Abel Ferrara Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

It’s not all that surprising that the most intriguing aspect of Abel Ferrara’s upcoming drama, “Padre Pio” might not be anything that is actually relevant to the plot of the film. Instead, it’s the curiosity of seeing Shia LaBeouf begin his latest career revival after abuse allegations surfaced.

Former Venice Film Festival head Marco Müller has been named Artistic Director of Italy’s Taormina Film Fest. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent After making its debut at last year’s Cannes Film Festival with Jean-Luc Godard’s last work and Pedro Almodóvar’s “Strange Way of Life,” Anthony Vaccarello‘s Saint Laurent Productions has boarded Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez” as a co-producer. The musical thriller joins Saint Laurent Productions’ roster of prestige projects, including Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope,” David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds,” and the next films from Abel Ferrara, Wong Kar Wai, Jim Jarmusch and Gaspar Noé.

Christopher Vourlias Abel Ferrara has made a career out of staring unflinchingly into the abyss, interrogating man’s weakness and depravity and daring his audiences to look away. Faced with the catastrophic violence of the war in Ukraine, however, which he chronicles in the Berlin-premiering documentary “Turn in the Wound,” even the iconoclastic director finds himself at a loss — for words, and for easy answers.

If there was ever a filmmaker who embodies a DGAF attitude, it’s undoubtedly Bronx-born filmmaker Abel Ferrara. Having moved to Italy years ago, the filmmaker seems to have totally abandoned Hollywood but keeps on trucking unbowed nonetheless, doing whatever the F he wants.

Siddhant Adlakha There’s a slim overlap in the Venn diagram of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Patti Smith. Into that nearly infinitesimal space fits Abel Ferrara’s obliquely reflective, geopolitical documentary “Turn in the Wound.” For that alone it deserves attention, though the Ukrainian president and the American poet/punk rocker aren’t Ferrara’s subjects so much as they are his featured co-authors — fellow painters of a portrait depicting the feeble but essential human instinct to chronicle the horrors of war.

EXCLUSIVE: Brooklyn-based filmmaker Ged Dickersin (CODA) is launching True Indy, a production company intent on making films that can and should be made independently, with filmmakers telling acutely relevant stories for the world market.

EXCLUSIVE: Brooklyn-based filmmaker Ged Dickersin (CODA) is now launching TRUE INDY, a production company intent on making films that can and should be made independently, with filmmakers telling acutely relevant stories for the world market.True Indy sees the opportunity to attract financing for films that can be made in the one to five million dollar range, reducing the financial risk to investors, and increasing the chances for a return on the investment. The company is introducing its slate of original U.S.-born indies, at the European Film Market during the Berlinale this year, as well as looking to partner with filmmakers from around the world in international co-productions. 

Anna Marie de la Fuente Argentina’s newly elected president Javier Milei is bent on keeping his chainsaw-wielding campaign promise to cut state spending, including scrapping the country’s national film institute (INCAA) and its film schools (ENERC). His mega draft bill, aimed at reining in Argentina’s hyper-inflation, has prompted more than 300 directors, producers, actresses, critics and colleagues from across the world, led by Academy Award winners Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Cannes winners Aki Kaurismäki (“Autumn Leaves”) and the Dardenne Brothers (“Rosetta”), to sign a communiqué protesting the far-right libertarian’s proposal.

Ellise Shafer “Love Lies Bleeding” starring Kristen Stewart and Netflix’s “Supersex” series have been added to Berlin Film Festival‘s Special lineup. A romantic thriller centered on a bodybuilder and gym manager, “Love Lies Bleeding” is directed by “Saint Maud” helmer Rose Glass and will have its world premiere at Sundance this month.

The Berlin Film Festival today unveiled further titles for the 2024 edition of its Berlinale Special Presentations sidebar section alongside its classics program. Scroll down for the full list of titles announced today.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent A decade ago, Gerard Depardieu played a character inspired by Dominique Strauss-Kahn — the disgraced former head of the International Monetary Fund who was accused of assaulting a hotel maid — in Abel Ferrara’s “Welcome to New York.” In an ironic twist, the iconic French actor has now become the poster boy for the country’s #MeToo movement, having been charged with rape and faced with over a dozen sexual assault allegations. But the French remain divided over him due to his profile as a mascot of the country’s cinematic history.

