Stars: Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, Francesco Russo, Peppino Mazzotta, Will Merrick, Yuliia Sobol, Alida Baldari Calabria, Cristina Donadio, Francesca Cavallin, Justin Korovkin | Written by Roberto De Feo, Paolo Strippoli, Lucio Besana, Milo Tissone, David Bellini | Directed by Roberto De Feo, Paolo Strippoli
Travelling through rural Italy, a group of mismatched strangers crash their camper van in the middle of nowhere. Waking up in the middle of the woods, the group look to an ominous old shack for assistance. Described by one character as “Sam Raimi’s house,” the cabin itself should have been warning enough; the gang are soon beset by hooded assailants wielding massive hammers. Frankly, Elisa (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz) and her fellow travellers should have known better. What, did they not get Wrong Turn in Italy?
‘Wrong Turn in Italy’ is essentially the plot of Roberto De Feo and Paolo Strippoli’s A Classic Horror Story. This...
Travelling through rural Italy, a group of mismatched strangers crash their camper van in the middle of nowhere. Waking up in the middle of the woods, the group look to an ominous old shack for assistance. Described by one character as “Sam Raimi’s house,” the cabin itself should have been warning enough; the gang are soon beset by hooded assailants wielding massive hammers. Frankly, Elisa (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz) and her fellow travellers should have known better. What, did they not get Wrong Turn in Italy?
‘Wrong Turn in Italy’ is essentially the plot of Roberto De Feo and Paolo Strippoli’s A Classic Horror Story. This...
- 7/19/2021
- by Joel Harley
- Nerdly
A Classic Horror Story Trailer — Roberto De Feo and Paolo Strippoli‘s A Classic Horror Story (2021) movie trailer has been released by Netflix. A Classic Horror Story trailer stars Matilda Lutz, Francesco Russo, Peppino Mazzotta, Yulia Sobol, Will Merrick, Alida Baldari Calabria, and Cristina Donadio. Crew Lucio Besana, Roberto De Feo, Paolo Strippoli, [...]
Continue reading: A Classic Horror Story (2021) Movie Trailer: Five Stranded Travelers find the Cabin-home of a Cult...
Continue reading: A Classic Horror Story (2021) Movie Trailer: Five Stranded Travelers find the Cabin-home of a Cult...
- 6/22/2021
- by Rollo Tomasi
- Film-Book
"Do you know how to get out of this forest?" "This is not a forest." Netflix has revealed the unsettling full-length official trailer for a creepy horror offering this summer, along with their Fear Street horror trilogy in July. Despite being titled A Classic Horror Story, this definitely isn't any classic horror movie at all. Five strangers share a journey aboard a camper, but after an accident they find themselves in a forest populated by strange beings from which it is impossible to get out. Listed as a "cerebral" & scary" horror about an an abandoned house and a "spine-chilling cult." Described as "the Italian Midsommar meets Texas Chain Saw Massacre," which is quite a freaky twist. Starring Matilda Lutz, Francesco Russo, Peppino Mazzotta, Yuliia Sobol, Will Merrick, Alida Baldari Calabria, plus Cristina Donadio. This looks super scary and entirely fresh, despite that clever marketing trick of it (not) being "A Classic Horror Story.
- 6/16/2021
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Netflix has dropped a teaser-trailer for Italian chiller “A Classic Horror Story,” which appears to reference Italy’s past horror masters like Dario Argento and Mario Bava but also looks like it will break new ground.
The creepy pic, set to launch globally on the streamer July 14, is co-directed by young helmers Roberto De Feo and Paolo Strippoli. De Feo’s directorial debut, gothic chiller “The Nest,” launched in 2019 from the Locarno Film Festival and played on its 8,000-seat Piazza Grande dedicated to crowdpleasers. Strippoli is at his first feature film.
“A Classic Horror Story” sees five carpoolers travel in a motorhome to reach a common destination. Night falls and to avoid a dead animal carcass, they crash into a tree. When they come to their senses, they find themselves in the middle of nowhere. The road they were traveling on has disappeared and there is only a dense, impenetrable...
