Johnny Depp Starts Shooting ‘Modì’ in Hungary, With Italy’s Luisa Ranieri Joining Al Pacino and Riccardo Scamarcio in Cast

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Investment in original content production continues to grow in Italy where resources across all genres reached a total of €1.8 billion ($1.9 billion) thanks to increased investments from U.S. streamers.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Sky Italia is launching a high-profile documentary series with international ambitions titled “The Overlooked Serial Killer,” reconstructing a true-crime case that has gripped millions of Italians. The documentary investigates the connection between Elisa Claps, an Italian teenager who disappeared in 1993, and Heather Barnett, a British woman whose mutilated body was found in Bournemouth in 2002.

Gal Gadot and Oscar Isaac are hard at work at their new movie!

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian distribution and production company Notorious Pictures is expanding into the TV series sphere by snapping up rights to buzzy literary property “Forbidden Notebook,” a 1952 novel by Italian-Cuban writer Alba de Céspedes that has been recently rediscovered and successfully republished in English. De Céspedes has been described by the New York Times as “a bestselling novelist and political activist in her native Italy” admired for her sensitive depictions of women whose recently rediscovered work “has lost none of its subversive force.” She is considered a source of inspiration for Elena Ferrante, the Italian writer with legions of fervent fans around the world and whose four “Neapolitan Novels” have been adapted into the long-running “My Brilliant Friend” TV series by Italy’s RAI and HBO.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian genre specialist Stefano Sollima, who is known for gritty TV series “Gomorrah” and Hollywood movies “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” and “Without Remorse,” is shooting Netflix original limited series “Il Mostro” about the string of sex-related murders that took place outside Florence from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. “Il Mostro,” which translates as “The Monster,” is the moniker given to the alleged serial killer who committed eight double murders, preying on couples parked in cars in secluded places around Florence. The still unsolved case marks one of the longest investigations into the most brutal serial killings in Italy’s history.

Jason Momoa, Oscar Isaac, and Gal Gadot are hard at work on their upcoming movie In the Hand of Dante and we have some action-packed photos from set!

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all US rights for The Beast (LA BÊTE), the latest feature from French filmmaker Bertrand Bonello (Saint Laurent) starring Léa Seydoux.

EXCLUSIVE: Johnny Depp animated movie Johnny Puff: Secret Mission has sold to German-speaking Europe (Little Brother), Korea (AK Entertainment), Spain (Melies), Portugal (NOS Audiovisuais), Middle East (FrontRow) and Turkey (Wediacorp) ahead of the AFM in LA later this month.

Channing Tatum and his girlfriend Zoe Kravitz are still going strong as a couple after two years of dating!

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent U.S. actor Elena Kampouris (“My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3”) is set to star in the Sicily-set “Here Now,” a romantic thriller marking Italian director Gabriele Muccino‘s return to English-language filmmaking.

Italian actress Luisa Ranieri, known for her role as Aunt Patrizia in Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” has joined the cast of Johnny Depp’s directorial project, “Modì.”

Italian actress Luisa Ranieri has joined the cast of Johnny Depp’s upcoming Amadeo Modigliani bio-pic Modi as filming gets underway in Hungary.

There’s a crisis at the border: migrants stranded in desperate conditions, steel and barbed wire barriers thrown in their path. 

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival’s Cinemed industry section has teamed up with Beirut-based cultural nonprofit Aflamuna on a new initiative, under which 10 film and doc projects from a wide range of Arab countries will soon be unveiled to prospective partners. The new program, called Cinemed and Aflamuna Professional Encounters, features 10 Arab works in development that reflect a slew of themes relevant to the region, including political turbulence, societal changes, female empowerment and climate change concerns.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent French multi-hyphenate Lou Doillon, who is Jane Birkin’s daughter, is set to star in Italian comedy “Quasi a casa” directed by Carolina Pavone, a former assistant director on several Nanni Moretti films. Shooting is underway in Rome on the sophisticated comedy, in which Doillon — a model, actor and singer-songwriter, like her half-sister Charlotte Gainsbourg — plays an eclectic, successful singer who strikes up a turbulent friendship with a younger female musician who idolizes her.

Oscar-winning actress Sophia Loren has had emergency surgery following a fall in her Swiss home, her agent has confirmed.The 89 year old fell in her bathroom and sustained several “serious fractures” to different parts of her hip, including her femur, which needed “urgent surgery”, her agent Andrea Giusti said. Sophia’s representative also confirmed both her sons, Carlo and Edoardo Ponti, were at her bedside.The Academy-Award winning Italian actress was married to film producer Carlo Ponti Sr from 1966 until his death in 2007.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Sophia Loren is recovering from emergency surgery for a fractured hip following a fall on Sunday in her home in Geneva, Switzerland, according to Italian press reports. Italy’s most famous living movie star, who turned 89 on Sept. 20, suffered multiple fractures after accidentally falling at home on Sunday morning.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian multi-hyphenate Ilaria Borrelli’s Arabic-language feminist drama “The Goat” – featuring Mira Sorvino and John Savage, alongside a stellar Egyptian cast – is set for back-to-back launches at Egypt’s upcoming El Gouna Film Festival, followed by the closing film slot at the Rome Film Festival. A rare, if not unique, case of an Arab production directed by an Italian, “The Goat” stars young Egyptian TikTok star Jessica Hosam as an 11-year-old pregnant orphan named Hadya who after being forced into marriage becomes the target of a western corporation that seeks to control the only water source in her village.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s Fandango Sales has taken international distribution rights to quirky comedy “Volare” about the fear of flying that marks the directorial debut of actor Margherita Buy. Buy is known internationally for frequent roles in Nanni Moretti movies, most recently in “A Brighter Tomorrow” that launched from Cannes. Her smart concept movie is being lead-produced by Simone Gattoni for Kavac Film, the company founded by veteran auteur Marco Bellocchio.

The trailer for Amber Heard’s first film release, since her and ex-husband Johnny Depp’s widely-televised defamation trial, has been released.