Helen Mirren Brings Environmental Message to Italy’s Ora! Festival and Warns: “Misogyny Is Always Lurking”

Helen Mirren Brings Environmental Message to Italy’s Ora! Festival and Warns: “Misogyny Is Always Lurking”

Oscar winner Helen Mirren is an ideal godmother for Italy’s Ora! Fest, a festival featuring films and series highlighting such issues as the environment, sustainability, and social justice, which is taking place in Monopoli, Apulia on Italy’s southern coast June 3-7.

Read the article here

‘The Great Beauty’ Producer Francesca Cima on the Crisis in Italian Cinema

‘The Great Beauty’ Producer Francesca Cima on the Crisis in Italian Cinema

“Of course, I’m happy to be on the list,” she says, “but I wouldn’t say the situation is improving, especially in Italy.” In a wide-ranging discussion with THR Roma , Cima discussed gender equity in the industry, the recent Cannes Film Festival and the state of Italian cinema.

Read the article here

22nd Edition of “Open Roads: New Italian Cinema”

22nd Edition of “Open Roads: New Italian Cinema”

Italians comprise one of the largest immigrant groups in New York City. Italian cinema is also among the most internationally awarded industries.

No wonder then that Italy has become the center of a film festival at the Lincoln Center of New York City for more than two decades: “Open Roads: New Italian Cinema”, with a clear mission: “to offer North American audiences a diverse and extensive lineup of contemporary Italian films.” …

Read the article here

Emanuele Crialese on ‘L’Immensità,’ Penelope Cruz and Transgender Politics

Emanuele Crialese on ‘L’Immensità,’ Penelope Cruz and Transgender Politics

Emanuele Crialese, 58, director of the cult film Respiro (Critics’ Week Award at Cannes in 2002) was born in Rome to Sicilian parents, studied at NYU and made his debut with Once We Were Strangers in 1997. Before that, he had already transitioned from female to male, from Emanuela to Emanuele.

Read the article here

Oscar-Winner Gabriele Salvatores Shooting ‘Napoli – New York’ From a Federico Fellini Treatment – First Look Image

Oscar-Winner Gabriele Salvatores Shooting ‘Napoli – New York’ From a Federico Fellini Treatment – First Look Image

Oscar-winning director Gabriele Salvatores (“Mediterraneo”) is back behind camera on “Napoli – New York” a period immigration drama based on a story written for the screen by Federico Fellini. Felllini co-wrote this tale of two Neapolitan kids who embark on a ship to New York city to escape Italy’s early postwar poverty with his frequent…

Read the article here

Renzo Rossellini to Be Honored With Locarno Lifetime Achievement Award

Renzo Rossellini to Be Honored With Locarno Lifetime Achievement Award

Italian producer, director, and film and TV industry pioneer Renzo Rossellini is being honored with the Locarno Film Festival’s lifetime achievement award. The Swiss fest dedicated to indie cinema will pay tribute to the consummate filmmaker and renaissance man – who as a producer shepherded works by master directors such as Federico Fellini, Lina Wertmüller…

READ THE ARTICLE HERE

Vatican Comments on Marco Bellocchio’s ‘Kidnapped’ About a Jewish Boy Forced to Convert to Christianity as Film Opens Strongly in Italy

Vatican Comments on Marco Bellocchio’s ‘Kidnapped’ About a Jewish Boy Forced to Convert to Christianity as Film Opens Strongly in Italy

Marco Bellocchio ’s drama “Kidnapped” that reconstructs the true tale of a Jewish boy who was kidnapped and forcibly raised as a Christian in 19th century Rome, has opened strongly in Italy following its Cannes launch. The revered Italian auteur’s film about Edgardo Mortara, who in 1858 was taken away from his family in Bologna to live in the Vatican…

Read the article here

La Chimera review – Alice Rohrwacher’s uproarious adventure teems with life

La Chimera review – Alice Rohrwacher’s uproarious adventure teems with life

Set in 1980s Tuscany, Rohrwacher’s captivating film follows a lovelorn Englishman plundering Italy’s historical artefacts with a bizarre gang Alice Rohrwacher’s new film is a beguiling fantasy-comedy of lost love: garrulous, uproarious and celebratory in her absolutely distinctive style. It’s a movie bustling and teeming with life…

Read the article here