Director Paolo Virzì on How the Pandemic Permeates Dystopic Dramedy ‘Siccità’ in Which a Long Drought in Rome Has Dried Up the Tiber

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Tim Burton’s “Wednesday” series starring Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams will have its European premiere in Italy at Lucca Comics & Games with Burton attending the launch at Europe’s biggest geek meet.  Lucca Comics – which is an immersive cross-media event dedicated to pop culture, cosplay and comics held in the medieval Tuscan town of Lucca – has been chosen by Netflix as the venue for the European unveiling of the first “Wednesday” episode on Oct. 31.  Burton has executive produced and directed four of the show’s eight episodes, with Gandja Monteiro and James Marshall serving as additional directors. “Wednesday” is produced by MGM Television for Netflix.

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar nominee Maria Bakalova (Borat 2) has been set to star with Daryl Wein (Something From Tiffany’s), Jack Farthing (Poldark), and Abigail Cowen (Fate: The Winx) in under-the-radar drama-thriller Electra, which has begun production in Italy.

This Morning was beset with problems today, first as Holly Willoughby suffered a coughing fit during a segment with Deidre Sanders and then again when cameras cut to Josie Gibson on location, who they discovered wasn't ready. Holly, 41 and Phillip Schofield had to laugh off the blunder after the segment got off to such a promising start with Philip, 60, saying viewers had the chance to win £500,000.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The life of global porn icon Rocco Siffredi is the subject of a new Netflix original series titled “Supersex,” which has started shooting in Rome. The seven-episode drama is freely inspired by the real life of Siffredi, who has more than 1,500 hardcore films to his name. But, in an interesting career twist, Siffredi has also shot two arthouse pics, Catherine Breillat’s “Romance” and “Anatomy of Hell.” His Budapest-based Rocco Siffredi Prods. is a porn industry powerhouse. Siffredi was also the subject of the documentary “Rocco,” directed by French duo Thierry Demaiziere and Alban Teurlai, which screened at the 2016 Venice Film Festival. 

The Rome Film Festival has unveiled its first line-up under the new management team of former Rai executive Paola Malanga as artistic director and Cineteca di Bologna director Gian Luca Farinelli as president, who were both appointed to their roles last March.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The 17th annual Rome Film Festival will fete James Ivory with a career honor, a mini retrospective and the Italian launch of the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s personal new documentary “A Cooler Climate.” Ivory is expected in Rome to receive the award and present the doc about his life as a traveler that takes its cue from boxes of film the director shot during a life-changing trip to Afghanistan in 1960. The film premieres beforehand at the New York Film Festival. Rome’s Ivory mini-retrospective will comprise his films “Maurice”; “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge,” starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward; “The Remains of the Day”; and “A Room With a View.”

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent An English-language reimagining of the world of Sergio Corbucci’s cult 1966 spaghetti western “Django,” which launched the career of Italian icon Franco Nero, is set to launch from the Rome Film Festival in October. The high–concept TV series, titled “Django,” will play in 2023 exclusively on Sky and its streaming service NOW in all countries where Sky operates, including the U.K., Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria. It will also air on Canal+ in France, Switzerland, Benelux and Africa. The Rome Film Festival runs from Oct. 13-23. The 10-episode “Django” show stars Matthias Schoenaerts (“Rust and Bone,” “Bullhead”) as the iconic gunman who is the title character, alongside Nicholas Pinnock (“For Life”) as John Ellis, described as the “visionary founder” of the town of New Babylon. Lisa Vicari (“Dark”) plays Django’s daughter Sarah and Noomi Rapace (Millennium Trilogy) has the adversarial role of John’s powerful and ruthless enemy Elizabeth Thurman. 

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Russell Crowe will be a guest of honor of the Rome Film Festival’s independently run Alice in the City section where his second directorial effort, the thriller “Poker Face” – in which he stars opposite Liam Hemsworth – is set to have its world premiere. Set in the world of high-stakes betting, “Poker Face” stars Crowe as tech billionaire and gambler Jake Foley, who offers his best friends a chance to win more money than they’ve ever dreamed of. But to play, they’ll have to give up the one thing they spend their lives trying to keep – their secrets. As the game unfolds, the long-time pals will discover what is really at stake.

