When Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni were writing the screenplay for their 1954 epic "Seven Samurai," they couldn't have predicted its lasting influence on cinema. Not only did Kurosawa's masterful direction alter and revolutionize the way action sequences would be shot, but the premise became a reliable and lasting template that multiple other filmmakers would employ in the ensuing decades. For those unlucky enough to have never seen "Seven Samurai," the setup is simple: a remote farming village is regularly looted by passing bandits, leaving them destitute. Unable to withstand another attack, the villagers gather up their modest means and hire seven rogue samurai to protect them. The samurai know that the job won't pay, but each one has their own reasons for joining the cause. Using their cunning and limited means, the samurai repel the bandit attack.
Most recently, the "Seven Samurai" premise was transposed onto Zack Snyder's "Rebel Moon.
Most recently, the "Seven Samurai" premise was transposed onto Zack Snyder's "Rebel Moon.
- 5/21/2024
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
Ever since they were granted essential worker status during the pandemic, food deliverers on bikes have become a steady fixture of the contemporary urban landscape. And yet, most us only interact with them for a few seconds at a time, grabbing the box of pizza or bag of food, saying thank you (if we’re polite) and quickly shutting the door.
What happens after that is the subject of director Boris Lojkine’s compelling third feature, The Story of Souleymane (L’Histoire de Souleymane), a realistic and very humanistic look at one immigrant’s grueling daily life in Paris, where he struggles to make a living and obtain legal status.
Another movie immediately comes to mind here, which is Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist classic, Bicycle Thieves. Both films are structured as suspenseful, ticking-clock dramas where men navigate a ruthless city as they ride around on two wheels, doing everything they can to get by.
What happens after that is the subject of director Boris Lojkine’s compelling third feature, The Story of Souleymane (L’Histoire de Souleymane), a realistic and very humanistic look at one immigrant’s grueling daily life in Paris, where he struggles to make a living and obtain legal status.
Another movie immediately comes to mind here, which is Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist classic, Bicycle Thieves. Both films are structured as suspenseful, ticking-clock dramas where men navigate a ruthless city as they ride around on two wheels, doing everything they can to get by.
- 5/21/2024
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
While certainly best-known for Bicycle Thieves, Vittorio De Sica’s vast, varied body of work is worth diving into. This June, those in NYC can experience quite a taste of it with four films by the director at Film at Lincoln Center’s Sophia Loren retrospective, immediately followed by the release of the new 4K restoration of Shoeshine at Film Forum. Restored by The Film Foundation and Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata, in association with Orium S.A. Restoration, the new trailer from Janus Films has now arrived.
Here’s the synopsis: “One of the greatest achievements in the cinematic revolution known as Italian neorealism, Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine stands as a timeless masterpiece of trenchant social observation and stirring emotional humanism. In postwar Rome, street kids Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smordoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi) shine the shoes of American servicemen in hopes of saving enough money to purchase a beautiful horse.
Here’s the synopsis: “One of the greatest achievements in the cinematic revolution known as Italian neorealism, Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine stands as a timeless masterpiece of trenchant social observation and stirring emotional humanism. In postwar Rome, street kids Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smordoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi) shine the shoes of American servicemen in hopes of saving enough money to purchase a beautiful horse.
- 5/21/2024
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
David Schickele’s Bushman opens with Gabriel (Paul Eyam Nzie Okpokam), a young Nigerian immigrant, walking down a San Francisco highway and conspicuously balancing a pair of shoes on his head while trying to thumb a ride. The image announces the film’s neorealist intentions, alluding to postwar Italian films’ on-location, street-oriented settings, and even puns on the title of Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine. Which isn’t to say that Bushman intends to turn neorealism on its head exactly. Rather, it aims to consider how the contexts the bred neorealism might relate to the late-1960s, when the United States was at war in Vietnam and Nigeria was in year two of a civil war following its decolonization in 1960.
After a playful opening sequence in which Gabriel is picked up by a motorcyclist (Mike Slyre) who looks as though he just stepped off the set of Easy Rider, the...
After a playful opening sequence in which Gabriel is picked up by a motorcyclist (Mike Slyre) who looks as though he just stepped off the set of Easy Rider, the...
- 5/20/2024
- by Clayton Dillard
- Slant Magazine
Juliette Binoche, Sally El Hosaini and Isabel Coixet, are among the six filmmakers taking part in anthology film Bike Me Up, which will shoot across six European cities this summer, celebrating the locations’ relationships with cycling.
Binoche will make her debut as writer and director for the Paris film, in which she will star alongside Ralph Fiennes. London will be written and directed by El Hosaini and feature James Krishna Floyd. Berlin will be directed by Matthias Schweighöfer and star himself and Ruby O. Fee.
The Barcelona segment will be helmed by Coixet, while Bucharest will be written and directed by Cristina Jacob.
Binoche will make her debut as writer and director for the Paris film, in which she will star alongside Ralph Fiennes. London will be written and directed by El Hosaini and feature James Krishna Floyd. Berlin will be directed by Matthias Schweighöfer and star himself and Ruby O. Fee.
The Barcelona segment will be helmed by Coixet, while Bucharest will be written and directed by Cristina Jacob.
- 5/16/2024
- ScreenDaily
Clint Eastwood was already 30 years old when he landed his breakout role in the CBS Western "Rawhide." The actor had spent much of the 1950s getting by on bit parts in B movies (most notably the Jack Arnold monster duo of "Revenge of the Creature" and "Tarantula"), and guest roles on TV series like "Maverick" and "Death Valley Days," so you'd think he would've been thrilled. But Eastwood was displeased with his character Rowdy Yates, who, early on in the series' run, was a wet-behind-the-ears ramrod. At his age, he was eager to play a grown, capable man with enough years behind him to allow for a bit of mystery.
Eastwood's restlessness coincided with a shift in filmmakers' approach to the Western genre. Though maestros like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Anthony Mann, and Budd Boetticher had allowed for moral ambiguity in their movies, the vast majority of Westerns were white...
Eastwood's restlessness coincided with a shift in filmmakers' approach to the Western genre. Though maestros like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Anthony Mann, and Budd Boetticher had allowed for moral ambiguity in their movies, the vast majority of Westerns were white...
- 4/28/2024
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Paola Cortellesi’s directing debut, in which she also stars, depicts gruelling domestic abuse before finding its way to startling redemption
Italian actor and singer Paola Cortellesi has been breaking hearts and box office records on her home turf with this directing debut. It’s a richly and even outrageously sentimental working-class drama of postwar Rome, a story of domestic abuse whose heroine finally escapes from misogyny and cruelty through a piece of narrative sleight-of-hand that borders on magic-neorealism, performed with shameless theatrical flair and marvellously composed in luminous monochrome. The film pays homage to early pictures by De Sica and Fellini, and Cortellesi’s own performance is consciously in the spirit of movie divas such as Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren and Giulietta Masina.
The scene is Rome just after the end of the second world war, when American GIs were a presence on the streets and Italian women had...
Italian actor and singer Paola Cortellesi has been breaking hearts and box office records on her home turf with this directing debut. It’s a richly and even outrageously sentimental working-class drama of postwar Rome, a story of domestic abuse whose heroine finally escapes from misogyny and cruelty through a piece of narrative sleight-of-hand that borders on magic-neorealism, performed with shameless theatrical flair and marvellously composed in luminous monochrome. The film pays homage to early pictures by De Sica and Fellini, and Cortellesi’s own performance is consciously in the spirit of movie divas such as Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren and Giulietta Masina.
The scene is Rome just after the end of the second world war, when American GIs were a presence on the streets and Italian women had...
- 4/25/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
When Victoria Villegas learned how her cousin had fled the Dominican Republic, and was gay like her, she was moved to chart his life
There have been experimental, freestyling essay films and memoiristic documentaries around for years, going back to Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil or Agnès Varda’s The Gleaners and I. But just lately it feels like the sprawling poetic-realist subgenre is flourishing, especially in the sunny uplands of film festivals. Like an extension of the creative-writing exhortation to “write about what you know” young documentary-makers are increasingly shooting movies about not just who they are but also their family history. Sometimes family members are even corralled into play themselves or others, like some cinematic family drama-therapy experiment.
If you want a few recent examples, check out Miryam Charles’s recent Cette Maison, or Moroccan director Asmae el Moudir’s The Mother of All Lies, both of which...
