Animals”by Chinese-American Lei Lei, and Nore Fingshceidt’s “System Crasher,” both of which premiered in Berlin. (“Piranhas”won a silver bear in Berlin for its screenplay.) The competition prizes will be adjudged by a jury headed by Hungary’s Gyorgy Palfi.
The festival will also dedicate a section to the centenary of Korean cinema, another called “Star Wars Archive: Never-Ending Chronology,...
Festival organizers announced their film selection at a live-streamed press conference in Jeonju on Wednesday and dispensed with the traditional second presentation in Seoul. Under the slogan, “Cinema, Liberated and Expressed,” they unveiled a selection comprising 202 feature films and 60 shorts from 56 countries.
The international competition includes “Breathless Animals”by Chinese-American Lei Lei, and Nore Fingshceidt’s “System Crasher,” both of which premiered in Berlin. (“Piranhas”won a silver bear in Berlin for its screenplay.) The competition prizes will be adjudged by a jury headed by Hungary’s Gyorgy Palfi.
The festival will also dedicate a section to the centenary of Korean cinema, another called “Star Wars Archive: Never-Ending Chronology,...
- 4/4/2019
- by Sonia Kil
- Variety Film + TV
Jeonju International Film Festival (May 2-11) is set to celebrate its 20th anniversary this year.
This year’s Jeonju International Film Festival, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, will open with Claudio Giovannesi’s Italian film Piranhas in its Asian premiere.
The winner of this year’s Berlinale Silver Bear for best screenplay is about a group of wild teens working in the criminal underworld of Naples.
With a slogan of “Cinema, Liberated and Expressed”, the 20th Jiff will screen a total of 262 films with 68 world premieres, five international premieres and 69 Asian. The festival’s awards ceremony will be held...
This year’s Jeonju International Film Festival, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, will open with Claudio Giovannesi’s Italian film Piranhas in its Asian premiere.
The winner of this year’s Berlinale Silver Bear for best screenplay is about a group of wild teens working in the criminal underworld of Naples.
With a slogan of “Cinema, Liberated and Expressed”, the 20th Jiff will screen a total of 262 films with 68 world premieres, five international premieres and 69 Asian. The festival’s awards ceremony will be held...
- 4/3/2019
- by Jean Noh
- ScreenDaily
In today’s film news roundup, the Library of Congress honors Ken Burns, Anthony Anderson is hosting the NAACP Image Awards, Berlin winner “Piranhas” gets distribution and “The Biggest Little Farm” gets school screenings.
Burns Award
The Library of Congress, the Better Angels Society and the Crimson Lion/Lavine Family Foundation will present an annual documentary award named after Ken Burns.
The award, which will be presented each fall at a gala at the Library of Congress, will recognize a filmmaker whose documentary uses original research and compelling narrative to tell stories that touch on some aspect of American history. The winner will receive a $200,000 finishing grant to help with the final production of the film.
“I’ve been very fortunate to spend my career focused on our country’s history,” said Burns. “While each film is different, they all ask the same question about who we are as a people.
Burns Award
The Library of Congress, the Better Angels Society and the Crimson Lion/Lavine Family Foundation will present an annual documentary award named after Ken Burns.
The award, which will be presented each fall at a gala at the Library of Congress, will recognize a filmmaker whose documentary uses original research and compelling narrative to tell stories that touch on some aspect of American history. The winner will receive a $200,000 finishing grant to help with the final production of the film.
“I’ve been very fortunate to spend my career focused on our country’s history,” said Burns. “While each film is different, they all ask the same question about who we are as a people.
- 3/6/2019
- by Dave McNary
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Music Box Films has acquired North American rights to Piranhas, the film adaptation of Gomorrah author Roberto Saviano’s bestseller. The pic, which just won the Silver Bear for best screenplay at the Berlin Film Festival, will hit U.S. theaters later this year ahead of a digital bow.
The Claudio Giovanessi-directed film centers on 15-year-old Nicola (Francesco Di Napoli) and his group of friends as they descend from naïve, designer clothes-wearing and party-loving teenagers into violent and power-hungry gangsters groomed by members of the Neapolitan mafia. Giovanessi, Saviano and Maurizio Braucci wrote the script. Palomar Film and Vision Distribution are producers.