The creepy pic, set to launch globally on the streamer July 14, is co-directed by young helmers Roberto De Feo and Paolo Strippoli. De Feo’s directorial debut, gothic chiller “The Nest,” launched in 2019 from the Locarno Film Festival and played on its 8,000-seat Piazza Grande dedicated to crowdpleasers. Strippoli is at his first feature film.
“A Classic Horror Story” sees five carpoolers travel in a motorhome to reach a common destination. Night falls and to avoid a dead animal carcass, they crash into a tree. When they come to their senses, they find themselves in the middle of nowhere. The road they were traveling on has disappeared and there is only a dense, impenetrable...
- 5/21/2021
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Something scary from Italy... Netlfix has unveiled a short teaser trailer for another new horror offering this summer, to go along with their Fear Street horror trilogy in July. This Italian horror film also opens in July. Despite being titled A Classic Horror Story, this definitely isn't any classic horror at all. Five strangers share a journey aboard a camper, but after an accident they find themselves in a forest populated by strange beings from which it is impossible to get out. Listed as a "cerebral" & scary" horror about an an abandoned house: "it looks like the classic horror movie and instead..." Starring Matilda Lutz, Francesco Russo, Peppino Mazzotta, Yuliia Sobol, Will Merrick, Alida Baldari Calabria, plus Cristina Donadio. There's not much to this teaser – but there is enough to get horror fans' attention, and a nod to Evil Dead. Here's the teaser trailer for Roberto De Feo & Paolo Strippoli's A Classic Horror Story,...
- 5/21/2021
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Francesco Munzi’s tale of a Calabrian mob family at war is sombre and spare
Don’t say mafia, say ’ndrangheta – the Calabrian crime network that is the subject of Francesco Munzi’s gripping drama, as sombre as its title suggests. This is a dynastic tale that gets more claustrophobic as it develops, as its web of vendetta-style recriminations closes in on the Carbone clan, goat farmers who have diversified into riskier and more profitable businesses.
The film focuses on the differences of character between the Carbone brothers: Luigi (Marco Leonardi), the hard man out in the field; urbane Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta), who lives a seemingly respectable bourgeois lifestyle in Milan; and older brother Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane), who’d rather tend his herd than continue the old cycle of bloodshed. But when Luciano’s tearaway son makes a rebellious gesture, matters move inexorably towards an outcome that could be called operatic,...
Don’t say mafia, say ’ndrangheta – the Calabrian crime network that is the subject of Francesco Munzi’s gripping drama, as sombre as its title suggests. This is a dynastic tale that gets more claustrophobic as it develops, as its web of vendetta-style recriminations closes in on the Carbone clan, goat farmers who have diversified into riskier and more profitable businesses.
The film focuses on the differences of character between the Carbone brothers: Luigi (Marco Leonardi), the hard man out in the field; urbane Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta), who lives a seemingly respectable bourgeois lifestyle in Milan; and older brother Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane), who’d rather tend his herd than continue the old cycle of bloodshed. But when Luciano’s tearaway son makes a rebellious gesture, matters move inexorably towards an outcome that could be called operatic,...
- 11/1/2015
- by Jonathan Romney
- The Guardian - Film News
Xan Brooks, Henry Barnes and Catherine Shoard review Black Souls, an Italian gangster thriller set in the foothills of the Aspromonte mountains. Francesco Munzi’s film sees the younger generation of a prominent family itching to get into the crime business as their elders look for a way out. Black Souls, which stars Marco Leonardi and Peppino Mazzotta, is released in the UK on Friday 30 October
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• Watch the full Guardian film show
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- 10/29/2015
- by Xan Brooks, Henry Barnes, Catherine Shoard, Dan Susman, Richard Sprenger, Phil Maynard and Andrea Salvatici
- The Guardian - Film News
Neil Armfield.s Holding the Man, Simon Stone.s The Daughter, Jeremy Sims. Last Cab to Darwin and Jen Peedom.s feature doc Sherpa will have their world premieres at the Sydney Film Festival.
