Paolo Sorrentino Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Andrea Iervolino, the Italian producer behind Michael Mann’s forthcoming Ferrari, today announced his investment of around 50 million euros, or $55M U.S., in The Tuscany Film Studios, a top-flight production facility soon to be active in central Italy.

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.

French billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault is in final talks to buy a majority stake in CAA in a $7 billion deal, according to an unconfirmed Bloomberg News report.

“The White Lotus” star Sabrina Impacciatore is ready to dive into her next project.

The White Lotus actress Sabrina Impacciatore is set for Call My Agent‘s second season on Sky Italia.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Sky Italia celebrated its 20-year anniversary on Tuesday by announcing a rich slate of upcoming originals, including a second season of the Italian adaptation of “Call My Agent,” which will see “The White Lotus” star Sabrina Impacciatore joining the cast. The Sky Italia originals slate comprises previously announced high-end drama “M. Son of the Century” by British director Joe Wright, alongside less lavish shows in various stages – most of which have international potential. It underscores how the Italian unit of the Comcast-owned pay-TV service continues to be a major Italian industry driver. While Sky’s German unit, which is believed to be up for sale, has put production on pause, Sky Italia is cranking out Italian originals through the platform’s Sky Studios unit at a steady pace, showing no signs of a slowdown.

Two years ago, Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino won the Grand Jury prize at the Venice Film Festival for his autobiographical drama “The Hand Of God.” Now for his next film, Sorrentino returns to Naples for another tale about his hometown city. READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2023 Sorrentino’s follows the life of a woman named Partenope, “who bears the name of her city but is neither siren nor myth,” according to the press release for the film.

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.”

Lily Moayeri A theme song sets the tone for a series. This is certainly the case for HBO’s awards favorite, “The White Lotus,” which won an Emmy for “Aloha” last year. The jungle sounds, exotic tones, yodels and screams laid over percussive rhythms and high-pitched flutes became instantly identifiable and an echo of the contentious characters vacationing at the Hawaii-based titular resort. Considering how iconic “Aloha” became, changing the theme for the Sicily-based second season was a bold choice. Chilean Canadian composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer drew his original musical ideas from the script and from conversations with series creator Mike White. White “wanted the music to feel like it was boiling under these characters,” de Veer says from his studio in Montréal.

Isn’t she lovely! Zendaya turned heads at the Bulgari jewelry show in Italy on Tuesday, May 16.  

EXCLUSIVE: On the eve of his acting return at the Cannes Film Festival, Johnny Depp has set a buzzy cast for Modi, his first directorial effort in 25 years.

French fashion house Saint Laurent is moving into the world of cinema with an official production banner headed by house creative director Anthony Vaccarello.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Iconic French fashion house Saint Laurent is launching a film production banner spearheaded by its artistic director Anthony Vaccarello. Named Saint Laurent Productions, the subsidiary is kicking off with a trio of films from renowned filmmakers, including a pair of shorts world premiering at Cannes: “Strange Way of Life” by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. Vaccarello, a cinephile who became the artistic director of Saint Laurent in 2016, said launching this new division gives him “the opportunity to expand the vision I have for Saint Laurent through a medium that has more permanence than clothes.”

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winner Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty) is due to start filming a new movie in June, we can reveal.

Berlinale Series and one of Disney+’s early big plays in Southern Europe, U.K.-Italian mafia series “The Good Mothers” walked off on Wednesday night with the Berlin Festival’s inaugural Berlinale Series Award.  A large virtue of the series is to come in at the mafia from a novel angle: a real story of women who dare to defy the Italian mob.  The title forms part of the first European slate by new Disney+ international streaming service Star. It tells how bosses at the the Calabrian mob were targeted by a female prosecutor – thanks to the collaboration of three women inside the ‘Ndrangheta organized crime clan. 

Colin Farrell, Paul Mescal and Cate Blanchett were among the stars wearing a blue ribbon at the EE BAFTAS 2023 to show their support for refugees and displaced people around the world. Bill Nighy, Jamie Lee Curtis and Angela Bassett were also brandishing the #WithRefugees ribbon as they stepped out on the red carpet at London's Royal Festival Hall on Sunday. Speaking to the PA news agency about why she wanted to wear the ribbon, supporting actress nominee Jamie Lee said: “My friend Cate Blanchett is asking people to remind us all in the midst of all the season of shiny things that of course there are terrible refugee crises going on all over the world everywhere all at once and we need to do our part.” These blue ribbons sport the hashtag #WithRefugees, in solidarity with all people forced to flee oppression.

