Bobby Moresco to Direct ‘Ferrari vs Mercedes,’ Latest Italian Auto Racing Movie Produced by Andrea Iervolino (EXCLUSIVE)

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent French multi-hyphenate Lou Doillon, who is Jane Birkin’s daughter, is set to star in Italian comedy “Quasi a casa” directed by Carolina Pavone, a former assistant director on several Nanni Moretti films. Shooting is underway in Rome on the sophisticated comedy, in which Doillon — a model, actor and singer-songwriter, like her half-sister Charlotte Gainsbourg — plays an eclectic, successful singer who strikes up a turbulent friendship with a younger female musician who idolizes her.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian multi-hyphenate Ilaria Borrelli’s Arabic-language feminist drama “The Goat” – featuring Mira Sorvino and John Savage, alongside a stellar Egyptian cast – is set for back-to-back launches at Egypt’s upcoming El Gouna Film Festival, followed by the closing film slot at the Rome Film Festival. A rare, if not unique, case of an Arab production directed by an Italian, “The Goat” stars young Egyptian TikTok star Jessica Hosam as an 11-year-old pregnant orphan named Hadya who after being forced into marriage becomes the target of a western corporation that seeks to control the only water source in her village.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s Fandango Sales has taken international distribution rights to quirky comedy “Volare” about the fear of flying that marks the directorial debut of actor Margherita Buy. Buy is known internationally for frequent roles in Nanni Moretti movies, most recently in “A Brighter Tomorrow” that launched from Cannes. Her smart concept movie is being lead-produced by Simone Gattoni for Kavac Film, the company founded by veteran auteur Marco Bellocchio.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s Indiana Production – which has just become part of pan-European studio Vuelta Group – is staying true to its roots with production kicking off this month on gender swap movie “Romeo is Juliet,” directed by quality comedy specialist Giovanni Veronesi, just as the company expands its horizons. This latest title in Indiana’s slate stars A-lister Sergio Castellitto and Pilar Fogliati (“Romantiche”) who plays an actress named Vittoria who after being brutally rejected by a cynical stage director when she auditions to play Juliet in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” decides to reinvent herself as a man to audition for Romeo and gets the part.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Netflix on Tuesday unveiled four new Italian originals – two feature films and two series – that confirm its continued investment in Italy as local subscribers grow. The new projects also bolster the fact that the bulk of the streamer’s Italian productions are not high end and have a primarily local focus.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian producer and director Ginevra Elkann, whose delicate first feature “If Only” opened the 2019 Locarno fest garnering critical praise, is at the Toronto Film Festival with her tonally different follow-up, “I Told You So.” The movie features a group made up mostly of women who are having a mental meltdown amid an unprecedented January heat wave in Rome. As the heat rises, so do the characters’ obsessions with sex, food, drugs, alcohol, and religion. The eclectic ensemble film, which was conceived by Elkann and her co-writers during the pandemic, features a star studded cast comprising Danny Huston – speaking perfect Italian on screen – as a heroin-addicted Italian-American priest.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Emmy-nominated “The White Lotus” star Sabrina Impacciatore will play the Venice Film Festival’s master of ceremonies in the upcoming second season of the Italian version of “Call My Agent,” which will also feature a cameo by Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera. Impacciatore, wearing a red gown, disembarked from a water taxi at the Excelsior Hotel pier on the Venice Lido on Saturday welcomed by Barbera, as cameras rolled for a key scene in the show.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Luca Guadagnino, whose Zendaya-starrer “Challengers” was pulled as Venice Film Festival opener due to complications from the SAG-AFTRA strike, is on the Lido wearing his producer hat on several films. One, especially close to his heart, is animation short “The Meatseller” by debuting director Margherita Giusti.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian genre specialist Stefano Sollima – who is known in Hollywood for “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” “Without Remorse” and the TV series “Gomorrah” – is in the Venice competition for the first time with Rome-set crime drama “Adagio.” This beautifully shot picture 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”). It’s the tale of three old – and once mighty – mobsters searching for redemption in a cutthroat contemporary Rome that is literally burning. They find it in the form of a 16 year old named Manuel who is being blackmailed after venturing too deep in a rotting Roman underworld world that he doesn’t understand.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Giuliano Montaldo, the prolific Italian director, actor and film industry executive, whose works comprise powerful political drama “Sacco and Vanzetti” about the Massachusetts trial and execution in 1927 of accused Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, has died at his home in Rome. He was 93.