The festival program unveiled today includes 33 world premieres (including 22 shorts) and 135 Australian premieres (with 18 shorts) among 251 titles from 68 countries.
Among the other premieres will be Daina Reid.s The Secret River, Ruby Entertainment's. ABC-tv miniseries starring Oliver Jackson Cohen and Sarah Snook, and three Oz docs, Marc Eberle.s The Cambodian Space Project — Not Easy Rock .n. Roll, Steve Thomas. Freedom Stories and Lisa Nicol.s Wide Open Sky.
Festival director Nashen Moodley boasted. this year.s event will be far larger than 2014's when 183 films from 47 countries were screened, including 15 world premieres. The expansion is possible in part due to the addition of two new screening venues in Newtown and Liverpool.
As previously announced, Brendan Cowell...
The festival program unveiled today includes 33 world premieres (including 22 shorts) and 135 Australian premieres (with 18 shorts) among 251 titles from 68 countries.
Among the other premieres will be Daina Reid.s The Secret River, Ruby Entertainment's. ABC-tv miniseries starring Oliver Jackson Cohen and Sarah Snook, and three Oz docs, Marc Eberle.s The Cambodian Space Project — Not Easy Rock .n. Roll, Steve Thomas. Freedom Stories and Lisa Nicol.s Wide Open Sky.
Festival director Nashen Moodley boasted. this year.s event will be far larger than 2014's when 183 films from 47 countries were screened, including 15 world premieres. The expansion is possible in part due to the addition of two new screening venues in Newtown and Liverpool.
As previously announced, Brendan Cowell...
- 5/6/2015
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
In places where opportunities and hope are harder to obtain than a loaded gun, the glorification of a seemingly effortless and powerful criminal lifestyle is engraved deeply into the youth’s psyche like a poisonous spell. Irremediably, it becomes their most tangible aspiration. Kids there do not dream of becoming doctors, lawyers or teachers, but drug dealers, murderers, or gangsters who walk through life intoxicated by the fear of others disguised as respect. It’s just the same in a rough American neighborhood, a Mexican border town, a war torn African capital, or an isolated village in the Italian countryside.
Is in this last setting that director Francesco Munzi unfolds “Black Souls” (Anime Nere), an understated mafia tale that is brutally unflinching and sobering when distilling the built-in conventions of the genre and reapplying them in a powerfully stark manner. First, Munzi takes us on a short trip to the high-stakes world of international drug trafficking and the money laundering schemes that fueled it. Brothers Luigi (Marco Leonardi) and Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) manage the operation as a family business each with a distinct approach to getting things done. Luigi is the threatening brute that’s willing to get his hands dirty, while Rocco prefers to be as diplomatic as the drug underworld allows. But just as we are prompted to believe the film will follow on the footsteps of countless predecessors, the perspective shifts to a much more intimate, almost pastoral, look at the unbreakable ties and honor-driven feuds between opposite families within the same criminal microcosm: the Calabrian hills in southern Italy.
Making a humble living from farming and raising cattle, Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane), the eldest sibling in the dynasty, disapproves of his younger brothers lifestyle, which he left behind years ago. But in spite of his father’s evident disdain for his siblings’ violent ways, Luciano’s son Leo (Giuseppe Fumo), a teenage boy full of senseless bravado and thirst for retribution, admires his uncle Luigi ‘s status as an authority figure within the community. Projecting fearlessness and absolute dispassion to be part of the gang, Leo grows detached from his father and begins partaking in the increasingly dangerous disputes with their adversaries. With Luigi back in town, old grudges resurfacing, and Leo’s reckless ability to start trouble, tragedy permanently lurks over the entire clan.
This perpetual feeling of an imminent disaster approaching is what makes the film a restrained and potent statement. Intelligently, the filmmaker chooses unnerving tension over gruesome imagery. Of course, violence is unavoidable in a story like this, but those scenes are much more effective because of their importance in the layered emotional landscape presented. Pride is a boundless catalyst for hatred, and that’s what motivates the individuals here to die in the name of their lineage. Leo loses respect for his father because the promise of easy cash and overall badassery is exponentially more enticing than arduously working the land. Luciano is a coward in his son’s eyes for wanting to live a peaceful life, but the man can hardly experience that as he is caught up in between his brothers’ unfinished business and preventing Leo from following their path. It’s all the subtext that is embedded in every interaction that keeps “Black Souls” from becoming predictable, and instead asks us to ponder on the complex set of characters on screen.