“Director Claudio Giovannesi and novelist Roberto Saviano have delivered a timely look at how youth and social media intersect with one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy and crafted an underworld epic to stand beside Gomorrah,” Music Box Films president William Schopf said. “We...
The Claudio Giovanessi-directed film centers on 15-year-old Nicola (Francesco Di Napoli) and his group of friends as they descend from naïve, designer clothes-wearing and party-loving teenagers into violent and power-hungry gangsters groomed by members of the Neapolitan mafia. Giovanessi, Saviano and Maurizio Braucci wrote the script. Palomar Film and Vision Distribution are producers.
“Director Claudio Giovannesi and novelist Roberto Saviano have delivered a timely look at how youth and social media intersect with one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy and crafted an underworld epic to stand beside Gomorrah,” Music Box Films president William Schopf said. “We...
- 3/5/2019
- by Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
It’s one of those coincidences with which film history is littered, that Claudio Giovannesi’s Naples-set young-Camorra saga “Piranhas” played in the Berlinale competition — going on to win the best screenplay award — while Agostino Ferrente’s documentary, “Selfie,” set in the very same milieu, debuted to much less fanfare in the Panorama sidebar. The films are, almost perfectly, opposite sides of the same coin — one fiction, the other non-fiction; one broodingly glossy, the other delivered in helter-skelter iPhone images recorded by the subjects themselves. Still, while ostensibly “constrained” by reality, “Selfie” ultimately has the more original and involving take on sunny Neapolitan childhoods threatened by the shadow of organized crime. And not just because Ferrente’s two fantastic teenage protagonists are doing their plucky, bumbling, endearing best to skirt that darkness, where their fictional counterparts succumb all too easily to its lure.
Ale and Pietro are 16-year-old boys living in Rione Traiano,...
Ale and Pietro are 16-year-old boys living in Rione Traiano,...
- 2/28/2019
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
The kids roaming around the streets of Naples in Claudio Giovannesi’s Piranhas snort cocaine, hang out with hookers, and fire assault weapons. They are the barely teenage mobsters the city’s Camorra clans have recruited with promises of quick cash and opulent mansions, their interiors caught somewhere between the belittling sumptuousness of Xanadu and the revolting kitsch of a Trump Tower. Stunted adolescents propelled into adulthood at the speed of light, they inhabit a liminal world where ultra-violence teems with childlike wonder, the loss of innocence immortalized one gun-wielding selfie at a time.
Based on Naples-born Roberto Saviano’s best-selling novel La Paranza Dei Bambini Giovannesi’s Piranhas offers a far tamer ethnography of the Neapolitan underworld than the disturbing sociological study Matteo Garrone’s 2008 Gomorrah had pierced out of Saviano’s breakthrough literary debut of the same name. Anyone approaching Giovannesi’s fourth feature hoping to find the same fast-paced,...
Based on Naples-born Roberto Saviano’s best-selling novel La Paranza Dei Bambini Giovannesi’s Piranhas offers a far tamer ethnography of the Neapolitan underworld than the disturbing sociological study Matteo Garrone’s 2008 Gomorrah had pierced out of Saviano’s breakthrough literary debut of the same name. Anyone approaching Giovannesi’s fourth feature hoping to find the same fast-paced,...
- 2/21/2019
- by Leonardo Goi
- The Film Stage
SynonymsGolden BearSynonyms (Nadav Lapid) | Read our review and interviewSilver Bear — Grand Jury PrizeBy the Grace of God (François Ozon)Silver Bear — Alfred Bauer PrizeSystem Crasher (Nora Fingscheidt)Silver Bear for Best DirectorAngela Schanelec | Read our reviewSilver Bear for Best ActorWang JingchunSilver Bear for Best ActressYong MeiSilver Bear for Best ScreenplayMaurizio Barucci, Claudio Giovannesi, Roberto Saviano (Piranhas)Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic ContributionRasmus Videbæk (Out Stealing Horses)...
- 2/19/2019
- MUBI
‘Buoyancy’.
Rodd Rathjen’s debut feature Buoyancy has been awarded a prize from the Ecumenical Jury after its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Representing Interfilm and Signis, the international film organisations of the Protestant and Catholic Churches, the jury honours the directors whose films succeed in portraying actions or human experiences that are in keeping with the Gospels or in sensitising viewers to spiritual, human or social values.
