How SAG-AFTRA Strike Could Help the Cause of Italy’s Embattled Actors and Dubbing Industry Workers

Jamie Lee Curtis is expressing her full support for the SAG-AFTRA strike after she was criticized for comments she made earlier in the week.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Rome’s Cinecittà Studios are in the midst of a radical overhaul that started in June 2021, when the government-owned facilities, headed by Nicola Maccanico — who is a former Warner Bros. and Sky Italia senior exec — secured a multi-million dollar loan provided by the European Union’s post-pandemic recovery fund to upgrade and expand the studios. Productions that recently set up camp on its iconic backlot, lured in part by Italy’s generous 40% cash-back tax credit, include Roland Emmerich’s gladiator series “Those About to Die,” which is currently shooting, and Luca Guadagnino’s recently wrapped William Burroughs adaptation “Queer” starring Daniel Craig.

As the SAG-AFTRA strike enters its second month with no end in sight, joining the WGA strike that began in May, some of Hollywood’s biggest stars have been taking to picket lines to support the unions.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Nicole Morganti, Amazon Studios head of Italian originals, is being promoted by the streamer to the newly expanded role of head of local originals for Southern Europe encompassing Italy, France and Spain. Morganti, who has over 20 years of experience in the Italian entertainment industry, joined Amazon Studios as head of unscripted originals for Italy in February 2019 from her previously held position of Discovery Italy’s VP of talent and productions.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Franco-Tunisian film and TV entrepreneur Tarak Ben Ammar is expanding the scope of his Italian operations by buying local unscripted production outfit Blu Yazmine, while also entering talks to build a large studio complex in Rome. Though Ben Ammar’s ambition to build sprawling new filming facilities in the Italian capital are in advanced talks but not fully concrete, the purchase of a majority stake in Blu Yazmine via his Rome-based Eagle Pictures has been closed.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent An underhanded move by members of Italy’s right-wing government to try and take over the management of Rome’s Centro Sperimentale Film School is prompting an uproar by its students and a strong show of support from the country’s top directors. Earlier this week, students of the Centro Sperimentale — which is the oldest film school in the world, and among the finest — staged a demonstration in front of the country’s parliament just as a piece of legislation that would change the school’s management was swiftly being approved by a parliamentary committee.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent French director Élise Girard’s “Sidonie in Japan” starring Isabelle Huppert as a French writer mourning her husband’s death while on a book tour of Japan, is among titles set to launch from the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Giornate Degli Autori. The section, also known as Venice Days, has unveiled its lineup comprising ten titles world premiering in competition – six of which first works – and films in other sections all displaying a wide range of genres and visual styles, but tied together by “A common discourse,” said the section’s artistic director Gaia Furrer.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Prince Royal, an actor in Los Angeles, was working as an extra on “The Flash” when he was directed to a tractor trailer to “take pictures.” Inside were hundreds of cameras. He stood with his arms up as the operators took a 3-D scan, which he was told would be used for continuity and special effects. “We were told if we didn’t do it, we’d be sent home without pay,” he said.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The 80th Venice Film Festival is announcing its lineup on Tuesday from the Italian city, where artistic director Alberto Barbera and La Biennale president Roberto Cicutto are holding a press conference. The Lido’s only previously announced titles in the main selection are the opener, Italian director Edoardo De Angelis’ “Comandante” — a lavish anti-war epic featuring local star Pierfrancesco Favino as a heroic Sicilian World War II naval officer — and the closer, Netflix’s survival thriller “Society of the Snow” by Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona. “Comandante” replaced Luca Guadagnino’s sexy sports comedy “Challengers,” starring Zendaya, which had previously been set as the fest’s buzzy opener but was pulled due to promotional complications prompted by the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Spanish director J.A. Bayona’s “Society of the Snow,” a reconstruction of a 1972 plane crash in the Andes that forced survivors to take extreme measures, including cannibalism, has been set as the Venice Film Festival’s closing film. The deeply immersive Spanish-language saga is a Netflix original film shot in Andalusia’s Sierra Nevada, mainland Spain’s highest mountain range, using a 300-person crew. “Society of the Snow” will world premiere on the Lido out-of-competition on Sept. 9th. Its official screening will be held in the Palazzo del Cinema after the awards ceremony. In 1972 Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which had been chartered to bring Montevideo’s Old Christians Rugby Club team to Chile, crashed at an altitude of 11,712 feet in the Andes.  Of its 45 passengers – which consisted mostly of the rugby team, friends and family – 29 survived. Without food, the survivors, who belonged to Uruguay’s elite, were forced to eat the flesh of the deceased to stay alive. 19 survived an avalanche. 72 days after the crash, 16 finally made it out alive. 