Hauntingly somber, but all the more enthralling because of it, Vladan Radovic’s cinematography inconspicuously contributes to Munzi’s exploration of human darkness. A prime example of its gloomy appeal is a funeral sequence that centers both on a mother grieving her son, and the inevitably brutal consequences of the event. However, although a viscerally serious tone permeates the film, Munzi and Radovic were clever enough to capture beautiful moments of rural life that give “Black Souls” a timeless atmosphere: Luigi singing a traditional tune for the sheer joy of singing or Luciano walking among the ruins of an ancient church quietly denoting his religious devotion. Such glimpses of vulnerability create a mob film that is more concerned with the subtleties beneath the gunshots.
Indispensable for an ensemble piece like “Black Souls,” the entire cast, even those in minimal roles, is made up of a group of actors capable of refraining from ostentatious performances and focusing on the characters’ essential, nuanced qualities. Their conflicts are so profoundly intertwined that a weak link would have been problematic. Still, among these talented group, Fabrizio Ferracane as Luciano gives the most quietly compelling performance as a father, a brother, and a son who can’t recognize himself anymore or fit in among those around him. Ultimately, Ferracane steals the film in the riveting and shocking conclusion.
“Black Souls” delivers a gutsy twist on the tiresome works that showcase villains as stars and their feats as heroic. Munzi offers authenticity and poignancy ignoring our expectations and portraying his characters as deeply misguided people for whom loyalty is a golden asset and death is a common outcome. His film is about unspoken rules and unforgivable transgressions that might appear irrational to the outsider, but unquestionable to those involved.
"Black Souls" is now playing in NYC and opens in Los Angeles on April 24th.
Director Francesco Munzi will be doing a Skype Q&A from Rome, Italy on Saturday 4/18 at both the Angelika Film Center in NYC (after the 7:30 pm show) & at the Angelika Film Center in Fairfax, Va (after the 8pm show).
For all the play dates and theaters across the U.S. visit Here...
Is in this last setting that director Francesco Munzi unfolds “Black Souls” (Anime Nere), an understated mafia tale that is brutally unflinching and sobering when distilling the built-in conventions of the genre and reapplying them in a powerfully stark manner. First, Munzi takes us on a short trip to the high-stakes world of international drug trafficking and the money laundering schemes that fueled it. Brothers Luigi (Marco Leonardi) and Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) manage the operation as a family business each with a distinct approach to getting things done. Luigi is the threatening brute that’s willing to get his hands dirty, while Rocco prefers to be as diplomatic as the drug underworld allows. But just as we are prompted to believe the film will follow on the footsteps of countless predecessors, the perspective shifts to a much more intimate, almost pastoral, look at the unbreakable ties and honor-driven feuds between opposite families within the same criminal microcosm: the Calabrian hills in southern Italy.
Making a humble living from farming and raising cattle, Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane), the eldest sibling in the dynasty, disapproves of his younger brothers lifestyle, which he left behind years ago. But in spite of his father’s evident disdain for his siblings’ violent ways, Luciano’s son Leo (Giuseppe Fumo), a teenage boy full of senseless bravado and thirst for retribution, admires his uncle Luigi ‘s status as an authority figure within the community. Projecting fearlessness and absolute dispassion to be part of the gang, Leo grows detached from his father and begins partaking in the increasingly dangerous disputes with their adversaries. With Luigi back in town, old grudges resurfacing, and Leo’s reckless ability to start trouble, tragedy permanently lurks over the entire clan.