Rathjen won a cash prize of €2,500 for the drama set in rural Cambodia which follows 14-year-old Chakra (Sarm Heng), who sets off to escape his family’s poverty but is enslaved aboard a Thai fishing trawler. Squalor and cruelty threaten to crush his spirit but he finds the courage to break the chains.
Out of 45 titles from 38 countries which screened in the festival’s Panorama section, the jury chose Buoyancy as an exquisitely-crafted debut feature which serves as an...
Rodd Rathjen’s debut feature Buoyancy has been awarded a prize from the Ecumenical Jury after its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Representing Interfilm and Signis, the international film organisations of the Protestant and Catholic Churches, the jury honours the directors whose films succeed in portraying actions or human experiences that are in keeping with the Gospels or in sensitising viewers to spiritual, human or social values.
Rathjen won a cash prize of €2,500 for the drama set in rural Cambodia which follows 14-year-old Chakra (Sarm Heng), who sets off to escape his family’s poverty but is enslaved aboard a Thai fishing trawler. Squalor and cruelty threaten to crush his spirit but he finds the courage to break the chains.
Out of 45 titles from 38 countries which screened in the festival’s Panorama section, the jury chose Buoyancy as an exquisitely-crafted debut feature which serves as an...
- 2/17/2019
- by The IF Team
- IF.com.au
By The Grace Of God wins the Silver Bear, while Yong Mei and Wang Jingchun take the acting Bears for Wang Xiaoshuai’s So Long, My Son.
Nadiv Lapid’s Synonymes won the Golden Bear for best film at Dieter Kosslick’s 18th and final outing as Berlin’s festival director at the Berlinale Palast tonight (Feb 16).
It’s the first time in the Berlinale’s history that an Israeli director has won the Golden Bear. The film is a French-Israeli-German co-production.
Lapid dedicated the award to his late mother, the editor Ara Lapid, who he described as his “most...
Nadiv Lapid’s Synonymes won the Golden Bear for best film at Dieter Kosslick’s 18th and final outing as Berlin’s festival director at the Berlinale Palast tonight (Feb 16).
It’s the first time in the Berlinale’s history that an Israeli director has won the Golden Bear. The film is a French-Israeli-German co-production.
Lapid dedicated the award to his late mother, the editor Ara Lapid, who he described as his “most...
- 2/16/2019
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
Israeli director Nadav Lapid’s “Synonyms,” about a young Israeli man in Paris who has turned his back on his native country, won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale on Saturday.
The Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize went to François Ozon’s French drama “By the Grace of God,” a fact-based account of the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal behind the ongoing trial of Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon.
Accepting the award, Lapid said “Synonyms,” which stars Tom Mercier, would likely be considered “scandalous” in Israel and France – the pic skewers stereotypes from both nations – but added that it was ultimately a celebration.
In his review in Variety, Jay Weissberg wrote that the film takes “a Kalashnikov to the nation’s military culture and its carefully nurtured persecution complex.”
Thanking the Berlinale for selecting his film, Ozon said he did not know whether addressing child sexual abuse...
The Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize went to François Ozon’s French drama “By the Grace of God,” a fact-based account of the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal behind the ongoing trial of Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon.
Accepting the award, Lapid said “Synonyms,” which stars Tom Mercier, would likely be considered “scandalous” in Israel and France – the pic skewers stereotypes from both nations – but added that it was ultimately a celebration.
In his review in Variety, Jay Weissberg wrote that the film takes “a Kalashnikov to the nation’s military culture and its carefully nurtured persecution complex.”
Thanking the Berlinale for selecting his film, Ozon said he did not know whether addressing child sexual abuse...
- 2/16/2019
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
This boisterous adaptation of Roberto ‘Gomorrah’ Saviano’s novel about young mobsters is watchable but too smooth
Roberto Saviano is the author and journalist forced into hiding after publishing his 2006 exposé Gomorrah about the Neapolitan mafia – which became the basis for the very successful movie directed by Matteo Garrone – and he still requires police protection. Now Saviano has adapted his 2010 novel La Paranza dei Bambini, or The Children’s Gang, for the screen; the director and co-writer is Claudio Giovannesi, whose credits include episodes of the TV version of Gomorrah.
