Penelope Cruz, Star of Emanuele Crialese’s ‘L’Immensità,’ Blasts Domestic Violence: ‘There Are Many Women Around the World Trapped in Their Homes’

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran producer Richard Salvatore has been appointed Head of US Film Production and Distribution at Iervolino & Lady Bacardi Entertainment (ILBE) as the Italian company looks to grow its stateside footprint.

Penelope Cruz received a special honor at the 2022 San Sebastian Film Festival this weekend!

Liza Foreman After wowing a home crowd at the opening night of the San Sebastián Film Festival on Friday, looking dazzling at 48, Spain’s best-known actress, Penélope Cruz, spoke to a packed auditorium at the city’s Tabakalera culture center on Saturday when she was honored with Spain’s National Cinematography Prize. “It is truly an honor for me to receive this National Cinematography Prize,” said Cruz speaking in Spanish.  “Cinema is and has been my passion since I was a child. Since I dreamed in the living room of my parents’ house of worlds to explore beyond our neighbourhood. The streets of my neighborhood sometimes became sets for incredible stories,” she went on. “My childhood was fantasizing about acting, living life so intensely to be able to encompass many lives through dozens of characters.”

Spain on Friday. The actress, 45, showed off her chic sense of style in a in a black dress with a plunging neckline. The tiered circle skirt flared out as she stood on the red carpet while posing for pictures.

Penelope Cruz is taken by surprise as she sees so many fans at the premiere of her new movie, On The Fringe, during the 2022 San Sebastian Film Festival held at Victoria Eugenia Theatre on Friday (September 16) in San Sebastian, Spain.

Michaela Zee editor Irene Papas, the Greek actress known for such films as “Zorba the Greek,” “Z” and “The Guns of Navarone,” has died. She was 93. Greece’s Ministry of Culture and Sports confirmed the news Wednesday in a statement. Papas starred in over 70 films and stage productions throughout her career spanning nearly six decades, from Hollywood features to French and Italian cinema. She also appeared in dozens of Greek tragedies, including the title role in the 1961 film adaptation of “Antigone.” Born on Sept. 3, 1929, in the village of Chiliomodi near Corinth, Papas began her acting studies as a teenager and later worked on multiple film and TV projects in the ’40’s and ’50s, including “The Man from Cairo,” “The Unfaithfuls,” “Bouboulina” and “Attila,” among others.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent With “Chiara,” Susanna Nicchiarelli’s portrait of Saint Clare of Assisi – the 13th century saint born into a wealthy family who at age 18 became a nun after hearing St. Francis preach – the Italian director completes her trilogy of female biopics, segueing from “Nico, 1988” and “Miss Marx,” which both launched from Venice’s Horizons section. With “Chiara,” she makes the leap into the main Venice competition. Nicchiarelli spoke to Variety about what drew her to portraying this prototypical feminist and directing “My Brilliant Friend” star Margherita Mazzucco in the pic’s titular role. Excerpts. What drove you to want to tell us this story about St. Clare?Well, first of all, I was always passionate about Saint Francis. I have a very strong memory when I first saw Franco Zeffirelli’s “Brother Sun, Sister Moon.” I was at school when they showed it to us and this boy, this man, taking his clothes off in front of the Bishop. That was a very strong image. Francis’ battle speaks to us just as much today because it’s a battle for poverty, against social injustice. It’s about being on the side of the poor, of those who are different, and the injustices of a society in which very few have everything and then most have nothing. So, this was their battle. The medieval society was like that. It’s not so different from the way it is now.

Patrick Dempsey has white hair!

Heavy on Loachian social realism and undergirded by the intensity and heavy stakes of a Safdie Brothers flick, Juan Diego Botto’s gritty eviction thriller “On the Fringe” — produced by Penélope Cruz, who also lends her name to the billing sheet — makes for hard-hitting stuff. Premiering at the Venice Film Festival today in the Orrizonti section, here’s a slice of agitprop that feels as timely as ever, with the energy crisis surging across Europe, the costs of living rocketing from shore to shore, and society’s most marginalized left to pick up the tab.  Anyone with half a heart and half a brain will be quickly won over by its interweaving stories, following three different people in the same Spanish city living under the cold, foreboding shadow of red-stamp eviction notices: though a little baggy in the second act, the first and final thirty-minutes are appropriately earnest and affecting.

Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem are wrapping up their time at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.

Tilda Swinton takes over the red carpet in a dazzling lavender gown at the premiere of The Eternal Daughter during the 2022 Venice International Film Festival on Tuesday (September 6) in Venice, Italy.

printed with the double C emblem, a black and white bouclé tweed waistcoat and matching jacket, platforms, aviators, and statement logo earrings. Naturally, Cruz is a fan of Chanel’s classic quilted bags, and she carried a smart circular clutch with a chain handle for her moment in the spotlight.Penélope Cruz in Chanel jeans on September 5.Cruz has been a Chanel ambassador since Karl Lagerfeld’s tenure (she attended her first show in 1999), so it’s become customary practice for her to fly the flag for the brand.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Prominent arthouse sales company The Match Factory has closed multiple sales on Italian auteur Gianni Amelio’s Venice competition title “Lord of the Ants” ahead of its Venice premiere on Tuesday. The Match Factory has sealed deals on Amelio’s latest work – which is a biopic of Italian poet, playwright and director Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968 due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law – that will ensure the film’s theatrical release in: Australia/New Zealand (Palace Films); Japan (Zazie Films); Spain (Surtsey Films); Sweden (TriArt Film) and Greece (Ama Films). Further deals are in negotiation, the company said. Braibanti was convicted after a complaint from his partner’s father, who later forced his son to be treated with electroconvulsive therapy in an ill-conceived attempt to rid him of his homosexuality. The Fascist-era law that punished Braibanti, which made it a crime to lead innocent or unwary people “morally” astray, was repealed in 1981.

Not all of the amazing fashion at the 2022 Venice Film Festival will be seen on the red carpet!

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Last year Andrea Scrosati – who is group COO and continental Europe CEO of Fremantle – was at Venice with two films. This year Fremantle’s got six pics launching from the Lido, three of them in competition, which is a larger contingent than any of the U.S. studios or streamers.  Fremantle’s business model, which involves a cluster of companies mostly across Europe that they either fully own or are majority investors in, has been bearing fruit on their film side. Their output has grown “from 8 to 32 delivered movies in two years,” Scrosati says.  And the multi-pronged company’s Venice lineup – which includes Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All,” Emanuele Crialese’s “L’Immensità,” and Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter” – is a reflection of that.

Even before the title flashes up for Venice Film Festival competition entry L’Immensita, we know that Penelope Cruz is the most fun mom – most likely the only fun mom – in town. She doesn’t just set the table for dinner; she puts on music, leads the kids in a choreographed dance and singalong as they pass plates and cutlery, emoting into a passing fork as if it were a microphone. Adults bore her. At a birthday dinner for an ancient relative, she slips under the table to join her children in removing and mixing up everyone’s shoes. “I want to play!” she says, eyes gleaming.

Irina Shayk and Stella Maxwell are looking so chic on the red carpet!

What a knotty task, to detach instinctive overtures of motherly love from the traditional structures that perpetuate the restraining of gender roles, offering love freely without conforming.

Penelope Cruz turned heads in two amazing looks at the 2022 Venice Film Festival this weekend!

Guy Lodge Film Critic “L’Immensità” is director Emanuele Crialese’s first feature film in 11 years, and only his fifth in a quarter-century: The gifted Italian, best known to international audiences for his splendid, richly felt Ellis Island immigrant saga “Golden Door,” has never been one for unconsidered or impersonal projects. At first glance, then, one might wonder what drew him out of hibernation for a film that, with its trim runtime and small-scale domestic narrative, belies a title that translates as “immensity.” This 1970s-set story of a 12-year-old navigating his gender identity while his mother battles mental health demons is too palpably pained and heartfelt to be called slight, but it’s sensitive and peculiar in ways that feel fragile — occasionally splintered and swamped by an elaborate setpiece, or the outsize star magnetism of arguably its secondary lead, one Penélope Cruz.