This perpetual feeling of an imminent disaster approaching is what makes the film a restrained and potent statement. Intelligently, the filmmaker chooses unnerving tension over gruesome imagery. Of course, violence is unavoidable in a story like this, but those scenes are much more effective because of their importance in the layered emotional landscape presented. Pride is a boundless catalyst for hatred, and that’s what motivates the individuals here to die in the name of their lineage. Leo loses respect for his father because the promise of easy cash and overall badassery is exponentially more enticing than arduously working the land. Luciano is a coward in his son’s eyes for wanting to live a peaceful life, but the man can hardly experience that as he is caught up in between his brothers’ unfinished business and preventing Leo from following their path. It’s all the subtext that is embedded in every interaction that keeps “Black Souls” from becoming predictable, and instead asks us to ponder on the complex set of characters on screen.
Hauntingly somber, but all the more enthralling because of it, Vladan Radovic’s cinematography inconspicuously contributes to Munzi’s exploration of human darkness. A prime example of its gloomy appeal is a funeral sequence that centers both on a mother grieving her son, and the inevitably brutal consequences of the event. However, although a viscerally serious tone permeates the film, Munzi and Radovic were clever enough to capture beautiful moments of rural life that give “Black Souls” a timeless atmosphere: Luigi singing a traditional tune for the sheer joy of singing or Luciano walking among the ruins of an ancient church quietly denoting his religious devotion. Such glimpses of vulnerability create a mob film that is more concerned with the subtleties beneath the gunshots.
Indispensable for an ensemble piece like “Black Souls,” the entire cast, even those in minimal roles, is made up of a group of actors capable of refraining from ostentatious performances and focusing on the characters’ essential, nuanced qualities. Their conflicts are so profoundly intertwined that a weak link would have been problematic. Still, among these talented group, Fabrizio Ferracane as Luciano gives the most quietly compelling performance as a father, a brother, and a son who can’t recognize himself anymore or fit in among those around him. Ultimately, Ferracane steals the film in the riveting and shocking conclusion.
“Black Souls” delivers a gutsy twist on the tiresome works that showcase villains as stars and their feats as heroic. Munzi offers authenticity and poignancy ignoring our expectations and portraying his characters as deeply misguided people for whom loyalty is a golden asset and death is a common outcome. His film is about unspoken rules and unforgivable transgressions that might appear irrational to the outsider, but unquestionable to those involved.
"Black Souls" is now playing in NYC and opens in Los Angeles on April 24th.
Director Francesco Munzi will be doing a Skype Q&A from Rome, Italy on Saturday 4/18 at both the Angelika Film Center in NYC (after the 7:30 pm show) & at the Angelika Film Center in Fairfax, Va (after the 8pm show).
For all the play dates and theaters across the U.S. visit Here...
- 4/15/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Don't be alarmed if you feel a little lost during the early scenes of the somber new gangster film Black Souls. Director Francesco Munzi lets his tragic narrative unfold gradually and subtly, like a neo-neorealist take on The Godfather. There's a good reason for this: He wants to show us his individual characters — all members of the Carbone family – in their different environments. And at first, this isn't quite the Mafia we recognize from movies. There's a mundane quality to this business: We see Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta), the boss, getting cash from his bankers so he can pay his men (many of whom, we may notice, have Middle Eastern names); we see his loose-cannon brother Luigi (strong-jawed Marco Leonardi — who was once the fresh-faced teenage Toto in Cinema Paradiso) negotiating some kind of deal with a group of Spaniards; we see Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane), the oldest, who wants...
- 4/11/2015
- by Bilge Ebiri
- Vulture
In his review of Vitagraph Films’ Black Souls (Anime Nere), Travis Keune wrote the movie is, “a richly deep story about an unconventional “family business” that conjures up the essence of The Godfather but distances itself even further from the genre stereotypes than just about any film we’ve seen in recent years.”
Read the rest of the review here and check out the brand new clip.
Based on real events described in Gioacchino Criaco’s novel, Black Souls (Anime Nere) is a tale of violence begetting violence and complex morality inherited by each generation in rural, ancient Calabria, a reallife mafia (‘Ndrangheta) seat in Southern Italy.
The Carbone family consists of three brothers, Luigi (Marco Leonardi) and Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) who are engaged in the family business of international drug trade and Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane) who has remained in the ancestral town of Africo in the Aspromonte mountains on the Mediterranean coast – herding goats.
