Pablo Larraín on Depicting Augusto Pinochet as a Vampire in Netflix’s ‘El Conde’ While the Right Explores New Ways to Conquer Power

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Roughly two years after his return to Naples for “The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino is heading back to his hometown for a movie that plays on local mythology. The still untitled film is about a woman named Partenope “who bears the name of her city but is neither siren nor myth,” the Oscar-winning auteur has revealed to Variety. In Greek mythology, Parthenope, as she is known in English, is the name of a siren who having failed to entice Odysseus with her songs, cast herself into the sea and drowned. Her body washed up on a symbolic foundational rock where Naples lies. Neapolitans in Italy are also known as “Parthenopeans.”

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “Prince Aden,” a new drama by Italian directing duo Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio, known internationally for their immigration-themed “Seven Acts of Mercy,” is among projects selected by Locarno’s Alliance for Development initiative. The platform, now in its 8th year, is geared towards fostering co-productions between France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Inspired by the book “Partigiani d’Oltremare,” by Italian historian Matteo Petracci, the De Serio twins’ new colonial-era film follows the vicissitudes of a 16-year-old Somali named Aden Sicré who in 1935 becomes a soldier in the Italian army that invaded Ethiopia on Mussolini’s orders. In an unexpected turn, he becomes hailed as a war hero by the Fascist regime. Then a few years later Aden and other African fighters play a pivotal role in the partisan struggle against fascism in Europe.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Filming ItalySardegna Festival that kicks off Italy’s summer moviegoing season will play a prominent role in the ongoing push to lure Italians back into movie theaters, just as the country’s box office is starting to gain traction.    A robust roster of talents from Hollywood and Italy and a solid lineup of premieres are booked for this event, which combines film and TV and unspools June 22-25 in the Forte Village resort near Cagliari, capital of Sardegna (Sardinia in English). The fest is set to take place just as the Italian government starts to invest €20 million ($22 million) to promote moviegoing through a campaign called Cinema Revolution, under which cinema tickets will be half-price for a limited time. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Roughly a month before Venice Film Festival’s 2023 lineup announcement, the buzz around the competition is heating up with several star-studded films by heavyweight directors in the mix, including Pablo Larrain (“El Conde”), Michael Mann (“Ferrari“), Sofia Coppola (“Priscilla“), Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”) and Michel Franco (“Memory”). These titles are believed to have been officially invited to the Lido in competition, according to inside sources. Larraín’s follow-up to “Jackie,” “El Conde” depicts dictator Augusto Pinochet as a Vampire with a cast led by Chilean star Alfredo Castro.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Tom Cruise made an impassioned speech about cinemagoing from Rome’s Spanish Steps at the world premiere of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.” “There is a community that we are all part of — different cultures and ways of life, we all join together to enjoy cinema,” said Cruise, dressed in a crisp blue suit and wearing aviator shades. “It’s something that I grew up with, that made me and inspired me to dream and want to travel the world. “My goal since I was little was to make movies and travel. And not just be a tourist, but work in that world and understand their culture. Through my movies, I’ve been able to have that because everyone here has allowed me to entertain them. It’s a privilege that I have never taken for granted. It’s my passion to entertain you, and I will always fight for big theaters and that kind of experience for everyone.”

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Sudanese director Mohamed Kordofani’s feature debut “Goodbye Julia,” a timely morality tale that takes place just before the 2011 secession of South Sudan and won the Un Certain Regard section’s Prix de Liberté (Freedom Prize) at Cannes, has scored a raft of sales following its launch. The first Sudanese film ever to screen in Cannes official selection, “Goodbye Julia” is the story of two women — one from the North, the other from the South — who are brought together by fate in a complex relationship that attempts to reconcile differences between northern and southern Sudanese communities in the currently war-ravaged country.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “Prisma,” the groundbreaking Amazon Italian original series centered around identical adolescent teen twins who challenge gender norms in different ways, has been renewed for a second season. The second installment of the show is being financed and distributed under a different business model than the first season with Germany’s Beta Film now coming on board as a co-financier and international distributor outside Italy. Shooting is underway in and around the city of Latina, just south of Rome, on “Prisma” season two with director Ludovico Bessegato back at the helm. Bessegato, who previously gained local prominence as showrunner of “Skam Italia” – the hit Italian adaptation of the Nordic young adult drama – also serves as writer of “Prisma” 2. He is now working with Francesca Scialanca following his collaboration with writer Alice Urciuolo on the first installment that launched last year from the Locarno Film Festival.