It is a fiction, based on real experiences, of teenage gangsters with grownup violence, grownup paranoia and grownup guns: which is to say, the infantile mannerisms of the grownup professional criminals. Giovannesi’s movie is watchable enough, but often looks like a smoothed-out, planed-down version of Garrone’s Gomorrah: Gomorrah without the rough edges, like a classy television version. This...
Roberto Saviano is the author and journalist forced into hiding after publishing his 2006 exposé Gomorrah about the Neapolitan mafia – which became the basis for the very successful movie directed by Matteo Garrone – and he still requires police protection. Now Saviano has adapted his 2010 novel La Paranza dei Bambini, or The Children’s Gang, for the screen; the director and co-writer is Claudio Giovannesi, whose credits include episodes of the TV version of Gomorrah.
It is a fiction, based on real experiences, of teenage gangsters with grownup violence, grownup paranoia and grownup guns: which is to say, the infantile mannerisms of the grownup professional criminals. Giovannesi’s movie is watchable enough, but often looks like a smoothed-out, planed-down version of Garrone’s Gomorrah: Gomorrah without the rough edges, like a classy television version. This...
- 2/14/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Emin Alper’s film scored well with critics.
Three new titles have landed on Screen’s Berlin Competition jury grid, with Emin Alper’s A Tale Of Three Sisters moving into first position.
The film has an average of 3.0, although it is missing two scores – Nicholas Wennö is still to award while Paolo Bertolin is not reviewing this title due to being credited with ‘Thanks’ on it.
So far it has received four threes (good), bracketed by a two (average) from Film Art’s Anton Dolin and a four (excellent) from Katja Nicodemus of Die Zeit.
A Tale Of Three Sisters...
Three new titles have landed on Screen’s Berlin Competition jury grid, with Emin Alper’s A Tale Of Three Sisters moving into first position.
The film has an average of 3.0, although it is missing two scores – Nicholas Wennö is still to award while Paolo Bertolin is not reviewing this title due to being credited with ‘Thanks’ on it.
So far it has received four threes (good), bracketed by a two (average) from Film Art’s Anton Dolin and a four (excellent) from Katja Nicodemus of Die Zeit.
A Tale Of Three Sisters...
- 2/13/2019
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
At the kingpin table on the mezzanine level of a Neapolitan nightclub, Nicola (Francesco di Napoli) snorts a line of coke and slings his arm around Letizia (Viviana Aprea) while Tyson (Ar Tem) pops a bottle of champagne. Over the pulsing music, the whole jostling crew laughs down at the 500€-a-table territory below, noting from their Godlike perch which neighborhood gangs are looking up at them with animosity, which with envy. Claudio Giovannesi’s “Piranhas” begins a few short weeks before this scene, when Nicola’s penniless gang gets turned away from places like this, but look, now he’s made it! He is 15 years old.
Based on the book “La Paranza dei Bambini” (“The Children’s Parade”) by “Gomorrah” writer Roberto Saviano who co-wrote the screenplay, “Piranhas” is both helped and hamstrung by its central, chilling observation: The children of central Naples are inducted into the mob lifestyle, its tribalism,...
Based on the book “La Paranza dei Bambini” (“The Children’s Parade”) by “Gomorrah” writer Roberto Saviano who co-wrote the screenplay, “Piranhas” is both helped and hamstrung by its central, chilling observation: The children of central Naples are inducted into the mob lifestyle, its tribalism,...
- 2/12/2019
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
In Naples, the plague of “baby gangs” is old news. Violent kids from the slums as young as ten go cruising for fights and taunt the police, knowing they’re too young to be arrested. They presumably graduate to become teenage “paranza,” mob slang for an armed group in the service of the Camorra.
Piranhas (La paranza dei bambini), directed by Claudio Giovannesi, charts the descent into organized crime of a naïve group of 15-year-old pals led by the inexperienced but cocksure Nicola (Francesco Di Napoli). Behind his clean-cut face, neat haircut and designer clothes lies ...
Piranhas (La paranza dei bambini), directed by Claudio Giovannesi, charts the descent into organized crime of a naïve group of 15-year-old pals led by the inexperienced but cocksure Nicola (Francesco Di Napoli). Behind his clean-cut face, neat haircut and designer clothes lies ...