Read the rest of the review here and check out the brand new clip.
Based on real events described in Gioacchino Criaco’s novel, Black Souls (Anime Nere) is a tale of violence begetting violence and complex morality inherited by each generation in rural, ancient Calabria, a reallife mafia (‘Ndrangheta) seat in Southern Italy.
The Carbone family consists of three brothers, Luigi (Marco Leonardi) and Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) who are engaged in the family business of international drug trade and Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane) who has remained in the ancestral town of Africo in the Aspromonte mountains on the Mediterranean coast – herding goats.
- 4/10/2015
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Crime and families (and crime families) have been a part of international cinema for years with movies as diverse as The Godfather, Animal Kingdom and The Raid all touching on the subject to varying degrees. Two new far lower profile films head into theaters this week, and while neither reach the heights of the ones just mentioned they’re both worthy additions to the sub-genre as they explore the deadly ramifications of mixing blood relatives with bloodletting. You can pick your friends, but it turns out you can’t pick your crime family. ————————————————- Three adult men, brothers, have moved on from the grief over their father’s murder to focus on what makes them happy. Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) is a businessman, at least on the outside, who runs a drug and crime empire from his snazzy Milan apartment while Luigi (Marco Leonardi) participates with a far more hands-on approach. The...
- 4/10/2015
- by Rob Hunter
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Like many genre films, the category of mafia films is often branded with certain expectations. Granted, not all of these films are created equal, but we generally expect to see lots of violence and/or lots of foul language and Hollywood stereotypes. Where Black Souls succeeds is in refusing such stereotypes and telling a richly deep story about an unconventional “family business” that conjures up the essence of The Godfather but distances itself even further from the genre stereotypes than just about any film we’ve seen in recent years.
Director Francesco Munzi’s Black Souls (“Anime nere” in Italian) maintains a nearly unprecedented level of dignity for its type. The film tells the story of three brothers closely connected to N’drangheta, a mafia-like criminal organization based out of Calabria. These three brothers, sons of a shepherd, have differing views on their relationships with N’drangheta, which plays a...
Director Francesco Munzi’s Black Souls (“Anime nere” in Italian) maintains a nearly unprecedented level of dignity for its type. The film tells the story of three brothers closely connected to N’drangheta, a mafia-like criminal organization based out of Calabria. These three brothers, sons of a shepherd, have differing views on their relationships with N’drangheta, which plays a...
- 4/9/2015
- by Travis Keune
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
“You’re dressed like a shepherd!” Driving around Milan, middle-aged Luigi Carbone (an unrecognizable Marco Leonardi, of Like Water for Chocolate fame) affectionately disparages his 20-year-old nephew, Leo (Giuseppe Fumo), before planting him in a job in his own industry. The only child has fled a Calabrian farm and the father who runs it, Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane, master of fluctuating facial tics), who is Luigi’s oldest brother. Leo hopes for an exciting and lucrative life better tailored to his needs than herding: working with Luigi, his idol, Uncle Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta), and their childhood pal and staunch ally, Nicola (Stefano Priolo). […]...
- 4/9/2015
- by Howard Feinstein
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
“You’re dressed like a shepherd!” Driving around Milan, middle-aged Luigi Carbone (an unrecognizable Marco Leonardi, of Like Water for Chocolate fame) affectionately disparages his 20-year-old nephew, Leo (Giuseppe Fumo), before planting him in a job in his own industry. The only child has fled a Calabrian farm and the father who runs it, Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane, master of fluctuating facial tics), who is Luigi’s oldest brother. Leo hopes for an exciting and lucrative life better tailored to his needs than herding: working with Luigi, his idol, Uncle Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta), and their childhood pal and staunch ally, Nicola (Stefano Priolo). […]...