EJ Panaligan editor Sublime is the latest rock band getting the biopic treatment. Sony’s 3000 Pictures is developing a movie with “Hunger Games” director Francis Lawrence about the group from Long Beach, Calif. The band is best known for its fusion of reggae, punk, ska and hip-hop, all wrapped into a subgenre of alternative rock that they were at the forefront of throughout the 1990s. Songs like “What I Got,” “Santeria” and “Doin’ Time” became radio hits on local rock stations such as Los Angeles’ KROQ. The band’s lead singer, Bradley Nowell, died in May 1996 from a drug overdose, with the band’s final self-titled album releasing shortly after.

EXCLUSIVE: Tanner Stine (Impulse) and Kaylee Bryant (Legacies) will lead the supernatural horror Spin the Bottle from director Gavin Wiesen (The Art of Getting By), with Justin Long (Barbarian) and Ali Larter (The Rookie) to play supporting roles.

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.

A disparate group of characters collide in Dry (Siccita), a semi-apocalyptic drama premiering out of competition at the Venice Film Festival. Paolo Virzi directs this glossy portmanteau film that assembles a strong cast for overlapping storylines and satirical social comment. 

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.”

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Paolo Sorrentino, the Oscar-winning director of “The Great Beauty” and “The Hand of God,” is set to preside over the jury of the Marrakech International Film Festival. The popular fest will make a comeback this year after a pair of editions were canceled due to the pandemic. The upcoming fest will take place Nov. 11-19. Sorrentino’s jury will award the Étoile d’Or to one of 14 feature-length films set to compete at the festival, which aims at showcasing rising filmmakers from around the world. The helmer follows the footsteps of prestigious directors and talents such as Martin Scorsese and Tilda Swinton, who presided over previous years.

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Clement Virgo has signed with WME in advance of the TIFF world premiere of Brother, starring Lamar Johnson, Aaron Pierre and Marsha Stephanie Black. His debut feature, Rude, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in Un Certain Regard and opened the Perspectives Canada program at TIFF.  His credits includes the boxing drama Poor Boy’s Game, Lie With Me and Love Come Down.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent In Italian director Emanuele Crialese’s new drama “L’Immensità,” which is set in 1970s Rome, Penélope Cruz plays a mother of three who, while contending with a violent Italian husband, winds up in a psychiatric institution. “I don’t think my character is crazy at all,” Cruz said. “She is trapped in her family. Trapped in her home, in her body. In the situation in which she finds herself living. She doesn’t have a plan B. There is no escape,” she added. “She’s not crazy at all. She’s oppressed in many different ways. And she simply can’t take it anymore.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Italian film industry is in a paradoxical state: production is booming but box office is bust. Italy’s five features vying for a Venice Golden Lion – plus a myriad more scattered in other Lido sections – reflect cinema Italiano’s current creative vibrancy, if you look at the cream of the crop; however, the average quality is not that great. On the plus side, the country is making a quantum leap forward in terms of the global visibility of its movies just as the number of Italian directors considered bankable in Hollywood, such as Paolo Sorrentino, Luca Guadagnino and Stefano Sollima (“Without Remorse”), to name but a few, is growing.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Italian film industry is in a paradoxical state: production is booming but box office is bust. Italy’s five features vying for a Venice Golden Lion – plus a myriad more scattered in other Lido sections – reflect cinema Italiano’s current creative vibrancy, if you look at the cream of the crop; however, the average quality is not that great. On the plus side, the country is making a quantum leap forward in terms of the global visibility of its movies just as the number of Italian directors considered bankable in Hollywood, such as Paolo Sorrentino, Luca Guadagnino and Stefano Sollima (“Without Remorse”), to name but a few, is growing.

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.”

Clayton Davis Telluride Film Festival’s official 2022 lineup has been announced, revealing world premieres of Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light,” Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking,” Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and Sebastián Lelio’s “The Wonder.” In its 49th year, the festival will pay tribute to two-time Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, whose new film “TÁR,” from director Todd Field, will debut stateside after premiering at the Venice Film Festival. In addition, the festival will also tribute Academy Award nominee Polley (adapted screenplay for 2006’s “Away from Her”) and acclaimed documentarian Marc Cousins, who has two films dropping at the fest. One is “My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock,” which is based on a fictional monologue between Cousins and the master of suspense. The other is “The March on Rome,” depicting the ascent of fascism in Europe during the 1930s.