- 2/12/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
In Naples, the plague of “baby gangs” is old news. Violent kids from the slums as young as ten go cruising for fights and taunt the police, knowing they’re too young to be arrested. They presumably graduate to become teenage “paranza,” mob slang for an armed group in the service of the Camorra.
Piranhas (La paranza dei bambini), directed by Claudio Giovannesi, charts the descent into organized crime of a naïve group of 15-year-old pals led by the inexperienced but cocksure Nicola (Francesco Di Napoli). Behind his clean-cut face, neat haircut and designer clothes lies ...
Piranhas (La paranza dei bambini), directed by Claudio Giovannesi, charts the descent into organized crime of a naïve group of 15-year-old pals led by the inexperienced but cocksure Nicola (Francesco Di Napoli). Behind his clean-cut face, neat haircut and designer clothes lies ...
- 2/12/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Claudio Giovannesi’s third feature “Piranhas,” which screens in Berlin’s competition, depicts Neapolitan teen gangsters drawing from a novel by star author Roberto Saviano whose mob exposé “Gomorrah” spawned a pluriprized movie and a game-changing TV series. Giovannesi spoke to Variety about the challenge of adapting Saviano given what came before and how he trained his non-professional cast.
How did you go about striking a different tone in adapting Saviano?
Garrone’s “Gomorrah” movie is genial and groundbreaking. And I shot two episodes of the “Gomorrah” TV series. I did not want to replicate either of those works. My approach was to distance myself from the TV series and say: ‘I don’t want to make a genre film.’ The starting point with the producer and the screenwriter [Maurizio Braucci] was: we are not doing “Gomorrah” with kids. We are going to work on the emotional aspect; on the characters’ feelings and their fragility.
How did you go about striking a different tone in adapting Saviano?
Garrone’s “Gomorrah” movie is genial and groundbreaking. And I shot two episodes of the “Gomorrah” TV series. I did not want to replicate either of those works. My approach was to distance myself from the TV series and say: ‘I don’t want to make a genre film.’ The starting point with the producer and the screenwriter [Maurizio Braucci] was: we are not doing “Gomorrah” with kids. We are going to work on the emotional aspect; on the characters’ feelings and their fragility.
- 2/12/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Has world premiere in Berlin Competition on February 12.
Elle Driver has sealed a slew of deals on Italian teenage crime boss drama Piranhas ahead of its world premiere in competition in Berlin this evening (Feb 12).
The feature is adapted from Italian writer Roberto Saviano’s bestseller La Paranza Dei Bambini, about the ferocious world of adolescent mobsters jockeying for power in the backstreets of Naples.
Saviano, whose 2006 breakthrough work Gomorrah was made into a hit feature and TV series, co-adapted the work with the film’s director Claudio Giovannesi, whose previous work includes jail-set romance Fiore.
On the eve of its world premiere,...
Elle Driver has sealed a slew of deals on Italian teenage crime boss drama Piranhas ahead of its world premiere in competition in Berlin this evening (Feb 12).
The feature is adapted from Italian writer Roberto Saviano’s bestseller La Paranza Dei Bambini, about the ferocious world of adolescent mobsters jockeying for power in the backstreets of Naples.
Saviano, whose 2006 breakthrough work Gomorrah was made into a hit feature and TV series, co-adapted the work with the film’s director Claudio Giovannesi, whose previous work includes jail-set romance Fiore.
On the eve of its world premiere,...
- 2/12/2019
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Italian TV and film production company Palomar – which is at the Berlin Film Festival with Claudio Giovannesi’s competition entry “Pirhanas” – last month forged a strategic alliance with France’s Mediawan under which Mediawan took a majority stake in Palomar which, in turn, became a Mediawan stakeholder. The deal marked the first acquisition outside France for Mediawan, which was launched in 2016 by French media industry veterans Xavier Niel, Matthieu Pigasse and Pierre-Antoine Capton and has since become an integrated media group that ranks as France’s biggest producer of television fiction content. Palomar founder and CEO Carlo Degli Esposti and its managing director Nicola Serra spoke to Variety about how the Mediawan deal will help them expand internationally together.
I believe you had balked at other offers from non Italian companies before. What made you go with Mediawan?
Degli Esposti
We were actually trying to grow by buying another company outside of Italy,...
I believe you had balked at other offers from non Italian companies before. What made you go with Mediawan?