- 4/9/2015
- by Howard Feinstein
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Now I Lay Me Down to Kill: Munzi’s Enjoyably Reserved Mafia Film
Premiering last fall at the 2014 Venice Film Festival, where it picked up a handful of prizes, Francesco Munzi’s third film, Black Souls, is a deliberately paced examination of familiar mafia standards. Based on a novel by Giacchino Criaco, it’s bound to be compared (and perhaps exist within the shadow of) Matteo Garrone’s highly celebrated 2008 feature, Gomorrah. But Munzi’s film is equally convincing, lending an austere sense of realism to what otherwise plays like a classic theatrical tragedy of three brothers at odds, locked in opposition and contention with the heavy baggage of their lineage. Light on dialogue and heavy on brooding characters marinating in their own mistrust or disdain of one another, it’s a successfully engaging film, but despite an enjoyably dire finale, isn’t as memorable as some modern comparative material.
Premiering last fall at the 2014 Venice Film Festival, where it picked up a handful of prizes, Francesco Munzi’s third film, Black Souls, is a deliberately paced examination of familiar mafia standards. Based on a novel by Giacchino Criaco, it’s bound to be compared (and perhaps exist within the shadow of) Matteo Garrone’s highly celebrated 2008 feature, Gomorrah. But Munzi’s film is equally convincing, lending an austere sense of realism to what otherwise plays like a classic theatrical tragedy of three brothers at odds, locked in opposition and contention with the heavy baggage of their lineage. Light on dialogue and heavy on brooding characters marinating in their own mistrust or disdain of one another, it’s a successfully engaging film, but despite an enjoyably dire finale, isn’t as memorable as some modern comparative material.
- 4/9/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
The makers of Black Souls, a superior Italian gangster movie, deserve praise for executing with atypical sensitivity a generic times-are-changing/nostalgia-for-an-imaginary-chivalrous-yesteryear scenario. Like most post-Godfather Mafia dramas, Black Souls concerns an ambivalent protagonist — in this case, gruff goat-herder Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane) — who has a love/hate relationship with his family's unspoken, honor-bound traditions. Luciano, the eldest of three brothers, cares for siblings Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) and Luigi (Marco Leonardi). But Luciano doesn't want anything to do with their drug-smuggling business or their shaky alliance with Don Peppe, the man who killed Luciano's father. Luciano is forced to do something after his trigger...
- 4/8/2015
- Village Voice
"Goodfellas" turns 25-years-old in 2015, but mob life continues to inspire even more movies. "Black Souls" is another tale of the underworld, and today we have an exclusive clip the award-winning movie where it seems every move is a dangerous one. Directed by Francesco Munzi, and starring Marco Leonardi, Peppino Mazzotta, Fabrizio Ferracane, Barbora Bobulova, Anna Ferruzo, and Giuseppe Fumo, the film is based on real events and follows the three Carbone brothers, Luigi and Rocco, who are engaged in the family business of the international drug trade, and Luciano, who has remained behind herding goats in their ancestral town of Africo in the remote Aspromonte mountains on the Ionic coast. When Luciano’s 20-year-old son Leo shoots up a local bar owned by a rival family, his reckless actions reignite a longstanding blood feud and set off a tragic chain of events that violently grinds toward an inevitable bloody showdown for all involved.
- 4/2/2015
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Exclusive: Mafia drama, labelled ‘the new Gomorrah’, gets UK deal.
Vertigo has picked up UK rights to Francesco Munzi’s well-received Mafia drama Black Souls from Rai Com.
Munzi’s Venice debut, adapted from Gioacchino Criaco’s novel, follows three brothers from Southern Italy steeped in the life of the Calabrian Mafia who become caught up in a spiral of events heading towards tragedy.
Billed by some as ‘the new Gomorrah’, Black Souls is currently screening at the BFI London Film Festival.
Cast includes Marco Leonardi, Peppino Mazzotta, Fabrizio Ferracane and Barbora Bobulova. Producers are Valerio Azzali and Olivia Musini.
Rupert Preston, managing director of Vertigo Films, said: “Black Souls is really classy and intelligent film-making that stays with you for days after. We’re delighted and honoured to be releasing it in the UK.”
Previous deals for the film include Italy (Good Films), France (Bellissima Films), Switzerland (Xenix Filmdistribution), Czech Republic and Slovak Republic (Filmeurope), and Australia...