Rotterdam Film Festival Sets ‘Head South’ As Opening Film

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.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Shia LaBeouf will make his stage debut in the world premiere of “Henry Johnson,” a new play from David Mamet. The production will be mounted at the Electric Lodge venue in Venice, Calif. and will be directed by “The L Word: Generation Q” showrunner Marja-Lewis Ryan.

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.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Utopia has acquired North American rights to “The Sweet East,” a contemporary travelogue that marks the feature directing debut of Sean Price Williams. The sale comes after the film debuted at Director’s Fortnight during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Williams has a reputation as one of the most talented cinematographers in the independent film space, having previously worked with the likes of the Safdie Brothers, Alex Ross Perry, Michael Almereyda, Abel Ferrara and Albert Maysles.

Barrett Wissman is gearing up for his inaugural edition of the Taormina Film Festival as the newly appointed Executive and co-Artistic Director of the Sicily-set event, running from June 23 to July 1.

Dennis Harvey Film Critic You might think Shia LaBeouf portraying a 20th-century Italian saint under the direction of perpetual bad-boy expat Abel Ferrara is a pretty strange prospect. But that’s just the iceberg tip of the oddities in “Padre Pio,” which, despite the American star’s casting in the title role, often appears uninterested in its own venerated ostensible subject.  Instead, much of this awkward English-language period piece focuses on peasants’ struggle to overthrow padrone control just after the First World War. Depicting that conflict often feels beyond the modest production’s scale — and, in any case, is never meaningfully connected to the angsty histrionics of LaBeouf, who seems to be in his own separate, indulgent, semi-improvised movie. Though coherent relative to Ferrara’s last narrative feature, the impenetrable espionage tale “Zeroes and Ones,” this eccentric misfire will likely puzzle fans of his past cult favorites, while flummoxing Catholic viewers who expect straightforward religious uplift. Gravitas Ventures is releasing to 50+ U.S. markets. 

The Shia LaBeouf comeback tour continues as his movie with Abel Ferrara, “Padre Pio,” which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last year, hits theaters today. Ferrara’s film is LaBeouf’s first acting performance since his ex-girlfriend, FKA Twigs, sued the actor for sexual battery and emotional distress.

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.

The Italian premieres of Cannes Film Festival opener Jeanne du Barry starring Johnny Depp and Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny will be among the international highlights of the 69th Taormina Film Festival which gave a taster of its line-up at press conference in Rome on Tuesday.

Sean Prince Williams made his name with cinephiles as the DP on several recent movies like the Safdie Brothers‘ “Good Time,” Alex Ross Perry‘s “Her Smell,” “Tesla,” and Abel Ferrara‘s “Zeroes And Ones.” Now it’s his turn to sit in the director’s chair.  The Match Factory brings Williams’ directorial debut, “The Sweet East,” to the Cannes Film Festival this year, where it has its world premiere as part of the Directors’ Fortnight.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Match Factory has boarded Sean Price Williams’s “The Sweet East,” which has its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar of the Cannes Film Festival in May. It is the first feature film directed by Price Williams, the cinematographer of Owen Kline’s “Funny Pages” (2022), Abel Ferrara’s “Zeros and Ones” (2021), Michael Almereyda’s “Tesla” (2020), Alex Ross Perry’s “Her Smell” (2018) and the Safdies’ “Good Time” (2017). The screenplay is by film critic and programmer Nick Pinkerton. “The Sweet East” is a picaresque journey through the cities and woods of the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. undertaken by Lillian, a high school senior from South Carolina, who gets her first glimpse of the wider world on a class trip to Washington, D.C.