There have been experimental, freestyling essay films and memoiristic documentaries around for years, going back to Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil or Agnès Varda’s The Gleaners and I. But just lately it feels like the sprawling poetic-realist subgenre is flourishing, especially in the sunny uplands of film festivals. Like an extension of the creative-writing exhortation to “write about what you know” young documentary-makers are increasingly shooting movies about not just who they are but also their family history. Sometimes family members are even corralled into play themselves or others, like some cinematic family drama-therapy experiment.
If you want a few recent examples, check out Miryam Charles’s recent Cette Maison, or Moroccan director Asmae el Moudir’s The Mother of All Lies, both of which...
- 4/15/2024
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Guardian - Film News
One of 2024’s obsessions is “Feud: “Capote vs. the Swans.” The FX on Hulu limited series revolves around the best-selling novelist Truman Capote‘s friendship with several of the highest of New York’s society women include Babe Paley, Slim Keith and Lee Radziwill, the sister of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. The women treat him as a sort of father confessor, but when he publishes an excerpt from what he considers his will be his masterwork “Answered Prayers” in Esquire — a thinly veiled account of their lives and secrets –they feel betrayed and turn their back on their once trusted friend. He spends the rest of his life trying to get back into their good graces.
Everyone knows Capote wrote “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and his superb “In Cold Blood” and was a witty albeit inebriated guest on countless talk shows, but how much do you really know about him?
Capote was...
Everyone knows Capote wrote “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and his superb “In Cold Blood” and was a witty albeit inebriated guest on countless talk shows, but how much do you really know about him?
Capote was...
- 3/19/2024
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Sting, Isabella Rossellini, and U.S. director Roger Ross Williams came out to support the recent New York launch of Matteo Garrone’s Venice prizewinning immigration epic “Io Capitano” at the Museum of Modern Art.
The movie – which is Italy’s now shortlisted Oscar candidate for best international feature film – narrates the Homeric journey of two two Senegalese teenagers, Seydou and Moussa, who decide to leave Dakar to reach Europe in pursuit of a better life. It realistically depicts their plight through the pitfalls of the desert, the horrors of detention centers in Libya and the dangers of the sea.
Variety critic Guy Lodge in his review called “Io Capitano” the director’s “most robust, purely satisfying filmmaking since Garrone’s international breakthrough with ‘Gomorrah’ 15 years ago.” The drama, which at Venice won best director and best emerging actor for its co-star Seydou Sarr is Italy’s strongest Oscar contender in recent memory.
The movie – which is Italy’s now shortlisted Oscar candidate for best international feature film – narrates the Homeric journey of two two Senegalese teenagers, Seydou and Moussa, who decide to leave Dakar to reach Europe in pursuit of a better life. It realistically depicts their plight through the pitfalls of the desert, the horrors of detention centers in Libya and the dangers of the sea.
Variety critic Guy Lodge in his review called “Io Capitano” the director’s “most robust, purely satisfying filmmaking since Garrone’s international breakthrough with ‘Gomorrah’ 15 years ago.” The drama, which at Venice won best director and best emerging actor for its co-star Seydou Sarr is Italy’s strongest Oscar contender in recent memory.
- 1/8/2024
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Roberto Benigni, whose film “Life Is Beautiful” won three Oscars in 1999, has come out of the woodwork to support Matteo Garrone’s Golden Globe-nominated “Io Capitano,” which is Italy’s current Oscar candidate for best international feature film.
The revered yet reclusive Italian actor/director, whose most recent big screen role is playing Geppetto in Matteo Garrone’s hit 2019 live-action adaptation of “Pinocchio,” is clearly a big fan of “Io Capitano” (the title translates to “Me Captain”). The movie narrates the Homeric journey of two young African men, Seydou and Moussa, who decide to leave Dakar to reach Europe.
Garrone’s immigration drama realistically depicts their plight through the pitfalls of the desert, the horrors of detention centers in Libya and the dangers of the sea. Variety critic Guy Lodge in his review called “Io Capitano” the director’s “most robust, purely satisfying filmmaking since Garrone’s international breakthrough with ‘Gomorrah’ 15 years ago.
The revered yet reclusive Italian actor/director, whose most recent big screen role is playing Geppetto in Matteo Garrone’s hit 2019 live-action adaptation of “Pinocchio,” is clearly a big fan of “Io Capitano” (the title translates to “Me Captain”). The movie narrates the Homeric journey of two young African men, Seydou and Moussa, who decide to leave Dakar to reach Europe.
Garrone’s immigration drama realistically depicts their plight through the pitfalls of the desert, the horrors of detention centers in Libya and the dangers of the sea. Variety critic Guy Lodge in his review called “Io Capitano” the director’s “most robust, purely satisfying filmmaking since Garrone’s international breakthrough with ‘Gomorrah’ 15 years ago.
- 12/21/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Marisa Pavan, the Italian actress and twin sister of Pier Angeli who received an Oscar nomination for her performance as the daughter of Anna Magnani’s seamstress in the 1955 drama The Rose Tattoo, has died. She was 91.
Pavan died Wednesday in her sleep at her home in Gassin, France, near Saint-Tropez, Margaux Soumoy, who wrote Pavan’s 2021 biography, Drop the Baby; Put a Veil on the Broad!, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Pavan also portrayed the French queen Catherine de’ Medici in Diane (1956), starring Lana Turner; an Italian girl who had an affair years ago with a corporate exec (Gregory Peck) in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956); and the love interest of a former cop (Tony Curtis) investigating the murder of a priest in the film noir The Midnight Story (1957).
In Paramount’s The Rose Tattoo (1955), an adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play that won four Tony Awards, including best play,...
Pavan died Wednesday in her sleep at her home in Gassin, France, near Saint-Tropez, Margaux Soumoy, who wrote Pavan’s 2021 biography, Drop the Baby; Put a Veil on the Broad!, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Pavan also portrayed the French queen Catherine de’ Medici in Diane (1956), starring Lana Turner; an Italian girl who had an affair years ago with a corporate exec (Gregory Peck) in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956); and the love interest of a former cop (Tony Curtis) investigating the murder of a priest in the film noir The Midnight Story (1957).
In Paramount’s The Rose Tattoo (1955), an adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play that won four Tony Awards, including best play,...
- 12/6/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Italy has been a regular contender for the international feature Oscar since the 1940s, having won the award 14 times — the most of any country. Four of those winners were directed by Vittorio De Sica, whose 1946 film, Shoeshine, was the first foreign film to be recognized by the Academy with an honorary Oscar. Four years later, his Bicycle Thieves earned the honor. And in 1963, he collaborated with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni on what would become Italy’s third international feature Oscar winner: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.
The film is a comedy anthology divided into three parts, following a triad of Italian couples across three regions of Italy: “Adelina” tells of a wife (Loren) who supports her unemployed husband (Mastroianni) and family by selling black market cigarettes in Naples as she tries to stave off being incarcerated for her illegal activity by staying continuously pregnant. In “Anna,” Loren plays the wife...
The film is a comedy anthology divided into three parts, following a triad of Italian couples across three regions of Italy: “Adelina” tells of a wife (Loren) who supports her unemployed husband (Mastroianni) and family by selling black market cigarettes in Naples as she tries to stave off being incarcerated for her illegal activity by staying continuously pregnant. In “Anna,” Loren plays the wife...
- 11/30/2023
- by Hilton Dresden
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Marina Cicogna, Italy’s first major female film producer who shepherded films by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Zeffirelli and Elio Petri, including Petri’s Oscar-winning “Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion,” has died. She was 89.
Cicogna died on Nov. 4 in her Rome home after a long battle with an unspecified form of cancer, according to Italian news agency Ansa.
The Venice Biennale foundation is a statement, praised her as “the first female film producer in Europe” and noted that she was always deeply linked to the Venice Film Festival that was founded by her grandfather, Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata.
Born in Rome on May 29, 1934, to Count Cesare Cicogna Mozzoni and Countess Annamaria Volpi di Misurata, Cicogna attended high school in Italy and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in New York, where she struck up a friendship with Jack Warner’s daughter Barbara Warner and established a connection with Hollywood.
In...
Cicogna died on Nov. 4 in her Rome home after a long battle with an unspecified form of cancer, according to Italian news agency Ansa.
The Venice Biennale foundation is a statement, praised her as “the first female film producer in Europe” and noted that she was always deeply linked to the Venice Film Festival that was founded by her grandfather, Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata.