Isabel Coixet’s English-language adaptation of Italian author Elena Ferrante’s “The Days of Abandonment.” The deal to make the film, which is now in development, was signed before the SAG-AFTRA strike. While Cruz did not attend the Venice Film Festival, she elicited raves from critics on the Lido for her performance in Michael Mann’s “Ferrari” as the angry, lonely, grief-ravaged Laura Ferrari, emotionally estranged from her husband Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver).

Ferrari has defended the casting of Adam Driver against claims of cultural appropriation.Andrea Iervolino, an Italian-Canadian film producer on the Enzo Ferrari biopic, rebuked claims made against Driver’s casting by actor Pierfrancesco Favino, who questioned why Italian actors were not cast more often in Hollywood films.In response, Iervolino said Italy had failed in comparison to other countries in producing Hollywood stars with worldwide visibility, citing examples like Javier Bardem and Antonio Banderas from Spain, and Marion Cotillard and Vincent Cassel from France.Speaking at the festival (via the Telegraph), Ierovlino said: “Italian cinema needs to look beyond Italy and come up with synergies with the international film industry, which wants to invest in Italian icons. Films like Ferrari, which will be distributed in 150 countries, promote Italy and Italian genius.”The producer called on the Italian film industry to “make films based on stories that speak to the whole world, with international stars who work side by side with our own talent”.In his original comments, Favino, who stars in a movie called Comandante which opened this year’s festival, asked why actors on the level of Toni Servillo (The Great Beauty) were not cast more often in Hollywood productions.“There’s an issue of cultural appropriation,” Favino said.“Instead, the parts are given to foreign actors who are distant from the story’s real protagonists, starting with the exotic accents,” he added.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Roman Polanski’s Italian producer Luca Barbareschi got emotional at the press conference for “The Palace,” a black comedy that is the director’s new work and premieres at the Venice Film Festival today. “It’s been very difficult to make this film,” said Barbareschi, a multi-hyphenate who also stars in “The Palace.” “Polanski is not easy [to finance]” he added, noting that “there is a hole – France – in the middle of this film,” since French companies refused to participate in its production. Polanski’s previous film, “An Officer and a Spy,” a period drama about the Dreyfus affair, scooped the Grand Jury Prize at Venice, won best director at the Cesar Awards and was one of the highest grossing French films of 2019.

Adam Driver is the star of the upcoming Ferrari movie, but yet, wasn’t able to do something you’d think he could – drive an actual Ferrari.

Michael Mann’s Ferrari received a 7 1/2-minute standing ovation Thursday night after the lights went up on the film’s world premiere screening at the Venice Film Festival.

Venice Film Festival, Adam Driver and Michael Mann officially kicked off awards season with the world premiere of their racing drama “Ferrari,” which debuted in competition. The packed house at the Sala Grande Theatre showered Drive and Mann with a six-minute-standing ovation. Driver fought back tears at the tragic conclusion of the film.

Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz have debuted their new movie at the Venice Film Festival. “Ferrari” stars Driver as Enzo Ferrari, with the film trailing his life over the years, including his marriage to Laura Ferrari (played by Cruz) and his relationship with his mistress, Lina Lardi (played by Shailene Woodley).Salma Hayek reminisces about the moment her look became a representation of 90s fashionJavier Bardem had the best reaction to Penélope Cruz’s Met Gala look: ‘He lost it’The film is set in 1957, and was shot in Brescia, Italy. The story takes place right before a Ferrari race went awry and resulted in the death of nine people.

Michael Mann would seem a perfect fit for a biopic of Italian motorsports legend Enzo Ferrari, himself being a master technician and a director working at the high end of his commercial craft. The result, though, is a strangely tame beast, an introspective look at an in-between moment in its subject’s life, when his business hit the rocks, his marriage all but imploded and a series of fatal accidents kept his name in the papers for all the wrong reasons.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In Michael Mann’s heady, intricately dark, raptly absorbing “Ferrari,” there’s a quiet scene that takes place the night before the Mille Miglia, the spectacular 1,500-kilometer motorsport endurance race. Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver), the Italian sports-car magnate who needs to win the race (the survival of the company that bears his name depends on it), has five drivers who are scheduled to compete. In a kind of calm-before-the-storm ritual, several of them write notes to their romantic partners, telling them how much they love them, just in case they don’t survive the race.

Watching Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” one may wonder whether it’s even possible to make a film about an Italian figure and have it not be at least 80% about style. An admittedly rather inane thought, but one made a little more legitimate by the central presence of Adam Driver as the titular Enzo Ferrari.