In 2017, we put a feature together on the burgeoning Chilean New Wave of cinema: Beyond Pablo Larraín: 6 Chilean Directors You Should Know. They included filmmakers you probably are very familiar with, including Sebastián Lelio and Sebastián Silva.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian actor-turned-director Andrea Di Stefano, whose sleek cop thriller “Last Night of Amore” just had its U.S. premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, is in advanced stages of development on “Karski” a feature about Jan Karski, the World War II Polish resistance fighter who risked his life to blow the whistle on the Holocaust. Di Stefano’s high-profile project, which is titled “Karski,” is being developed by New York City-based production company Phiphen Pictures, the indie founded by Molly Conners most recently behind Netflix’s “Like Father” and “It’s Bruno!,” the director said. Italy’s expanding Indiana Production, which shepherded “Amore,” is also on board.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent British actors Julia Ormond (“Ladies in Black”) and Lydia Page (“Blue Jean”) are set to soon appear in psychological horror movie “Home Education” directed by Italy’s Andrea Niada. Set in the scenic Sila plateau in Italy’s Southern Calabria region, “Home Education” revolves around a family that are followers of an esoteric cult and live in a secluded house deep in the woods. Warner Bros Entertainment Italia, Italy’s Indiana Production and BlackBox Multimedia are producing with support from the Calabria Film Commission. Germany’s SquareOne Productions is handling international sales. Warner Bros. Pictures will release the film in Italian theaters.

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran Actor Alfredo Castro (The Club, No, From Afar) is in the middle of what could be described as a mid-career boom, but he doesn’t think it’ll bring him many plaudits in his native country.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Taormina Film Festival, one of Italy’s oldest movie celebrations, has undergone many makeovers through the years. Held since the mid-1950s in the Sicilian resort that recently got a promotional boost as the location of “The White Lotus” Season Two, this storied summer fest boasts an 8,000-seat open-air ancient Greek amphitheater in the shadow of Sicily’s active Mt. Etna volcano. In 2000, Tom Cruise stood on stage, greeted by hundreds of lit candles and a standing ovation to celebrate his 38th birthday while he was promoting “Mission: Impossible 2.” Ups and downs followed, as several chiefs took the Taormina reins over the the ensuing decades, until more recently the event fell off the international radar.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Roman Polanski’s “The Palace” has been set for release in Italian theatres in September, prompting speculation that the controversial director’s black comedy set in a posh hotel in the Swiss Alps resort of Gstaad on the eve of the new millennium could be launching from the Venice Film Festival. Italy’s RAI Cinema, which is a main backer of Polanski’s new film, has slated a September 28 local release date via its 01 Distribuzione unit for “The Palace” which has an ensemble cast including Mickey Rourke, John Cleese and Fanny Ardant. Other key cast members include German actor Oliver Masucci (“Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore”); Portugal’s Joaquin De Almeida; the U.K.’s Bronwyn James (“The Dig”) and Italy’s Fortunato Cerlino (”Gomorrah”).