Born in Rome on May 29, 1934, to Count Cesare Cicogna Mozzoni and Countess Annamaria Volpi di Misurata, Cicogna attended high school in Italy and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in New York, where she struck up a friendship with Jack Warner’s daughter Barbara Warner and established a connection with Hollywood.
In...
- 11/6/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Dariush Mehrjui, the pioneering Iranian director behind films such as “The Cow” and “The Pear Tree,” has reportedly been murdered at the age of 83. The news was broken by Iranian state media outlet Irna, which indicated that Mehrjui and his wife Vahideh Mohammadifar were discovered at their home with neck wounds indicating that they had been stabbed to death.
Born in Iran in 1939, Mehrjui rose to prominence in the 1960s as a leading contributor to the Iranian New Wave filmmaking movement. His 1969 film “The Cow,” which depicts an Iranian man’s alienation from society when the pregnant cow that serves as his sole possession is killed, became an international sensation after screening at the Venice International Film Festival. He remained a beloved presence on the international festival circuit throughout his life, earning acclaim for films such as 1998’s “The Pear Tree” and 2002’s “To Stay Alive.” His naturalistic films offered nuanced depictions of human discontent,...
Born in Iran in 1939, Mehrjui rose to prominence in the 1960s as a leading contributor to the Iranian New Wave filmmaking movement. His 1969 film “The Cow,” which depicts an Iranian man’s alienation from society when the pregnant cow that serves as his sole possession is killed, became an international sensation after screening at the Venice International Film Festival. He remained a beloved presence on the international festival circuit throughout his life, earning acclaim for films such as 1998’s “The Pear Tree” and 2002’s “To Stay Alive.” His naturalistic films offered nuanced depictions of human discontent,...
- 10/15/2023
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
Execs took part in Netflix showcase panel at Mia Market in Rome.
Netflix VP content for Italy Eleonora ‘Tinny’ Andreatta says she is looking for content that goes beyond the stereotypes about the country that were formed by the success of Italian cinema in the 1960s.
“The biggest challenge we have nowadays is to overcome the big success that Italy had in the 1960s that created some stereotypes about our country. It was so huge,” Andreatta said on a panel at Mia Market in Rome.
“Now the ambition is to relaunch a more modern, more acutal, more true, more out of stereotype image of Italy.
Netflix VP content for Italy Eleonora ‘Tinny’ Andreatta says she is looking for content that goes beyond the stereotypes about the country that were formed by the success of Italian cinema in the 1960s.
“The biggest challenge we have nowadays is to overcome the big success that Italy had in the 1960s that created some stereotypes about our country. It was so huge,” Andreatta said on a panel at Mia Market in Rome.
“Now the ambition is to relaunch a more modern, more acutal, more true, more out of stereotype image of Italy.
- 10/13/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Exec says she is after ‘modern’ and ‘out of stereotype’ content about Italy.
Netflix VP content for Italy Eleonora ‘Tinny’ Andreatta says she is looking for content that goes beyond the stereotypes about the country that were formed by the success of Italian cinema in the 1960s.
“The biggest challenge we have nowadays is to overcome the big success that Italy had in the 1960s that created some stereotypes about our country. It was so huge,” Andreatta said on a panel at Mia Market in Rome.
“Now the ambition is to relaunch a more modern, more acutal, more true, more...
Netflix VP content for Italy Eleonora ‘Tinny’ Andreatta says she is looking for content that goes beyond the stereotypes about the country that were formed by the success of Italian cinema in the 1960s.
“The biggest challenge we have nowadays is to overcome the big success that Italy had in the 1960s that created some stereotypes about our country. It was so huge,” Andreatta said on a panel at Mia Market in Rome.
“Now the ambition is to relaunch a more modern, more acutal, more true, more...
- 10/13/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Sophia Loren is hospitalized and in recovery after a severe fall on Sunday, which led to several fractures, including her hip and femur.
The incident, which occurred in her Swiss home and was confirmed by an Instagram post from a restaurant she was due to open in Bari on Sept. 26, required surgery. The legendary Italian actress, who turned 89 on Sept. 20, “will now have to undergo a short period of convalescence followed by a rehabilitation process,” the announcement read.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Sophia Loren Restaurant (@sophialorenrestaurant)
Translated to English from its Italian text, the post in full reads: “Today, a fall at her home in Geneva caused Mrs. Loren to suffer hip fractures. Having undergone a successful operation, she will now have to undergo a short period of convalescence followed by a rehabilitation process. Fortunately everything went well and the Lady will be back with us very soon.
The incident, which occurred in her Swiss home and was confirmed by an Instagram post from a restaurant she was due to open in Bari on Sept. 26, required surgery. The legendary Italian actress, who turned 89 on Sept. 20, “will now have to undergo a short period of convalescence followed by a rehabilitation process,” the announcement read.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Sophia Loren Restaurant (@sophialorenrestaurant)
Translated to English from its Italian text, the post in full reads: “Today, a fall at her home in Geneva caused Mrs. Loren to suffer hip fractures. Having undergone a successful operation, she will now have to undergo a short period of convalescence followed by a rehabilitation process. Fortunately everything went well and the Lady will be back with us very soon.
- 9/25/2023
- by Benjamin Lindsay
- The Wrap
Sophia Loren is recovering from emergency surgery for a fractured hip following a fall on Sunday in her home in Geneva, Switzerland.
Italy’s most famous living movie star, who turned 89 on Sept. 20, suffered several fractures after accidentally falling at home on Sunday morning, according to multiple reports. On Sunday afternoon, “Sophia was operated with positive outcome and will now have to undergo a brief period of convalescence followed by a complete rehabilitation,” said Italian national news agency Ansa.
She sustained “serious fractures” to different parts of her hip and femur, according to her agent Andrea Giusti who confirmed that both Loren’s sons, Carlo and Edoardo Ponti, were at her bedside. “The surgery went perfectly and we only need to wait,” Giusti told Variety in an email.
News of Loren’s hospitalization was first announced by a restaurant bearing her name that she was set to inaugurate on Tuesday...
Italy’s most famous living movie star, who turned 89 on Sept. 20, suffered several fractures after accidentally falling at home on Sunday morning, according to multiple reports. On Sunday afternoon, “Sophia was operated with positive outcome and will now have to undergo a brief period of convalescence followed by a complete rehabilitation,” said Italian national news agency Ansa.
She sustained “serious fractures” to different parts of her hip and femur, according to her agent Andrea Giusti who confirmed that both Loren’s sons, Carlo and Edoardo Ponti, were at her bedside. “The surgery went perfectly and we only need to wait,” Giusti told Variety in an email.
News of Loren’s hospitalization was first announced by a restaurant bearing her name that she was set to inaugurate on Tuesday...
- 9/25/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Horace Ové, director of “Pressure” (1976), the first full-length Black British film, died on Sept. 16. He was 86.
Ové’s son Zak posted on Facebook: “Our loving father Horace, took his last breath at 4.30 this morning, while sleeping peacefully. I hope his spirit is free now after many years of suffering with Alzheimer’s. You are forever missed, and forever loved. Rest in Peace Pops, and thank you for everything.”
Born in Trinidad in 1936, Ové’s moved to London in 1960 to study interior design. A stint in Rome, during which he worked as a film extra including on Joseph Mankiewicz’s “Cleopatra” (1963), he was exposed to the work of Federico Fellini and Vittorio De Sica, who would become infuences. He returned to Britain in 1965 and covered social and political events in the country while being a student at the London Film School. During the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the...
Ové’s son Zak posted on Facebook: “Our loving father Horace, took his last breath at 4.30 this morning, while sleeping peacefully. I hope his spirit is free now after many years of suffering with Alzheimer’s. You are forever missed, and forever loved. Rest in Peace Pops, and thank you for everything.”
Born in Trinidad in 1936, Ové’s moved to London in 1960 to study interior design. A stint in Rome, during which he worked as a film extra including on Joseph Mankiewicz’s “Cleopatra” (1963), he was exposed to the work of Federico Fellini and Vittorio De Sica, who would become infuences. He returned to Britain in 1965 and covered social and political events in the country while being a student at the London Film School. During the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the...
- 9/17/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
When first-time documentary director Leonard Manzella premieres his award-winning “Shoe Shine Caddie” at the Portobello Film Festival in London on September 16, it will represent a kind of return to the former actor’s roots in the international film scene.
