Italy to Be Country of Honor at Berlin’s European Film Market

Grey's Anatomy star Kevin McKidd and actress Danielle Savre were spotted kissing while on vacation in Italy on Wednesday. The pair enjoyed each other's company while having a swim in Lake Como and sharing an intimate moment on the dock after taking a dip in the Italian sea. Savre, 34, wore a barely-there orange bikini and McKidd, 49, rocked a pair of dark swim trunks as they packed on the PDA.They were also spotted exploring the town of Bellagio, Italy, taking a stroll around the historic seaside enclave and keeping close with hugs and kisses. Savre plays firefighter Maya Bishop on the spinoff,, while McKidd has portrayed Dr. Owen Hunt on since 2008.

A hot couple has formed in Shondaland - Grey’s Anatomy star Kevin McKidd and Station 19 actress Danielle Savre are dating!

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Abel Ferrara announced in an interview with The Film Stage that his “Padre Pio” star Shia LaBeouf is currently writing a movie about Auschwitz that the two men are thinking of filming together. No other details were provided at this time. Variety has tapped LaBeouf’s manager for additional details. In Ferrara’s “Padre Pio,” which premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival, LaBeouf plays the eponymous 19th century religious figure, who rose to fame in the Catholic world for exhibiting stigmata — crucifixion wounds corresponding to those on the body of Jesus Christ — before becoming a symbol of hope for southern Italians during the country’s turbulent period between the two world wars.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Marco Bellocchio’s drama “Kidnapped” that reconstructs the true tale of a Jewish boy who was kidnapped and forcibly raised as a Christian in 19th century Rome, has opened strongly in Italy following its Cannes launch. The revered Italian auteur’s film about Edgardo Mortara, who in 1858 was taken away from his family in Bologna to live in the Vatican – after it surfaced that the boy secretly been baptized a Christian – has also sparked debate and prompted the Vatican to comment the abduction for which Pope Pius IX has been held responsible. “Kidnapped” over the weekend bowed in third place at the Italian box office, placing itself after “The Little Mermaid” and “Fast X” and pulling a handsome more than €550,000 ($587,000) intake to date from roughly 300 screens.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) today shared the timeline for its 2024 awards cycle, with its 2024 Film Awards set for Sunday, February 18.

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.

Bachelor Nation takes Italy! As Andi Dorfman and Blaine Hart prepare to exchange vows, Tayshia Adams, Hannah Ann Sluss, Amanda Stanton and more Bachelor alums have landed overseas for the nuptials.

Simu Liu is all loved-up.

Leonardo DiCaprio is having some fun in the sun with his friends!

Four people have reportedly died after a tourist boat carrying British tourists celebrating a birthday capsized on Lake Maggiore in Italy.

Picture the scene: a lake shimmering in the summer sunshine, water gently lapping the shore and beautiful mountains in the distance. It’s an image which has made the Italian Lakes a world famous holiday destination - and one that’s popular with A-list stars with George Clooney famously owning a property there.

A Chimera is something one tries to achieve but alas, never manages to find. It is the heart and soul of a quest in life, in different ways, for the cast of characters in writer/director Alice Rohrwacher’s beautiful new film La Chimera premiering today as one of the last entries in competition at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. It also happens to be one of the best.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The 37 national film institutes that are members of European Film Promotion have elected a new EFP board of directors at the general assembly on May 23 during the Cannes Film Festival. The board consists of seven members, with their term of office lasting for two years. Five of the current members remain on the board, including Simone Baumann, managing director of German Films, as new vice president, Daniela Elstner, executive director UniFrance, Eda Koppel, head of marketing at Estonian Film Institute, Stine Oppegaard, manager, international relations, feature films, Norwegian Film Institute, and Markéta Santrochová, head of Czech Film Center, who has been re-elected as EFP president.

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.

Having previously won the Palme d’Or in 2001 for “The Son’s Room” and premiered the majority of his films in competition, Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti has been a mainstay at the Cannes Film Festival for several decades.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “Creatura,” the feature debut of Elena Martín, exploring female sexual desire and repression, has won this year’s 20th Europa Cinemas Cannes Label for best European Film at the 2022 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. Announced Thursday by Europa Cinemas, ahead of the closing ceremony this afternoon, the prize is one of two at Directors’ Fortnight, and awarded by one of the sidebar’s partners, given the section is non-competitive.   A second partner plaudit, the SACD Prize, handed out by France’s Writers’ Guild, will be announced simultaneously to the Europa Cinemas Label. 

Spanish director Elena Martín Gimeno’s Creatura has won the Europa Cinemas prize as Best European Film at Directors’ Fortnight.

EXCLUSIVE: Berlinale Series Head Julia Fidel is exiting after four years in post.

Vivo Film (“Le Quattro Volte,” “Miss Marx”) has boarded André Ristum’s action drama “Tecnicamente Dolce” (“Technically Sweet”), based on a screenplay by Italian legend Michelangelo Antonioni, teaming with Gullane Filmes, Brazil’s biggest independent film production house. The news comes as “Carnival Is Over,” the awaited thriller drama by “Narcos” director Fernando Coimbra, whose “A Wolf at the Door” was one of the standout Brazilian feature debuts of the last decade, has now entered post-production, shaping up as one of the big arthouse titles to hit festivals from Brazil next year.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent While the lineup of Cannes Film Market’s newly launched initiative Cannes Investors Circle has remained under wraps, Variety has learned about four of the nine projects which were pitched during the invitation-only event. The initiative was created by the film market’s new executive director Guillaume Esmiol to connect VIP private investors with select filmmakers and producers boasting a stellar track records. Curated by experts such as Medici’s Tamara Tatishvili, Arte Cinema’s Rémi Burah and financier Serge Hayat, the nine projects are budgeted between €2 million and €12 million. Among these are “Dracula. The Second Coming” directed by Radu Jude, the Romanian helmer of Berlinale prizewinning “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” directed by Ada Solomon at microFILM; “Rivo Alto,” directed by Clément Cogitore (“The Wakhan Front”) and produced by Jean-Christophe Reymond at Kazak Productions (“Titane”); “The Girl” directed by Marina Ziolkowski (“But You Look So Good”) and produced by Philippe Gompel (“Cherry”) at Manny Films, and “The Birthday Party” directed by Miguel Angel Jimenez (“Chaika”) and produced by Giorgos Karnavas (“Triangle of Sadness”) at Heretic.