EXCLUSIVE: Italian director Mario Martone, who has enjoyed prominence on the festival awards circuit over the past year with Oscar submission and Cannes title Nostalgia, is at the Berlinale this year with his passion project Somebody Down There Likes Me.

The pals on My Brilliant Friend are all grown up.

Iranian director Emad Aleebrahim-Dehkordi’s feature directorial debut A Tale Of Shemroon won the top Étoile d’Or—the Festival Grand Prize – at the Marrakech International Film Festival on Saturday.

Mélita Toscan du Plantier has spent the best part of two decades running Morocco’s Marrakech International Film Festival.

After Netflix-backed feature The Hand Of God, high-end drama The New Pope, and a recent TV adaptation of Italian play Sei Pezzi Facili for state Italian broadcaster Rai, Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino says he wants to reconnect with the cinema theatre.

Indian acting star Ranveer Singh took centre stage at the opening night of the Marrakech International Film Festival on Friday evening, treating spectators to dancing and an impromptu rap session as he received a tribute award.

Italian producer Lorenzo Mieli gave a spirited and often humorous rundown of his career as a producer working with directors such as Luca Guadagnino and Paolo Sorrentino during a keynote talk at the London Film Festival Monday.

Italian producer Lorenzo Mieli, whose recent credits include Luca Guadagnino’s Bones And All, Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand Of God and HBO’s hit TV version of My Brilliant Friend, has unveiled plans for a limited series adaptation of Italo Calvino’s classic Italian novel The Baron In The Trees.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Iceland’s leading production company Sagafilm Nordic has teamed with Swiss banner C-FILMS on “Codeword: Rubicon,” an espionage thriller series inspired by the infamous CIA operation involving the firm Crypto AG. Created by Hungarian director-writer Balazs Juszt(“I Love You, Too”), the eight-episode series has been commissioned by broadcaster Swiss Television (SRF). The show chronicles the story of how Crypto AG, a Swiss family-owned company manufacturing code-making machines founded in 1952 by a Swedish mathematician was secretly owned and operated by the CIA in partnership West German Intelligence services. From decades, the Swiss company sold equipment to more than 120 countries, including Iran and nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican, according to the Washington Post. The role of the U.S. and West German intelligence was revealed by the Crypto Leaks.

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran film executive David Kosse is leaving his post as VP of International Film at Netflix amid a restructure of the company’s European content business. Kosse joined the streamer in 2019, overseeing all international film production and acquisitions with a focus on making and acquiring significant non-English language films with global appeal. He is expected to continue to produce for Netflix and others.

There is definitely a trend of late for film directors to take a look in thinly disguised cinematic memoirs of their early influences that shaped the artist and person they have become. Kenneth Branagh with Belfast and Paolo Sorrentino with The Hand Of God did it last year. Of course there is Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, others over the years. Sam Mendes, while not drawing a portrait of his younger self revisits the movie palaces of his youth in another 2022 offering, Empire Of Light, which premiered last weekend at Telluride and will also hit the Toronto International Film Festival. TIFF is also where the man I recently described as the GOAT, Steven Spielberg, has chosen to debut his own story where the names have been changed but the story is  clearly his. The Fabelmans basically chronicling his early Jewish family life and infatuation with making movies  had its World Premiere Saturday night, the first of Spielberg’s directed movies ever to premiere at a film festival. This one seems entirely appropriate, and it has been gestating in the director’s head ever since he and his co-writer Tony Kushner started kicking it around during the making of Lincoln over a decade ago. He says he finally made it primarily as a way to bring his late parents Leah and Arnold (to whom the film is dedicated) somehow back to his life. Movies can do that, and no one knows it better than Steven Spielberg.

Italian director Paolo Sorrentino has been named as jury president of Morocco’s Marrakech International Film Festival, which will run as a physical event for the first time in three years from 11 to 19 November.