A professional family therapist for the past 30 years in California, Manzella’s earlier career began when the native Angeleno left Los Angeles for Rome in 1968 “when everything was burning.” In his early 20s and armed with “no contacts and about $50 bucks in my pocket,” a fortuitous introduction to American actor Brett Halsey got Manzella into movies, first as an extra and eventually as a leading man.
Halsey, who landed in Rome in the ‘60s and worked steadily in Euro crime thrillers and in the burgeoning spaghetti western scene, often toiled under the moniker Montgomery Ford and Leonard Manzella became famous as Leonard Mann.
“I went to Rome to study political science,...
A professional family therapist for the past 30 years in California, Manzella’s earlier career began when the native Angeleno left Los Angeles for Rome in 1968 “when everything was burning.” In his early 20s and armed with “no contacts and about $50 bucks in my pocket,” a fortuitous introduction to American actor Brett Halsey got Manzella into movies, first as an extra and eventually as a leading man.
Halsey, who landed in Rome in the ‘60s and worked steadily in Euro crime thrillers and in the burgeoning spaghetti western scene, often toiled under the moniker Montgomery Ford and Leonard Manzella became famous as Leonard Mann.
“I went to Rome to study political science,...
- 9/15/2023
- by Steven Gaydos
- Variety Film + TV
Though she rose to fame thanks largely to her looks, Italian superstar Sophia Loren more than proved her acting chops with a series of international hits and an Oscar win for Best Actress. But how many of her titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 15 of her greatest films, ranked worst to best.
Born in 1934 in Rome, Loren began appearing in films both in her native Italy and in Hollywood, popping up in several titles that played more to her incredible beauty than her acting chops. That all changed with “Two Women” (1961), a stirring drama from Italian neorealist Vittoria De Sica that cast her as a mother protecting her daughter from the horrors of World War II. The role brought her international acclaim and Oscar, BAFTA and Cannes Film Festival victories as Best Actress, making her the first performer in a foreign language film to win at the Academy.
Born in 1934 in Rome, Loren began appearing in films both in her native Italy and in Hollywood, popping up in several titles that played more to her incredible beauty than her acting chops. That all changed with “Two Women” (1961), a stirring drama from Italian neorealist Vittoria De Sica that cast her as a mother protecting her daughter from the horrors of World War II. The role brought her international acclaim and Oscar, BAFTA and Cannes Film Festival victories as Best Actress, making her the first performer in a foreign language film to win at the Academy.
- 9/14/2023
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days suggests a kind of cinematic spring cleaning for the filmmaker. Gone are the elaborate concepts and freighted iconography of The American Friend and Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire, not to mention of the vastly less impactful fictional films that he’s released in the intervening years. Wenders aims for simplicity here, following a middle-aged man, Hirayama (Yakusho Kôji), as he goes about his day cleaning Tokyo’s toilets, taking pictures of trees, listening to American rock, reading classic literature, and savoring the humble sources of day-to-day affirmation that we tend to take for granted.
Hirayama’s humility is the gauntlet that Wenders has thrown down for himself. Perfect Days wants to be an invitingly human movie that homes in intensely on the little moments of a man’s life so as to unearth universal truths. There’s a bit of Vittorio de Sica’s...
Hirayama’s humility is the gauntlet that Wenders has thrown down for himself. Perfect Days wants to be an invitingly human movie that homes in intensely on the little moments of a man’s life so as to unearth universal truths. There’s a bit of Vittorio de Sica’s...
- 9/8/2023
- by Chuck Bowen
- Slant Magazine
Night time in Rome. Wildfires rage on the horizon of the vast city. A blackout strikes, and block by block, the urban landscape is plunged suddenly into darkness, illuminated only by traffic and the roaring blaze in the distance. When a city’s infrastructure fails, it feels like the visible, outward sign of dysfunction or rot. What better way to plunge the audience into “Adagio,” Stefano Sollima’s crime drama dealing with cynicism and corruption, and the repercussions of past actions, as they echo through the generations? Premiering in Competition at Venice, this is a solidly assembled yarn about the on-the-ground consequences of a moral breakdown at the heart of the state, about fiddling the books while Rome burns.
The notional protagonist is 16-year old Manuel (newcomer Gianmarco Franchini), in over his head in a world he doesn’t understand. But he’s a protagonist almost entirely moved and motivated...
The notional protagonist is 16-year old Manuel (newcomer Gianmarco Franchini), in over his head in a world he doesn’t understand. But he’s a protagonist almost entirely moved and motivated...
- 9/2/2023
- by Catherine Bray
- Variety Film + TV
Even without major stars or Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” to buoy it, the opening night of the Venice Film Festival’s 80th edition was high on nostalgia for cinema’s past and excitement for the eight days of movies ahead.
A black-tie crowd gathered in the Palazzo del Cinema’s Sala Grande on the Lido for the presentation of Edoardo De Angelis’ World War II Battle of the Atlantic epic “Comandante,” the opener that replaced Guadagnino’s “Challengers” after that film was moved by MGM/Amazon to April due to the strikes.
First, though, elegant minimalist and icon Charlotte Rampling presented the festival’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Liliana Cavani, the Italian director of psychosexual Holocaust drama “The Night Porter,” starring Rampling and from 1974. (Wong Kar Wai muse Tony Leung Chiu-wai will also receive a Lifetime Achievement anointment later in the fest.) Rampling played a concentration camp survivor who finds her ex,...
A black-tie crowd gathered in the Palazzo del Cinema’s Sala Grande on the Lido for the presentation of Edoardo De Angelis’ World War II Battle of the Atlantic epic “Comandante,” the opener that replaced Guadagnino’s “Challengers” after that film was moved by MGM/Amazon to April due to the strikes.
First, though, elegant minimalist and icon Charlotte Rampling presented the festival’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Liliana Cavani, the Italian director of psychosexual Holocaust drama “The Night Porter,” starring Rampling and from 1974. (Wong Kar Wai muse Tony Leung Chiu-wai will also receive a Lifetime Achievement anointment later in the fest.) Rampling played a concentration camp survivor who finds her ex,...
- 8/30/2023
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Josephine Chaplin, an actress and the sixth of 11 children fathered by screen legend Charlie Chaplin, died July 13 in Paris, her family announced. She was 74.
Chaplin starred with Laurence Harvey in Menahem Golan’s Escape to the Sun (1972), about a group of people attempting to leave the Soviet Union to escape antisemitism and political repression.
She also appeared with Vittorio De Sica and Maurice Ronet in L’odeur des fauves (1972), with Liv Ullmann and Kiefer Sutherland in Daniel Petrie’s The Bay Boy (1984), and with Klaus Kinski in a German-language version of Jack the Ripper (1976).
In 1988, she portrayed Hadley Richardson, the first wife of Ernest Hemingway, in a miniseries that starred Stacy Keach.
Josephine Chaplin with Laurence Harvey in 1972’s Escape to the Sun.
Josephine Hannah Chaplin was born in Santa Monica on March 28, 1949, the third of eight children of Charlie Chaplin and his fourth wife, Oona O’Neill, the British actress...
Chaplin starred with Laurence Harvey in Menahem Golan’s Escape to the Sun (1972), about a group of people attempting to leave the Soviet Union to escape antisemitism and political repression.
She also appeared with Vittorio De Sica and Maurice Ronet in L’odeur des fauves (1972), with Liv Ullmann and Kiefer Sutherland in Daniel Petrie’s The Bay Boy (1984), and with Klaus Kinski in a German-language version of Jack the Ripper (1976).
In 1988, she portrayed Hadley Richardson, the first wife of Ernest Hemingway, in a miniseries that starred Stacy Keach.
Josephine Chaplin with Laurence Harvey in 1972’s Escape to the Sun.
Josephine Hannah Chaplin was born in Santa Monica on March 28, 1949, the third of eight children of Charlie Chaplin and his fourth wife, Oona O’Neill, the British actress...
- 7/21/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A kindred spirit of Luis Buñuel, but one whose existential compulsions are more palpable, Pier Paolo Pasolini perpetually rebelled against moral hegemony, commiserating with outcasts and creating and dying as one. Today, his canon has been co-opted by forces on the right and left, the faithful and the secular. Which is to say, he belongs to us all.
