Abel Ferrara on How Shia LaBeouf Connected With His Role As a Saint in ‘Padre Pio’ – Trailer (EXCLUSIVE)

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Prime Video has inked an overall creative deal with Italian writer-director Antonio Dikele Distefano, who is the originator of groundbreaking Netflix original series “Zero” that in 2021 marked Italy’s first show centered around the present-day lives of black Italian youth. Dikele, who was born in Italy to Angolan parents, is now making his feature film debut with an Amazon original film titled “Autumn Beat,” a coming-of-age drama about two brothers named Tito and Paco, who grew up in Milan and have the same dream: to break into the rap music world. “The duo seem destined for success—Paco is a born performer and Tito knows how to write like no other—but ambition, life, and love for the same woman will test their bond,” says the provided synopsis.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent With “Chiara,” Susanna Nicchiarelli’s portrait of Saint Clare of Assisi – the 13th century saint born into a wealthy family who at age 18 became a nun after hearing St. Francis preach – the Italian director completes her trilogy of female biopics, segueing from “Nico, 1988” and “Miss Marx,” which both launched from Venice’s Horizons section. With “Chiara,” she makes the leap into the main Venice competition. Nicchiarelli spoke to Variety about what drew her to portraying this prototypical feminist and directing “My Brilliant Friend” star Margherita Mazzucco in the pic’s titular role. Excerpts. What drove you to want to tell us this story about St. Clare?Well, first of all, I was always passionate about Saint Francis. I have a very strong memory when I first saw Franco Zeffirelli’s “Brother Sun, Sister Moon.” I was at school when they showed it to us and this boy, this man, taking his clothes off in front of the Bishop. That was a very strong image. Francis’ battle speaks to us just as much today because it’s a battle for poverty, against social injustice. It’s about being on the side of the poor, of those who are different, and the injustices of a society in which very few have everything and then most have nothing. So, this was their battle. The medieval society was like that. It’s not so different from the way it is now.

Shia LaBeouf is ready to end his he said, she said battle with Olivia Wilde. The stars have been publicly at odds over the narrative surrounding LaBeouf's exit from the Wilde-directed. LaBeouf was originally cast opposite Florence Pugh in a role that eventually went to Harry Styles and, while conducting interviews to promote the project, Wilde has said that LaBeouf was fired.

Shia LaBeouf's mother has died at the age of 80. The 36-year-old actor has confirmed that his mom, Shayna Saide, died of heart failure at a Los Angeles hospital on August 27. Shia told The Hollywood Reporter: "My mother was full of fear in her last moments: asking the doctor what this tube was and what that machine did.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “I see a lot of rich people here!” said Jodie Turner-Smith as she took to the stage to open the Venice Film Festival AmfAR gala and auction held Wednesday evening in the Arsenale, a former shipyard complex on the edge of the city’s Grand Canal. Urging guests to be generous, Turner-Smith, who looked stunning in a yellow corset top, reminded everyone that, “It’s easy to forget that AIDS still remains one of the world’s most serious health threats.”  Though undoubtedly lower key than the event held at Cannes, AmfAR Venice had its fair share of glamour and star power with Heather Graham, Patricia Clarckson, Marisa Tomei and Rachel Brosnahan among chairs. 

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian director Stefano Sollima, who is known in Hollywood for “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” “Without Remorse” and TV show “Gomorrah,” is back behind camera on a contemporary Rome-set crimer titled “Adagio.” Shooting started Sept. 5 on “Adagio” which features an ensemble cast of Italian A-listers comprising Pierfrancesco Favino (“Nostalgia”), Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”), Valerio Mastandrea (“Perfect Strangers”) and Adriano Giannini (“The Ties”). “I am eager and full of enthusiasm about finally returning to depict my city after all these years. Rome has changed, and so have I,” Sollima said in a statement for Variety. He went on to describe “Adagio” as a dark story of revenge and redemption, which will be the last chapter of my Roman criminal trilogy.”

Honey Boy, The Peanut Butter Falcon, and Pieces of a Woman until various allegations put him at the lowest point of his career. With all of the trouble that has followed the former Disney Channel star’s reputation in recent years, he’s been trying to earn forgiveness. He was almost ready to throw in the towel until he was approached about a new film opportunity that would get him out of his acting exile called Padre Pio.

[VENICE] It’s Saturday afternoon at the Tennis Club on the Lido, and American director Abel Ferrara chats on camera to an Italian television host before some of his customary swearing sets in, courtesy of a few brave souls wanting a photo with him next to the courts. He’s hungry.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Prominent arthouse sales company The Match Factory has closed multiple sales on Italian auteur Gianni Amelio’s Venice competition title “Lord of the Ants” ahead of its Venice premiere on Tuesday. The Match Factory has sealed deals on Amelio’s latest work – which is a biopic of Italian poet, playwright and director Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968 due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law – that will ensure the film’s theatrical release in: Australia/New Zealand (Palace Films); Japan (Zazie Films); Spain (Surtsey Films); Sweden (TriArt Film) and Greece (Ama Films). Further deals are in negotiation, the company said. Braibanti was convicted after a complaint from his partner’s father, who later forced his son to be treated with electroconvulsive therapy in an ill-conceived attempt to rid him of his homosexuality. The Fascist-era law that punished Braibanti, which made it a crime to lead innocent or unwary people “morally” astray, was repealed in 1981.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Last year Andrea Scrosati – who is group COO and continental Europe CEO of Fremantle – was at Venice with two films. This year Fremantle’s got six pics launching from the Lido, three of them in competition, which is a larger contingent than any of the U.S. studios or streamers.  Fremantle’s business model, which involves a cluster of companies mostly across Europe that they either fully own or are majority investors in, has been bearing fruit on their film side. Their output has grown “from 8 to 32 delivered movies in two years,” Scrosati says.  And the multi-pronged company’s Venice lineup – which includes Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All,” Emanuele Crialese’s “L’Immensità,” and Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter” – is a reflection of that.