The Match Factory has acquired international sales rights on U.S. cinematographer and filmmaker Sean Price Williams’s feature directorial debut The Sweet East ahead of its world premiere in Directors’ Fortnight in May.

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.”

Ben Croll A Coenesque caper-gone-wrong and an interactive mother-daughter saga told in bite-size form, XR titles “Kidnapped in Vostok” (pictured) and “Rock, Paper, Scissors” are among the 17 projects leading distributor Astrea picked up in a recent bout of acquisitions. Both titles are playing in competition at this year’s NewImages Festival, while other recent Astrea pickups include the Stanislaw Lem inspired short “Cosmogonic,” the award winning interactive film “Glimpse” from Oscar winner Benjamin Cleary and VR designer Michael O’Connor, and all five episodes of the “Missing Pictures” series, in which filmmakers Abel Ferrara, Tsai Ming-Liang, Catherine Hardwicke, Lee Myung-Se and Naomi Kawase reflect on the dream projects they could never get made.

EXCLUSIVE: Gravitas Ventures has nabbed North American rights to the Shia LaBeouf-led drama Padre Pio from filmmaker Abel Ferrara, slating it for a day-and-date release on June 2nd.

Shia LaBeouf is ready to end his he said, she said battle with Olivia Wilde. The stars have been publicly at odds over the narrative surrounding LaBeouf's exit from the Wilde-directed. LaBeouf was originally cast opposite Florence Pugh in a role that eventually went to Harry Styles and, while conducting interviews to promote the project, Wilde has said that LaBeouf was fired.

Shia LaBeouf's mother has died at the age of 80. The 36-year-old actor has confirmed that his mom, Shayna Saide, died of heart failure at a Los Angeles hospital on August 27. Shia told The Hollywood Reporter: "My mother was full of fear in her last moments: asking the doctor what this tube was and what that machine did.

Since the mid-1980s, William Gibson has set a precedent for heady SF novels, with “Neuromancer” and its “Sprawl” trilogy being the ur-texts of cyberpunk. So, how have William Gibson‘s novels never crossed over to movies and TV? Maybe because Gibson’s speculative fiction is too hard to translate to a broad appeal.

Honey Boy, The Peanut Butter Falcon, and Pieces of a Woman until various allegations put him at the lowest point of his career. With all of the trouble that has followed the former Disney Channel star’s reputation in recent years, he’s been trying to earn forgiveness. He was almost ready to throw in the towel until he was approached about a new film opportunity that would get him out of his acting exile called Padre Pio.

[VENICE] It’s Saturday afternoon at the Tennis Club on the Lido, and American director Abel Ferrara chats on camera to an Italian television host before some of his customary swearing sets in, courtesy of a few brave souls wanting a photo with him next to the courts. He’s hungry.

Naman Ramachandran Shia LaBeouf was in a reverential frame of mind at the first public screening of Abel Ferrara’s “Padre Pio” at the Venice Film Festival, as befits a film about a monk in a Capuchin monastery in post-WWI Italy. LaBeouf, who is embroiled in controversy after being accused of abuse and sexual battery in a bombshell lawsuit filed by his former partner FKA Twigs, made a rare public appearance at Venice. He isn’t doing any press at the festival, but the actor was present in the cinema before the screening where he obliged fans with selfies and participated in a Q&A after. “I feel super blessed to have worked on this movie — this movie kind of saved my life,” LaBeouf said during the Q&A. “But I didn’t enter the process as a God guy — definitely not a Catholic. And this movie just found me at a time when I was very willing and open to the process.”

Apart from the few but mighty completists of renegade filmmaker Abel Ferrara, the primary draw to watch “Padre Pio” is star Shia LaBeouf making his first on-screen attempt at a comeback after facing domestic abuse allegations. The star credits the film with prompting his conversion to Catholicism and helping to begin the process of repairing his life.

Shia LaBeouf plays the title character in this period piece, and his face dominates the promotional material, but the latest film from the ridiculously prolific Abel Ferrara, now into his 70s, is really more of an ensemble with a supporting cast that’s near-unknown outside Italy.