The Criterion Collection’s new box set, Pasolini 101, represents the most comprehensive collection of Pasolini’s films to date, collecting nine of his features, as well as two shorts (1963’s La Ricotta and 1969’s The Sequence of the Paper Flower) that he made for anthology films and two documentaries that he shot during his travels. In addition to his own work, the set’s extensive and richly informative extras, among them two commentary tracks and a 100-page book featuring an essay and notes on the films by critic James Quandt, remind us...
The Criterion Collection’s new box set, Pasolini 101, represents the most comprehensive collection of Pasolini’s films to date, collecting nine of his features, as well as two shorts (1963’s La Ricotta and 1969’s The Sequence of the Paper Flower) that he made for anthology films and two documentaries that he shot during his travels. In addition to his own work, the set’s extensive and richly informative extras, among them two commentary tracks and a 100-page book featuring an essay and notes on the films by critic James Quandt, remind us...
- 6/20/2023
- by Ed Gonzalez
- Slant Magazine
Pietro Marcello with Anne-Katrin Titze on his Scarlet end credit thanks: “Renato Berta, in addition to being a friend, he is also a teacher. Thanks to Caroline Champetier we were able to shoot in 35mm. And finally Gianfranco Rosi, he’s an old friend.”
In the second instalment with Pietro Marcello on Scarlet (L'envol), his adaptation with Maurizio Braucci and Maud Ameline (Mikhaël Hers’ Amanda), in collaboration with Geneviève Brisac of the 1923 novel Scarlet Sails by Russian author Alexander Grin, we discuss the influence of Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle In Milan, the chance discovery of Louise Michel’s poetry, fathers as mothers, dethroning princes and knights in shining armour, being an archivist, Louis Garrel’s crocodile entrance, Pietro’s new project on the question what is war, and the end credit thanks in Scarlet to Renato Berta, Caroline Champetier and Gianfranco Rosi.
Raphaël (Raphaël Thiéry) with his daughter Juliette...
In the second instalment with Pietro Marcello on Scarlet (L'envol), his adaptation with Maurizio Braucci and Maud Ameline (Mikhaël Hers’ Amanda), in collaboration with Geneviève Brisac of the 1923 novel Scarlet Sails by Russian author Alexander Grin, we discuss the influence of Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle In Milan, the chance discovery of Louise Michel’s poetry, fathers as mothers, dethroning princes and knights in shining armour, being an archivist, Louis Garrel’s crocodile entrance, Pietro’s new project on the question what is war, and the end credit thanks in Scarlet to Renato Berta, Caroline Champetier and Gianfranco Rosi.
Raphaël (Raphaël Thiéry) with his daughter Juliette...
- 6/7/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.REMEMBERINGInauguration of the Pleasure Dome.Kenneth Anger has died at the age of 96, as reported this morning by his gallery. "Anger forged a body of work as dazzlingly poetic in its unique visual intensity as it is narratively innovative," wrote Maximilian Le Cain of the pioneering avant-gardist (and devoted occultist) for Senses of Cinema. "Anger’s films are cinematic manifestations of his occult practices. As such, they are highly symbolical, either featuring characters directly portraying gods, forces and demons or else finding an appropriate embodiment for them in the iconography of contemporary pop culture."The Austrian actor Helmut Berger died last week aged 78. He was best known as Luchino Visconti’s muse, unforgettable in The Damned (1969), Ludwig (1973), and Conversation Piece (1974). Among his additional...
- 5/24/2023
- MUBI
Nanni Moretti always dresses impeccably — whether tuxed-up for the Cannes red carpet for his eight competition appearances since 1978 (his ninth, for A Brighter Tomorrow, will come May 24) or walking the Croisette in the casual chic (cashmere sweaters and chinos with open-collar shirts in dark gray or plum) that appears to come naturally to Italian men of Moretti’s generation. But the mantle of elder statesman of Italian cinema seems to hang on the 69-year-old director more like an ill-fitting suit.
It’s hard to deny Moretti’s position as a successor to the great neorealists — Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini — and the generation of New Wave heroes of the 1960s like Michelangelo Antonioni, Bernardo Bertolucci and Lina Wertmüller who reclaimed and restored Italian cinema after the ravages of fascism. His list of awards and acclaims alone — the Palme d’Or for The Son’s Room in 2001, Cannes best director in 1994 for Dear Diary,...
It’s hard to deny Moretti’s position as a successor to the great neorealists — Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini — and the generation of New Wave heroes of the 1960s like Michelangelo Antonioni, Bernardo Bertolucci and Lina Wertmüller who reclaimed and restored Italian cinema after the ravages of fascism. His list of awards and acclaims alone — the Palme d’Or for The Son’s Room in 2001, Cannes best director in 1994 for Dear Diary,...
- 5/19/2023
- by Scott Roxborough and Concita De Gregorio
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Austrian actor Helmut Berger, the groundbreaking star of European cinematic masterpieces such as Luchino Visconti’s “The Damned” and Vittorio De Sica’s “Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” has died at the age of 78. Berger died at home in Austria from natural causes.
In one of European cinema’s most storied and creative periods, the 60s and 70s, Berger boldly established his place in the pantheon of Continental stars via a handful of films directed by Visconti, his one-time romantic partner. “The Damned,” “Ludwig” and “Conversation Piece” were all crafted with standout roles for Berger and the films were hugely successful both at the arthouse box office and with critics and awards groups.
“The Damned”
Berger was nominated for a Golden Globe for “The Damned,” which was also nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar in 1970. No less an authority than the late German filmmaking maestro Rainer Werner Fassbinder called it “perhaps the greatest film,...
In one of European cinema’s most storied and creative periods, the 60s and 70s, Berger boldly established his place in the pantheon of Continental stars via a handful of films directed by Visconti, his one-time romantic partner. “The Damned,” “Ludwig” and “Conversation Piece” were all crafted with standout roles for Berger and the films were hugely successful both at the arthouse box office and with critics and awards groups.
“The Damned”
Berger was nominated for a Golden Globe for “The Damned,” which was also nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar in 1970. No less an authority than the late German filmmaking maestro Rainer Werner Fassbinder called it “perhaps the greatest film,...
- 5/19/2023
- by Steven Gaydos
- Variety Film + TV
Helmut Berger, the Austrian actor who became an international star through films by directors Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica and Massimo Dallamano, died today in his home city of Salzburg. He was 78.
His death was announced by his agency, Helmet Werner Management.
“Helmut Berger was one of the greatest and most talented actors European cinema had ever seen,” the agency said in a statement. “His mentor, the Italian star director Luchino Visconti, recognized this talent immediately. With the films The Damned, Violence and Passion and Ludwig II he created an eternal monument to Helmut Berger.
The statement continued, “”No other actor after him embodied the Bavarian fairy tale king as expressively as the native of Bad Ischl [Austria], whose portrayal of Ludwig II is internationally recognized as a masterpiece.”
In addition to the Visconti films, Berger gave memorable performances in De Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and Dallamano’s Dorian Gray,...
His death was announced by his agency, Helmet Werner Management.
“Helmut Berger was one of the greatest and most talented actors European cinema had ever seen,” the agency said in a statement. “His mentor, the Italian star director Luchino Visconti, recognized this talent immediately. With the films The Damned, Violence and Passion and Ludwig II he created an eternal monument to Helmut Berger.
The statement continued, “”No other actor after him embodied the Bavarian fairy tale king as expressively as the native of Bad Ischl [Austria], whose portrayal of Ludwig II is internationally recognized as a masterpiece.”
In addition to the Visconti films, Berger gave memorable performances in De Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and Dallamano’s Dorian Gray,...
- 5/18/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Helmut Berger, the Austrian actor and regular Luchino Visconti collaborator who become one of the most recognizable faces of European arthouse cinema in the 1960s, has died at the age of 78. The news was announced by the actor’s agent, who wrote that he died “peacefully but nevertheless unexpectedly” on his management company’s website.
Born in Austria in 1944, Berger moved to Rome and began pursuing an acting career after expressing disinterest in following his parents into the hospitality industry. He initially found work as an extra before meeting Visconti in 1964. The “Rocco and His Brothers” director gave Berger a small part in his 1967 film “The Witches,” an omnibus film also directed by the likes of Vittorio De Sica and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Berger and Visconti began a professional and romantic relationship that would go on to shape the European cinema landscape of the subsequent decade.
Berger’s most significant...