Degli Esposti
We were actually trying to grow by buying another company outside of Italy,...
- 2/11/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
2019 is looking buoyant for Italy’s film and longform narrative TV industries, which are becoming increasingly interconnected as a new generation of directors emerges. They are crossing over between the two media while recent legislation pumps millions of Euros into the country’s production and distribution sectors.
Just as high-end TV dramas directed by Italian film auteurs such as Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Young Pope” and Saverio Costanzo’s “My Brilliant Friend” conquer global small-screen audiences, theatrical box-office returns have been plunging, prompting many of Italy’s top film industry players to regroup. Most are making both movies and TV.
Case in point: Palomar, the company behind “Piranhas,” Italy’s Berlin competition entry depicting Neapolitan teen gangsters. The gritty drama is directed by up-and-coming helmer Claudio Giovannesi and based on a novel by star author Roberto Saviano, whose mob exposé “Gomorrah” spawned both a prize-winning movie and a game-changing TV series.
Just as high-end TV dramas directed by Italian film auteurs such as Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Young Pope” and Saverio Costanzo’s “My Brilliant Friend” conquer global small-screen audiences, theatrical box-office returns have been plunging, prompting many of Italy’s top film industry players to regroup. Most are making both movies and TV.
Case in point: Palomar, the company behind “Piranhas,” Italy’s Berlin competition entry depicting Neapolitan teen gangsters. The gritty drama is directed by up-and-coming helmer Claudio Giovannesi and based on a novel by star author Roberto Saviano, whose mob exposé “Gomorrah” spawned both a prize-winning movie and a game-changing TV series.
- 2/8/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Five new titles, including the latest films from Zhang Yimou and Andre Techine, have joined the official selection of this year’s Berlin Film Festival. Adam McKay’s “Vice” has also been added, but will screen out of competition.
“Vice” has already won a Golden Globe for star Christian Bale’s portrayal of former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and picked up six BAFTA nominations last week, including for Bale, supporting actor Sam Rockwell and supporting actress Amy Adams. The festival screening will mark its German premiere.
The new additions to the main competition lineup include the world premieres of Zhang’s “One Second” and Nadav Lapid’s “Synonyms.” Techine’s “Farewell to the Night,” which stars Catherine Deneuve, also receives its world premiere at the Berlinale but will play out of competition. Alan Elliott’s documentary “Amazing Grace,” about Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, will screen out of competition as well,...
“Vice” has already won a Golden Globe for star Christian Bale’s portrayal of former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and picked up six BAFTA nominations last week, including for Bale, supporting actor Sam Rockwell and supporting actress Amy Adams. The festival screening will mark its German premiere.
The new additions to the main competition lineup include the world premieres of Zhang’s “One Second” and Nadav Lapid’s “Synonyms.” Techine’s “Farewell to the Night,” which stars Catherine Deneuve, also receives its world premiere at the Berlinale but will play out of competition. Alan Elliott’s documentary “Amazing Grace,” about Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, will screen out of competition as well,...
- 1/17/2019
- by Robert Mitchell
- Variety Film + TV
Films by Zhang Yimou and André Téchiné will have world premieres in Berlin.
The final titles for the Berlin International Film Festival Competition and Berlianle Special sections have been announced.
The new competition additions are world premieres of Zhang Yimou’s One Second, André Téchiné’s Farewell To The Night, Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms, the German premiere of Vice, and the European premiere of Aretha Franklin documentary Amazing Grace.
Of the new titles, Farewell To The Night, Alan Elliott’s Amazing Grace and Vice will play out of competition. 17 of the 23 films in the Competition section will be in contention...
The final titles for the Berlin International Film Festival Competition and Berlianle Special sections have been announced.
The new competition additions are world premieres of Zhang Yimou’s One Second, André Téchiné’s Farewell To The Night, Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms, the German premiere of Vice, and the European premiere of Aretha Franklin documentary Amazing Grace.
Of the new titles, Farewell To The Night, Alan Elliott’s Amazing Grace and Vice will play out of competition. 17 of the 23 films in the Competition section will be in contention...
- 1/17/2019
- by Orlando Parfitt
- ScreenDaily
French company Mediawan has acquired a majority stake in Palomar, the leading independent Italian production outfit behind the cop show “Inspector Montalbano” and the highly anticipated series “The Name of the Rose,” with John Turturro and Rupert Everett.