Naman Ramachandran Shia LaBeouf was in a reverential frame of mind at the first public screening of Abel Ferrara’s “Padre Pio” at the Venice Film Festival, as befits a film about a monk in a Capuchin monastery in post-WWI Italy. LaBeouf, who is embroiled in controversy after being accused of abuse and sexual battery in a bombshell lawsuit filed by his former partner FKA Twigs, made a rare public appearance at Venice. He isn’t doing any press at the festival, but the actor was present in the cinema before the screening where he obliged fans with selfies and participated in a Q&A after. “I feel super blessed to have worked on this movie — this movie kind of saved my life,” LaBeouf said during the Q&A. “But I didn’t enter the process as a God guy — definitely not a Catholic. And this movie just found me at a time when I was very willing and open to the process.”

Apart from the few but mighty completists of renegade filmmaker Abel Ferrara, the primary draw to watch “Padre Pio” is star Shia LaBeouf making his first on-screen attempt at a comeback after facing domestic abuse allegations. The star credits the film with prompting his conversion to Catholicism and helping to begin the process of repairing his life.

Shia LaBeouf plays the title character in this period piece, and his face dominates the promotional material, but the latest film from the ridiculously prolific Abel Ferrara, now into his 70s, is really more of an ensemble with a supporting cast that’s near-unknown outside Italy.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent British director Joe Wright, who helmed Winston Churchill drama “Darkest Hour” – which earned Gary Oldman an Oscar for his portrayal as the British prime minister – is set to change historical sides and direct TV drama “M,” which chronicles Benito Mussolini’s rise to power. The high-end series, which is based on Antonio Scurati’s Premio Strega-winning and international bestselling novel “M. Son of the Century,” traces the birth of Fascism in Italy and Mussolini’s ascent with an innovative approach that has sparked debate about the Fascist dictator’s legacy in Italy and abroad. “The writer understood and put on paper, with facts and documents and everything, that Mussolini is the guy – him and only him – who created what we now know as populism and Fascism,” said the show’s producer Lorenzo Mieli, speaking in Venice, where he is among producers of Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All.”

Francis Ford Coppola continues to fill out the ensemble for his epic Megalopolis, with Talia Shire (The Godfather), Shia LaBeouf (Honey Boy), Jason Schwartzman (The French Dispatch), Grace Vanderwaal (Stargirl), Kathryn Hunter (The Tragedy of Macbeth) and James Remar (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) being its newest additions.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian director Emanuele Crialese broke out with 2002 Cannes Critics Week winner “Respiro,” followed by “Nuovomondo” and “Terraferma,” which both scooped prizes in Venice. He’s back on the Lido with his ambitious, boldly personal drama “L’immensità.” Set in 1970s Rome, the film features Penélope Cruz as the mother of two children, one of whom is a 12-year-old named Adriana who wants to change her name and gender identity and convince everyone that she is male. In his director’s note, Crialese calls “L’immensità” a memory-based film for which he needed the necessary time, distance and self-awareness to make. Though not strictly autobiographical, it is based on the director’s personal experience transitioning. As Crialese tells Variety, Adriana’s character is a representation of himself.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Production has just started at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios on “Finalmente L’alba” the new film by “My Brilliant Friend” director Saverio Costanzo. It is set during the 1950s when the famed filmmaking facilities were known as Hollywood on the Tiber.  This high-end costume drama – the title of which translates as “Finally, Dawn Has Come” – features a stellar cast comprising Lily James (“Pam & Tommy”), Joe Keery (“Stranger Things”), Rachel Sennott (“Shiva Baby”), Willem Dafoe, and Italian newcomer Rebecca Antonaci. “Finalmente” is the journey over the course of a long and intense night of an aspiring young Italian actress, played by Antonaci. In the Cinecittà studios of the 1950s, she experiences some memorable hours that will mark her transition to full blown womanhood.

Shia LaBeouf says FKA Twigs is a "saint" who saved his life. The pair dated for around a year after meeting on the set of his 2019 film 'Honey Boy' and Twigs has made a number of attacks against Shia, including that he violently attacked her, knowingly infected her with a sexually transmitted disease and shot stray dogs to get into character for a movie. Speaking on Jon Bernthal’s 'Real Ones' podcast, Shia, 36, did not name FKA Twigs, 34, but said: "I hurt that woman.

Shia LaBeouf’s comeback campaign has seemingly begun. His first film in two years—since the allegations actor/artist FKA Twigs (real name Tahliah Debrett Barnett) made against him about mental, physical, and violent abuse—“Padre Pio” directed by Abel Ferrara, is about to premiere at Venice and LaBeouf, who has been mostly quiet ever since the accusations, is finally breaking his silence.

Shia LaBeouf makes his acting comeback at the Venice Film Festival this year in Abel Ferrara’s “Padre Pio.” That makes LaBeouf’s term as persona non grata in the movie industry after his ex-girlfriend Tahliah Barnett (aka FKA Twigs) sued him for sexual battery and assault less than two years.