Born in Austria in 1944, Berger moved to Rome and began pursuing an acting career after expressing disinterest in following his parents into the hospitality industry. He initially found work as an extra before meeting Visconti in 1964. The “Rocco and His Brothers” director gave Berger a small part in his 1967 film “The Witches,” an omnibus film also directed by the likes of Vittorio De Sica and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Berger and Visconti began a professional and romantic relationship that would go on to shape the European cinema landscape of the subsequent decade.
Berger’s most significant...
- 5/18/2023
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
Belgian directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s Italian-language drama The Eight Mountains and veteran Marco Bellocchio’s Exterior Night topped the 68th edition of Italy’s David di Donatello Awards on Wednesday evening.
The Eight Mountains won best film as well as best non-original screenplay, photography and sound.
Based on the novel of the same name by Paolo Cognetti, it stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as two men from different backgrounds who form a life-long bond during summers spent together as children in a remote mountain village.
The film world premiered in Competition at Cannes last year where it co-won the Jury Prize. Read the Deadline review here.
It is the second time in the history of the awards that a film by non-Italian directors has clinched the best film prize.
The last time was in 1971 when the Dino de Laurentiis-produced epic Waterloo by Russian director Sergei Bonderchuk,...
The Eight Mountains won best film as well as best non-original screenplay, photography and sound.
Based on the novel of the same name by Paolo Cognetti, it stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as two men from different backgrounds who form a life-long bond during summers spent together as children in a remote mountain village.
The film world premiered in Competition at Cannes last year where it co-won the Jury Prize. Read the Deadline review here.
It is the second time in the history of the awards that a film by non-Italian directors has clinched the best film prize.
The last time was in 1971 when the Dino de Laurentiis-produced epic Waterloo by Russian director Sergei Bonderchuk,...
- 5/11/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
A life well-lived is best directed by doing what you love with people you love. And my father, Edward R. Pressman — a film producer, jazz lover, student of philosophy, constant reader and Dodgers fanatic who would have turned 80 on Tuesday — had a life filled to the brim.
On Jan. 17, in the last moments of my father’s life, his family and his company, which has always been family to Ed, surrounded him. We listened to “Gassenhauer,” the theme of Badlands, my father’s fourth film as a producer. He looked so peaceful and beautiful.
Earlier, on this last day, we watched Phantom of the Paradise. I’ve always been in awe of that film. The joy and chaos that is in each frame; the music that, like old souls, lasts forever. You can feel the way that Ed and director Brian De Palma were experimenting together, pushing cinematic boundaries while...
On Jan. 17, in the last moments of my father’s life, his family and his company, which has always been family to Ed, surrounded him. We listened to “Gassenhauer,” the theme of Badlands, my father’s fourth film as a producer. He looked so peaceful and beautiful.
Earlier, on this last day, we watched Phantom of the Paradise. I’ve always been in awe of that film. The joy and chaos that is in each frame; the music that, like old souls, lasts forever. You can feel the way that Ed and director Brian De Palma were experimenting together, pushing cinematic boundaries while...
- 4/11/2023
- by Sam Pressman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Stars: Peter Stephen Wolmarans, Sandra Pizzullo, Penelope Sangiorgi, Rocco Marazzita | Written and Directed by Alessandro Antonaci, Daniel Lascar, Stefano Mandalà
Sound of Silence was written and directed by Alessandro Antonaci, Daniel Lascar, and Stefano Mandalà who work collectively under the label of T3. They previously made the feature You Die and several shorts including the 2020 short Sound of Silence which they’ve now expanded into a feature. But can the concept survive going from three minutes to ninety-three minutes?
An old man, Peter (Peter Stephen Wolmarans) is puttering around in his attic when he finds an old, possibly antique, radio. He becomes so intent on fixing it that he ignores his wife (Sandra Pizzullo) telling him dinner is ready. He should have listened to her because once the radio is working it unleashes something that attacks them both.
In New York City, Emma (Penelope Sangiorgi), an aspiring singer, freezes at an audition.
Sound of Silence was written and directed by Alessandro Antonaci, Daniel Lascar, and Stefano Mandalà who work collectively under the label of T3. They previously made the feature You Die and several shorts including the 2020 short Sound of Silence which they’ve now expanded into a feature. But can the concept survive going from three minutes to ninety-three minutes?
An old man, Peter (Peter Stephen Wolmarans) is puttering around in his attic when he finds an old, possibly antique, radio. He becomes so intent on fixing it that he ignores his wife (Sandra Pizzullo) telling him dinner is ready. He should have listened to her because once the radio is working it unleashes something that attacks them both.
In New York City, Emma (Penelope Sangiorgi), an aspiring singer, freezes at an audition.
- 3/10/2023
- by Jim Morazzini
- Nerdly
Italian auteur Vittorio De Sica triumphed at the Berlin Film Festival when his 1971 masterpiece “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” claimed the Golden Bear, on its way to the best foreign-language Oscar in 1972.
“Finzi” also earned Italian film and TV star Fabio Testi an Italian Golden Globe for best breakthrough actor. A half-century later, with over 100 credits on his resume, Testi remains active and game for parts that utilize his still stunning looks and hearty appetite for performing.
He’s also game for the role he seems destined to play in the Italian tabloids. A quick Google search of Testi’s current film and TV projects is dominated by stories – which Testi playfully plays along with – of current and past romantic adventures with women all over the globe.
Testi turns 82 this year and remains dedicated to two other passions beyond the aforementioned amorous actitivies: farming and acting.
“I did 102 movies with my name on them,...
“Finzi” also earned Italian film and TV star Fabio Testi an Italian Golden Globe for best breakthrough actor. A half-century later, with over 100 credits on his resume, Testi remains active and game for parts that utilize his still stunning looks and hearty appetite for performing.
He’s also game for the role he seems destined to play in the Italian tabloids. A quick Google search of Testi’s current film and TV projects is dominated by stories – which Testi playfully plays along with – of current and past romantic adventures with women all over the globe.
Testi turns 82 this year and remains dedicated to two other passions beyond the aforementioned amorous actitivies: farming and acting.
“I did 102 movies with my name on them,...
- 2/22/2023
- by Cillea Houghton
- Variety Film + TV
The 76th BAFTAs take place on Sunday, February 19 at the Royal Festival Hall with Richard E. Grant hosting. Germany’s ‘”All Quiet on the Western Front” leads with 14 nominations, followed by 10 for “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and nine for “Elvis.”
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts was founded in April 1947 as the British Film Academy by luminaries including David Lean, Carol Reed, Charles Laughton, Laurence Olivier, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Lean was named chairman of the awards that would “recognize those which had contributed outstanding creative work towards the advancement of British film.” Eleven years later, the British Film Academy merged with the Guild of Television Producers and Directors.
The first awards were handed out on May 29, 1949 at the Odeon Cinema in Leicester Square to honor films released in Britain in 1947-48. Best Picture went to William Wyler’s 1946 release “The Best Years of Our Lives,...
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts was founded in April 1947 as the British Film Academy by luminaries including David Lean, Carol Reed, Charles Laughton, Laurence Olivier, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Lean was named chairman of the awards that would “recognize those which had contributed outstanding creative work towards the advancement of British film.” Eleven years later, the British Film Academy merged with the Guild of Television Producers and Directors.
The first awards were handed out on May 29, 1949 at the Odeon Cinema in Leicester Square to honor films released in Britain in 1947-48. Best Picture went to William Wyler’s 1946 release “The Best Years of Our Lives,...
- 2/16/2023
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Film actor of the 1950s and 60s who went from early Italian roles to become an international star
The actor Gina Lollobrigida, who has died aged 95, was one of the great film stars of the 1950s and 60s, and an icon of Italian cinema who became known as “the most beautiful woman in the world”.
The movie that launched her as a sex symbol was Altri Tempi, an anthology film directed by Alessandro Blasetti, in which Vittorio De Sica was the lawyer who defends the honour of a woman (Lollobrigida) accused of being too sexy. She was signed up the following year to play opposite Errol Flynn in Crossed Swords and in what was to become a cult movie, John Huston’s tongue-in-cheek adventure yarn Beat the Devil, in which she co-starred with Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones.
The actor Gina Lollobrigida, who has died aged 95, was one of the great film stars of the 1950s and 60s, and an icon of Italian cinema who became known as “the most beautiful woman in the world”.