The deal marks the first international acquisition by Mediawan, the listed company launched in 2016 by three media industry veterans: Xavier Niel, Matthieu Pigasse and Pierre-Antoine Capton. Mediawan was formed as a special investment vehicle but has now become an integrated media group specializing in production and distribution for both film and TV.
Palomar is involved in film, TV series and documentaries. It will be attending the Berlin Film Festival with Claudio Giovannesi’s “La paranza dei bambini” (“Piranhas”), which is set to world premiere in competition.
Under the new deal, Mediawan becomes the majority shareholder of Palomar with a 72% stake, with the remaining 28% to be retained by Carlo Degli Esposti, Palomar’s founder and CEO.
The deal marks the first international acquisition by Mediawan, the listed company launched in 2016 by three media industry veterans: Xavier Niel, Matthieu Pigasse and Pierre-Antoine Capton. Mediawan was formed as a special investment vehicle but has now become an integrated media group specializing in production and distribution for both film and TV.
Palomar is involved in film, TV series and documentaries. It will be attending the Berlin Film Festival with Claudio Giovannesi’s “La paranza dei bambini” (“Piranhas”), which is set to world premiere in competition.
Under the new deal, Mediawan becomes the majority shareholder of Palomar with a 72% stake, with the remaining 28% to be retained by Carlo Degli Esposti, Palomar’s founder and CEO.
- 1/15/2019
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Agnieszka Holland’s Mr Jones to premiere in Berlin’s Competition.
The 69th Berlin International Film Festival has bolstered its Competition and Berlinale Special line-ups with the addition of further titles.
A total of 11 films have been added to the Competition programme, including Agnieszka Holland’s Mr Jones (previously Gareth Jones), starring James Norton, and a documentary by Agnès Varda titled Varda By Agnès, which will play Out of Competition.
Further titles added include a new Netflix film by Isabel Coixet, titled Elisa & Marcela, and Yuval Adler’s The Operative, starring Diane Kruger and Martin Freeman; the latter will premiere out of competition.
The 69th Berlin International Film Festival has bolstered its Competition and Berlinale Special line-ups with the addition of further titles.
A total of 11 films have been added to the Competition programme, including Agnieszka Holland’s Mr Jones (previously Gareth Jones), starring James Norton, and a documentary by Agnès Varda titled Varda By Agnès, which will play Out of Competition.
Further titles added include a new Netflix film by Isabel Coixet, titled Elisa & Marcela, and Yuval Adler’s The Operative, starring Diane Kruger and Martin Freeman; the latter will premiere out of competition.
- 1/10/2019
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
New films by Agnieszka Holland, Agnes Varda and Isabel Coixet have been added to the official lineup of the upcoming Berlin Film Festival, along with special screenings of directorial debuts by British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor and “Narcos” star Wagner Moura of Brazil.
The Berlinale added 11 titles to its competition slate Thursday, representing countries such as China, Norway, Mongolia and Israel. Of the 18 competition titles selected so far, eight are directed by women, including festival opener “The Kindness of Strangers,” by Danish director Lone Scherfig.
Holland’s eagerly anticipated “Mr. Jones,” starring James Norton and Vanessa Kirby, will have its world premiere in Potsdamer Platz. The politically charged film centers on the real-life Welsh journalist Gareth Jones (Norton), whose reporting uncovered a deadly famine in Ukraine in the 1930s.
Another famine-themed film heading to Berlin is Ejiofor’s “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” which was recently acquired by Netflix and...
The Berlinale added 11 titles to its competition slate Thursday, representing countries such as China, Norway, Mongolia and Israel. Of the 18 competition titles selected so far, eight are directed by women, including festival opener “The Kindness of Strangers,” by Danish director Lone Scherfig.
Holland’s eagerly anticipated “Mr. Jones,” starring James Norton and Vanessa Kirby, will have its world premiere in Potsdamer Platz. The politically charged film centers on the real-life Welsh journalist Gareth Jones (Norton), whose reporting uncovered a deadly famine in Ukraine in the 1930s.
Another famine-themed film heading to Berlin is Ejiofor’s “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” which was recently acquired by Netflix and...
- 1/10/2019
- by Henry Chu
- Variety Film + TV
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