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Netflix has announced production of “Rhythm + Flow Italy” following the launches of the hip hop music competition in the U.S. and France. The groundbreaking talent show that follows and nurtures aspiring rappers will be produced in Italy by Fremantle and feature Italian rappers Fabri Fibra, Geolier and Rose Villain in search of local artists that will make their mark on the Italian rap scene.  “Rhythm + Flow Italy” – which stands as testament to how Italy’s hip hop producers and artists have been pushing the boundaries of the genre and made Italy one of Europe’s largest hip hop markets – will be an 8-episode series available on Netflix in 2024.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Oscar-winning director Gabriele Salvatores (“Mediterraneo”) is back behind the camera on “Napoli – New York,” a period immigration drama based on a story written for the screen by Federico Fellini. Fellini co-wrote the tale of two Neapolitan kids who embark on a ship to New York to escape Italy’s early postwar poverty with his frequent collaborator Tullio Pinelli, a writer on the Italian maestro’s “La Dolce Vita” and “8 1/2,” as well as other titles. Italian A-lister Pierfrancesco Favino (“The Traitor,” “Nostalgia”) stars as the chief officer of the ship which the two kids, named Carmine and Celestina, manage to board surreptitiously in the port of Naples, becoming clandestine passengers. The youngsters are on a mission to reach the U.S. where they dream of living with Celestina’s sister, who emigrated to New York two years earlier. Newcomers Dea Lanzaro e Antonio Guerra play the kids. (See first-look image above of Favino with the kids and Salvatores.)

Fabula’s “Superman’s Bodyguards,” “Sisi” head writer Andreas Gutzeit’s thriller “Disgrace” and “Hildur,” from Finland’s Matti Laine, who scored with “The Paradise,” all feature at this year’s   still vastly expanded Conecta Fiction & Entertainment, the Europe-Latin America TV and networking forum, now in its seventh edition. They will be presented to an audience of producers and distributors at the industry centerpiece at Conecta Fiction.   Set up at Juan de Dios and Pablo Larraín’s Fábula, producer of Oscar winning A fantastic Woman” and “Spencer,” “Superman’s Bodyguards” tells the true story of Christopher Reeve’s perilous mission to Chile to attempt to save the lives of 78 Chilean actors under death threat from an extreme right faction in a Chile still ruled by Augusto Pinochet.  

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Eight months after Italy took a sharp turn to the right, the government headed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – whose Brothers of Italy party has neo-fascist roots – is wreaking havoc at state broadcaster RAI, prompting the abrupt exit of several executives and TV personalities and causing alarm within the country’s film and TV sectors. At RAI, where politics have always held sway, managing director Carlo Fuortes resigned earlier this month saying he was unwilling to “agree to changes” in the broadcaster’s content and programming “that I do not consider to be in RAI’s best interests,” he underlined. Fuortes has now been replaced by Roberto Sergio, a veteran RAI executive who is considered basically bi-partisan. The pubcaster’s new general director, instead, is former RAI board member Giampaolo Rossi, who is backed by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and is known for his controversial tweets and support of Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s RAI Cinema, which has four titles in this year’s Cannes selection, has closed a deal on Ron Howard’s next movie “Origin of Species,” a hot project at the Cannes market starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Ana de Armas, Jude Law and Alicia Vikander. RAI Cinema chief Paolo Del Brocco said the company – which is the film arm of Italian state broadcaster RAI – has teamed up with Rome-based Lucisano Media Group to acquire Italian rights from CAA Media Finance on Howard’s survival thriller penned by Noah Pink (“Tetris”) about a a group of eclectics who turn their backs on civilization and head to the Galapagos. In Cannes, RAI Cinema also picked up Italian rights from Gaumont on family movie “Moon The Panda,” by French humans and animals adventures specialist Gilles de Maistre, known for “Mia and the White Lion”and “The Wolf and the Lion.” De Maistre’s latest, about the friendship between a boy and a panda, is set to shoot later this month in China’s Sichuan mountains.

Spike Lee who scored many of his son's early films, has died. He was 94. The filmmaker confirmed the news in an Instagram post, sharing a link to his father's obituary in.

Bill Lee, the accomplished Jazz musician who collaborated with the likes of Cat Stevens, Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan and also scored many of his son Spike Lee’s films, has died according to multiple reports. He was 94.