The movie that launched her as a sex symbol was Altri Tempi, an anthology film directed by Alessandro Blasetti, in which Vittorio De Sica was the lawyer who defends the honour of a woman (Lollobrigida) accused of being too sexy. She was signed up the following year to play opposite Errol Flynn in Crossed Swords and in what was to become a cult movie, John Huston’s tongue-in-cheek adventure yarn Beat the Devil, in which she co-starred with Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones.
- 1/16/2023
- by John Francis Lane
- The Guardian - Film News
Italian film legend Gina Lollobrigida, who achieved international stardom during the 1950s and was dubbed “the most beautiful woman in the world” after the title of one of her movies, died in Rome on Monday, her agent said. She was 95.
The agent, Paola Comin, didn’t provide details. Lollobrigida had surgery in September to repair a thigh bone broken in a fall. She returned home and said she had quickly resumed walking.
A drawn portrait of the diva graced a 1954 cover of Time magazine, which likened her to a “goddess” in an article about Italian movie-making. More than a half-century later, Lollobrigida still turned heads with her brown, curly hair and statuesque figure, and preferred to be called an actress instead of the gender-neutral term actor.
Read More: Evel Knievel’s Son Robbie Dies At Age 60 After Pancreatic Cancer Battle
“Lollo,” as she was lovingly nicknamed by Italians, began making...
The agent, Paola Comin, didn’t provide details. Lollobrigida had surgery in September to repair a thigh bone broken in a fall. She returned home and said she had quickly resumed walking.
A drawn portrait of the diva graced a 1954 cover of Time magazine, which likened her to a “goddess” in an article about Italian movie-making. More than a half-century later, Lollobrigida still turned heads with her brown, curly hair and statuesque figure, and preferred to be called an actress instead of the gender-neutral term actor.
Read More: Evel Knievel’s Son Robbie Dies At Age 60 After Pancreatic Cancer Battle
“Lollo,” as she was lovingly nicknamed by Italians, began making...
- 1/16/2023
- by Brent Furdyk
- ET Canada
With her large, limpid brown eyes, statuesque figure, and seductively deep voice, she was one of the world’s best-known actresses and sex symbols in the 1950s and 1960s, especially in evergreen classics like “Come September” – but Gina Lollobrigida, who passed away at 95 on Monday, made waves beyond her onscreen prowess in other fields too, and figured in the headlines long after she walked off-stage.
And she had an Indian connection too.
Termed the “Mona Lisa of the 20th Century” and “The Most Beautiful Woman in the World”, Gina Lollobrigida was also more informally called “La Lollo” – a nickname also later adopted by Indian actress Karisma Kapoor.
And while the theme of one of her most famous films continues to strike a chord with Indians of the right age and can still be heard at weddings, Gina nearly became part of Bollywood’s first attempt at an international hit.
Tipped...
And she had an Indian connection too.
Termed the “Mona Lisa of the 20th Century” and “The Most Beautiful Woman in the World”, Gina Lollobrigida was also more informally called “La Lollo” – a nickname also later adopted by Indian actress Karisma Kapoor.
And while the theme of one of her most famous films continues to strike a chord with Indians of the right age and can still be heard at weddings, Gina nearly became part of Bollywood’s first attempt at an international hit.
Tipped...
- 1/16/2023
- by News Bureau
- GlamSham
And she had an Indian connection too.
Termed the "Mona Lisa of the 20th Century" and "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", Gina Lollobrigida was also more informally called "La Lollo" – a nickname also later adopted by Indian actress Karisma Kapoor.
And while the theme of one of her most famous films continues to strike a chord with Indians of the right age and can still be heard at weddings, Gina nearly became part of Bollywood’s first attempt at an international hit.
Tipped for the role of an aristocratic, acrobatic thief in Krishna Shah’s "Shalimar" (1977), she walked out, after being royally upstaged by a younger and more daring Zeenat Aman at the "muhurat" in Bombay’s Turf Club.. Replaced by American actress Sylvia Miles, she missed being part of a colossal financial and critical flop.
But there were other, better films she can be seen in. Gina...
Termed the "Mona Lisa of the 20th Century" and "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", Gina Lollobrigida was also more informally called "La Lollo" – a nickname also later adopted by Indian actress Karisma Kapoor.
And while the theme of one of her most famous films continues to strike a chord with Indians of the right age and can still be heard at weddings, Gina nearly became part of Bollywood’s first attempt at an international hit.
Tipped for the role of an aristocratic, acrobatic thief in Krishna Shah’s "Shalimar" (1977), she walked out, after being royally upstaged by a younger and more daring Zeenat Aman at the "muhurat" in Bombay’s Turf Club.. Replaced by American actress Sylvia Miles, she missed being part of a colossal financial and critical flop.
But there were other, better films she can be seen in. Gina...
- 1/16/2023
- by News Bureau
- GlamSham
Los Angeles, Jan 16 (Ians) Gina Lollobrigida, the 1950s Italian bombshell who starred in films including ‘Fanfan la Tulipe’, ‘Beat the Devil’, ‘Trapeze’ and ‘Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell’, has died. She was 95.
A generation of Indians will remember Lollobrigida from her sensational appearance at the 1978 International Film Festival of India (Iffi), where her flirty exchanges with Kabir Bedi were grist for the gossip magazine mill as well as politically incorrect comparisons between her physical attributes and those of Zeenat Aman.
Kabir Bedi, in his autobiography ‘Stories I Must Tell’, recalls a famous face-off Praveen Babi had with Lollobrigida at a party the Italian actress hosted in his honour for playing Sandokan in the famous Italian television series. The temperamental Indian actress was upset with Lollobrigida because she was apparently getting too comfortable with Bedi.
Lollobrigida also provided fodder for film magazines when it was rumoured that she was being cast by...
A generation of Indians will remember Lollobrigida from her sensational appearance at the 1978 International Film Festival of India (Iffi), where her flirty exchanges with Kabir Bedi were grist for the gossip magazine mill as well as politically incorrect comparisons between her physical attributes and those of Zeenat Aman.
Kabir Bedi, in his autobiography ‘Stories I Must Tell’, recalls a famous face-off Praveen Babi had with Lollobrigida at a party the Italian actress hosted in his honour for playing Sandokan in the famous Italian television series. The temperamental Indian actress was upset with Lollobrigida because she was apparently getting too comfortable with Bedi.
Lollobrigida also provided fodder for film magazines when it was rumoured that she was being cast by...
- 1/16/2023
- by News Bureau
- GlamSham
Gina Lollobrigida, the 1950s Italian bombshell who starred in films including ‘Fanfan la Tulipe’, ‘Beat the Devil’, ‘Trapeze’ and ‘Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell’, has died. She was 95. A generation of Indians will remember Lollobrigida from her sensational appearance at the 1978 International Film Festival of India (Iffi), where her flirty exchanges with Kabir Bedi were grist for the gossip magazine mill as well as politically incorrect comparisons between her physical attributes and those of Zeenat Aman.
Kabir Bedi, in his autobiography ‘Stories I Must Tell’, recalls a famous face-off Praveen Babi had with Lollobrigida at a party the Italian actress hosted in his honour for playing Sandokan in the famous Italian television series. The temperamental Indian actress was upset with Lollobrigida because she was apparently getting too comfortable with Bedi.
Lollobrigida also provided fodder for film magazines when it was rumoured that she was being cast by Krishna Shah in his Indo-American movie,...
Kabir Bedi, in his autobiography ‘Stories I Must Tell’, recalls a famous face-off Praveen Babi had with Lollobrigida at a party the Italian actress hosted in his honour for playing Sandokan in the famous Italian television series. The temperamental Indian actress was upset with Lollobrigida because she was apparently getting too comfortable with Bedi.
Lollobrigida also provided fodder for film magazines when it was rumoured that she was being cast by Krishna Shah in his Indo-American movie,...
- 1/16/2023
- by News Bureau
- GlamSham
Tributes are pouring in for Gina Lollobrigida, one of Europe’s biggest movie stars, who died on Monday at the age of 95.
A global sex symbol during the 1950s and ’60s, Lollobrigida worked with Hollywood heavyweights such as Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Errol Flynn and Rock Hudson.
Sophia Loren was one of the first people to pay tribute to “La Lollo,” as the Italians called her. Loren said in a statement she “is deeply shaken and saddened” by the news of Lollobrigida’s death.
The two divas had parallel careers in Italy and Hollywood and were often considered rivals.
Italy’s Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano tweeted: “Adieu to a diva of the big screen, protagonist of half a century of Italian cinema. Your charm will remain eternal. Ciao Lollo.”