Vertigo has picked up UK rights to Francesco Munzi’s well-received Mafia drama Black Souls from Rai Com.
Munzi’s Venice debut, adapted from Gioacchino Criaco’s novel, follows three brothers from Southern Italy steeped in the life of the Calabrian Mafia who become caught up in a spiral of events heading towards tragedy.
Billed by some as ‘the new Gomorrah’, Black Souls is currently screening at the BFI London Film Festival.
Cast includes Marco Leonardi, Peppino Mazzotta, Fabrizio Ferracane and Barbora Bobulova. Producers are Valerio Azzali and Olivia Musini.
Rupert Preston, managing director of Vertigo Films, said: “Black Souls is really classy and intelligent film-making that stays with you for days after. We’re delighted and honoured to be releasing it in the UK.”
Previous deals for the film include Italy (Good Films), France (Bellissima Films), Switzerland (Xenix Filmdistribution), Czech Republic and Slovak Republic (Filmeurope), and Australia...
- 10/10/2014
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
The dark days of Venice continue. It’s not easy starting your morning with a film called “Black Souls” but someone has to do it. Italian director Francisco Munzi’s tale of a Calabrian family embroiled in the mafia gave me a stomach ache, partly because of the sense of dread it successfully exported from the opening shot, and partly because it never quite achieves what it seems to be going for. Luigi and Rocco Carbone are two middle-aged brothers running a mob business in Milan. Luigi (Marco Leonardi) is your typically good-looking, fun-loving tough guy, a sort of Calabrian Sonny Corleone. The lean, bespectacled Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) runs the business side and aspires to normality and respectability, with a pretty northern wife (Barbora Bobulova) and young daughter. The odd man out is their elder brother Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane), who has remained on the Calabrian hilltop farm, raising goats, and...
- 9/1/2014
- by Tom Christie
- Thompson on Hollywood
After the huge international success of the film Gomorrah in 2008 followed by its acclaimed recent TV adaptation, Francesco Munzi’s Anime Nere has a tough act to follow. While there are no end of films depicting the mafia, and Gomorrah shows life in Naples’ camorra underworld, this time it’s the turn of the Calabrian ’ndrangheta.
The opening scene is a chilly and grey waterfront in Holland before travelling south to Milan, then all the way down to the tiny mountainside village of Aspromonte, yet as it reaches the Mediterranean the film never manages to shake off those downcast and icy tones. Outside, from north to south it’s dark, grey and gritty.
Luigi (Marco Leonardi) is in Holland to close a drugs deal, then it’s off to Milan for celebrations with his brother, the solid and steady Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta). But there’s another brother, Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane), ensconced down south,...
The opening scene is a chilly and grey waterfront in Holland before travelling south to Milan, then all the way down to the tiny mountainside village of Aspromonte, yet as it reaches the Mediterranean the film never manages to shake off those downcast and icy tones. Outside, from north to south it’s dark, grey and gritty.
Luigi (Marco Leonardi) is in Holland to close a drugs deal, then it’s off to Milan for celebrations with his brother, the solid and steady Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta). But there’s another brother, Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane), ensconced down south,...
- 8/29/2014
- by Jo-Ann Titmarsh
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The 71st Venice Film Festival announced its lineup this morning, highlighted by films from American directors, including David Gordon Green, Barry Levinson, Peter Bogdanovich, Lisa Cholodenko, Andrew Niccol, and James Franco. As had been previously announced, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, starring Michael Keaton and many others, will be the opening film when the festival begins on Aug. 27.
Click below for the entire list of 55 films playing in Venice.
Competition
The Cut, directed by Fatih Akin
Starring Tahar Rahim, Akin Gazi, Simon Abkarian, George Georgiou
A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence, directed by Roy Andersson
Starring Holger Andersson,...
Click below for the entire list of 55 films playing in Venice.
Competition
The Cut, directed by Fatih Akin
Starring Tahar Rahim, Akin Gazi, Simon Abkarian, George Georgiou
A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence, directed by Roy Andersson
Starring Holger Andersson,...
- 7/24/2014
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW - Inside Movies
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