EXCLUSIVE: For those awards strategists wondering whether stars from indie U.S. films can promote at the fall film festival troika, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland says “We’re looking at that issue.”

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Tony Vinciquerra, chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures, took a guarded tone in talking about the SAG-AFTRA strike during an industry panel in Italy on Friday. But it was clear that he hopes it will be over soon. “We are very dismayed about having these strikes” said Vinciquerra, referring to the combined WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that mark the second time in Hollywood history that actors have joined writers on the picket lines. “We want to make a deal,” the Sony chief went on, adding: “Even though there have been a lot of headlines saying the opposite.”

“Thanks to the SAG strike, I’m the most famous person here,” joked Kevin Smith at a San Diego Comic-Con panel for Netflix/Mattel’s Masters of the Universe: Revolution.

On the edge of what is bound to be the domestic box office’s third $200M+ weekend thanks to Barbie and Oppenheimer, the motion picture industry’s fret is whether the great post-pandemic moviegoing rebound is about to screech to a halt due to the SAG-AFTRA strike and actors prohibited from promoting.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Placebo singer-guitarist Brian Molko is ruffling political feathers in Italy after lashing out against the country’s right-wing Prime Minster Giorgia Meloni, calling her a “fascist” and a “racist” during a packed concert near Turin. Prosecutors in Turin have now opened an investigation against the U.S.-born frontman of the British alt-rock band following his performance last week in front of 10,000 fans at the Sonic Park festival in Stupinigi outside Turin, according to multiple press reports. Molko’s insults at Italy’s prime minister from the stage also included calling Meloni a “piece of shit.” Meloni leads the Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-fascist roots and heads Italy’s most right-wing coalition government since World War II. She scored victory last September while running on anti-immigration policies, as well as plans to limit LGBTQ rights. 

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Venice Film Festival will pay tribute to late Italian icon Gina Lollobrigida, who died in January, with a pre-opening event featuring a double bill of freshly restored works in which she stars. The Lido’s annual pre-opening event on Aug. 29 will feature a 27-minute short by Orson Welles titled “Portrait of Gina.” In 1968, Welles interviewed Lollobrigida in her villa on the Appian Way as the pilot for an ABC TV series — a U.S. version of “Around the World With Orson Welles”– that ABC rejected. Welles’ portrait of the diva remained in the vaults until 1986, when it was screened at the Venice Film Festival one year after Orson Welles’ death. This piece has been defined by Welles as a “personal essay” on Lollobrigida. Interestingly, when Lollobrigida saw “Portrait of Gina” in Venice in 1986, she reportedly tried to have it banned. The short’s restoration was done by the Munich Film Museum and Italy’s Cinecittà.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA and the major studios remain at odds on a dizzying array of issues, as film and TV actors hit the picket lines Friday for the first time since 1980. According to sources on both sides, the biggest sticking point is the union’s demand for 2% of the revenue generated by streaming shows. The two sides also remain far apart on basic increases in minimum rates, with the studios offering 5%, 4% and 3.5% across the three years of the contract, while the union is demanding 11%, 4% and 4%. But that only scratches the surface. The parties are at odds on dozens of issues, only a handful of which have been publicly reported.

George Clooney is speaking out about the SAG-AFTRA strike.One day after the actors' union officially ratified their strike, with performers walking off sets and out of promotional events for their upcoming projects, Clooney issued a statement to ET, calling the strike a major turning point in the history of Hollywood.«This is an inflection point in our industry,» the actor and director said in his statement. «Actors and writers in large numbers have lost their ability to make a living.

Production has paused on Deadpool 3 following SAG-AFTRA’s decision to move forward with strike action last night.

#Oppenheimer left the premiere to ‘go and write their pickets’ and join the strike pic.twitter.com/rc2SaSxcfkSAG-AFTRA formally announced its first film and television strike since 1980 at a press conference at its Los Angeles headquarters on Thursday.“From the time negotiations began on June 7, SAG-AFTRA staff and the members of our negotiating committee have worked overtime devoting their evenings, weekends and holidays to achieving a deal that would ensure a sustainable future for the acting profession,” chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said.