“Ciao Gina. With You the last diva has left us,” Tweeted actor director Giulio Base, whose wife, Filming Italy festival chief Tiziana Rocca,...
A global sex symbol during the 1950s and ’60s, Lollobrigida worked with Hollywood heavyweights such as Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Errol Flynn and Rock Hudson.
Sophia Loren was one of the first people to pay tribute to “La Lollo,” as the Italians called her. Loren said in a statement she “is deeply shaken and saddened” by the news of Lollobrigida’s death.
The two divas had parallel careers in Italy and Hollywood and were often considered rivals.
Italy’s Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano tweeted: “Adieu to a diva of the big screen, protagonist of half a century of Italian cinema. Your charm will remain eternal. Ciao Lollo.”
“Ciao Gina. With You the last diva has left us,” Tweeted actor director Giulio Base, whose wife, Filming Italy festival chief Tiziana Rocca,...
- 1/16/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida, who was one of the world’s most famous actresses enjoying success in Europe and Hollywood in her 1950s and ’60s heyday, has died in Rome at the age of 95.
Related Story Sophia Loren Remembers Longtime Rival Gina Lollobrigida Related Story Chris Ledesma Dies: 'The Simpsons' Longtime Music Editor Was 64 Related Story Jeremiah Green Dies: Modest Mouse Cofounder And Drummer Was 45
Tributes poured in for the actress from across Italy and the world.
“In the immediate period after the war and throughout the 1950s there was one face that represented Italian beauty in the eyes of the world and it was that of Gina Lollobrigida,” wrote the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera in a tribute article.
Related: Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2023: Photo Gallery & Obituaries
“More than (Sophia) Loren, but also more than (Lucia) Bosè, (Gianna Maria) Canale, (Silvana) Mangano or (Silvana) Pampanini,” continued the article,...
Related Story Sophia Loren Remembers Longtime Rival Gina Lollobrigida Related Story Chris Ledesma Dies: 'The Simpsons' Longtime Music Editor Was 64 Related Story Jeremiah Green Dies: Modest Mouse Cofounder And Drummer Was 45
Tributes poured in for the actress from across Italy and the world.
“In the immediate period after the war and throughout the 1950s there was one face that represented Italian beauty in the eyes of the world and it was that of Gina Lollobrigida,” wrote the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera in a tribute article.
Related: Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2023: Photo Gallery & Obituaries
“More than (Sophia) Loren, but also more than (Lucia) Bosè, (Gianna Maria) Canale, (Silvana) Mangano or (Silvana) Pampanini,” continued the article,...
- 1/16/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Gina Lollobrigida, the 1950s Italian bombshell who starred in films including “Fanfan la Tulipe,” “Beat the Devil,” “Trapeze” and “Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell,” has died. She was 95.
According to Italian news agency Lapresse, Lollobrigida died in a clinic in Rome. No cause of death has been cited. In September she had had surgery to repair a thigh bone broken in a fall, but she recovered and competed for a Senate seat in Italy’s elections held last year in September, though she did not win.
After resisting Howard Hughes’ offer to make movies in Hollywood in 1950, Lollobrigida starred with Gerard Philipe in the 1952 French swashbuckler “Fanfan la Tulipe,” a fest winner and popular favorite.
Her first American movie, shot in Italy, was John Huston’s 1953 film noir spoof “Beat the Devil,” in which she starred with Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones. The same year she starred with Vittorio De Sica in Luigi Comencini’s “Bread,...
According to Italian news agency Lapresse, Lollobrigida died in a clinic in Rome. No cause of death has been cited. In September she had had surgery to repair a thigh bone broken in a fall, but she recovered and competed for a Senate seat in Italy’s elections held last year in September, though she did not win.
After resisting Howard Hughes’ offer to make movies in Hollywood in 1950, Lollobrigida starred with Gerard Philipe in the 1952 French swashbuckler “Fanfan la Tulipe,” a fest winner and popular favorite.
Her first American movie, shot in Italy, was John Huston’s 1953 film noir spoof “Beat the Devil,” in which she starred with Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones. The same year she starred with Vittorio De Sica in Luigi Comencini’s “Bread,...
- 1/16/2023
- by Carmel Dagan and Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
By 1948, Howard Hawks had made just about every type of film over his then 22-year career when he decided to take on the most American of movie genres: the Western. Though he'd made plenty of films about rough and/or ruthless men, the closest he'd come to making a true oater was with 1934's "Barbary Coast," which plays like more of a period crime film set in mid-1850s San Francisco. "Red River," written by Borden Chase and Charles Schnee (based on Chase's serialized novel "The Chisholm Trail"), would be the real deal.
And it almost fell apart before Hawks shot a frame of film.
While the story about Tom Dunson, a determined rancher who turns into a horse-riding Captain Ahab during a harrowing cattle drive from Texas to Missouri, was crammed with action and intrigue, it proved tonally problematic for Hawks' star. Gary Cooper had made several films with...
And it almost fell apart before Hawks shot a frame of film.
While the story about Tom Dunson, a determined rancher who turns into a horse-riding Captain Ahab during a harrowing cattle drive from Texas to Missouri, was crammed with action and intrigue, it proved tonally problematic for Hawks' star. Gary Cooper had made several films with...
- 1/3/2023
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Christmas and Emma Thompson seem to go together. The celebrated two-time Oscar-winning actress costarred not only in 2019’s Last Christmas, but in what become a certified holiday classic, 2003’s Love Actually, a yuletide-set romantic comedy that has become so beloved, returning year after year, that ABC News recently devoted an entire Diane Sawyer hour to examining it.
On top of that, Thompson takes on the choice role of Agatha Trunchbull in the new film version of the Tony Award-winning musical, Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical, which is in theaters internationally and starts streaming on Netflix — when else? — Christmas Day.
Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal at NYC screeing of Good Luck To You, Leo Grande
This season has also brought good news on another front to Thompson. She has been nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical at the Golden Globes, and at the AARP Movies For Grownups Awards...
On top of that, Thompson takes on the choice role of Agatha Trunchbull in the new film version of the Tony Award-winning musical, Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical, which is in theaters internationally and starts streaming on Netflix — when else? — Christmas Day.
Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal at NYC screeing of Good Luck To You, Leo Grande
This season has also brought good news on another front to Thompson. She has been nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical at the Golden Globes, and at the AARP Movies For Grownups Awards...
- 12/23/2022
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
Backstage at the Valentino Haute Couture Spring 2020 collection with Hannelore Knuts and creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli Photo: Archivio Fotografico Paolo Di Paolo
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luchino Visconti, Anna Magnani, Michelangelo Antonioni, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Charlotte Rampling, Grace Kelly, Marcello Mastroianni, Rudolf Nureyev, Sophia Loren, Ezra Pound, Faye Dunaway, Monica Vitti, Giorgio de Chirico, Gina Lollobrigida, Tennessee Williams, Marlene Dietrich, Giulietta Masina, Simone Signoret, Yves Montand, Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Anita Ekberg, Vittorio De Sica, Alberto Moravia, and many others were photographed by Bruce Weber’s muse and subject of his latest documentary The Treasure Of His Youth: The Photographs Of Paolo Di Paolo, which starts with an overture of images and film clips. After putting his camera away for decades we see di Paolo return to shoot Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Valentino Haute Couture Spring 2020 collection.
Paolo di Paolo with Silvia di Paolo and Anne-Katrin Titze on Tennessee Williams: “I...
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luchino Visconti, Anna Magnani, Michelangelo Antonioni, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Charlotte Rampling, Grace Kelly, Marcello Mastroianni, Rudolf Nureyev, Sophia Loren, Ezra Pound, Faye Dunaway, Monica Vitti, Giorgio de Chirico, Gina Lollobrigida, Tennessee Williams, Marlene Dietrich, Giulietta Masina, Simone Signoret, Yves Montand, Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Anita Ekberg, Vittorio De Sica, Alberto Moravia, and many others were photographed by Bruce Weber’s muse and subject of his latest documentary The Treasure Of His Youth: The Photographs Of Paolo Di Paolo, which starts with an overture of images and film clips. After putting his camera away for decades we see di Paolo return to shoot Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Valentino Haute Couture Spring 2020 collection.
Paolo di Paolo with Silvia di Paolo and Anne-Katrin Titze on Tennessee Williams: “I...
- 12/7/2022
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
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