Emanuele Crialese Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

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.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent French mini-major Pathé has acquired Les Films des Tournelles, the production company founded by Anne-Dominique Toussaint whose recent credits include Louis Garrel‘s Cesar-winning “The Innocent.” Besides Garrel, Les Films des Tournelles has worked with a flurry of auteurs on some of their most successful films, including Riad Sattouf’s “The French Kissers,” which won the Cesar for best first film in 2010; Nadine Labaki’s “Caramel”; Emanuele Crialese’s “Respiro”; Valeria Golino’s “Miele”; and Mona Achache’s “The Hedgehog.” “The Innocent” won two prizes at last year’s Cesar Awards and screened at Cannes on the 75th anniversary of the festival. Toussaint has also worked with Philippe Le Guay and Emmanuel Carrère.

Matt Johnson’s film BlackBerry about the rise and fall of the world’s first smartphone passed $1.7 million its second week out with an estimated three-day gross of $525k in 595 theaters.

A beloved ballplayer and an iconic consumer device join a Hollywood satire by Charlie Day, an Emanuele Crialese film with Penelope Cruz and debuts from Sundance and Venice in a potentially strong specialty weekend that will test the appetite for indie film with no new franchise wide releases.

Sideshow/Janus Films is estimating a $36k gross or $18k per theater average for The Eight Mountains on two NYC screens, the strongest opening weekend to date for the team behind Drive My Car and EO.

How can happiness flourish amid domestic chaos and cultural intolerance? Emanuele Crialese’s film “L’immensità” explores a transgender youth’s journey toward acceptance. And now the movie hits US theaters after its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last year.

Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz, Michael Fassbender and Owen Wilson are in talks to star in the big-budget Netflix comedy marking Nancy Meyers’ return to directing, Deadline can confirm.

Guy Lodge Film Critic In time, stories like “20,000 Species of Bees” will come to feel as commonplace within the coming-of-age genre as tales of first love or heartbreak: a young girl, unhappy in her skin and at odds with her family, finally recognizes her gender over the course of one pivotal summer, and persuades others to recognize it too. For now, Spanish writer-director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s mellow, softly piercing debut feature joins the likes of Céline Sciamma’s “Tomboy” and Emanuele Crialese’s “L’Immensità” in a select but growing canon of trans or nonbinary childhood studies. Unassuming and meanderingly character-oriented, the film doesn’t assert itself as an issue drama — in large part because, as Solaguren presents her eight-year-old protagonist’s gradual steps toward self-realization, her film doesn’t see much of an issue to begin with.

Premiering earlier this year at the 2022 Venice Film Festival was Emanuele Crialese‘s celebrated “L’Immensità,” a family drama starring Penélope Cruz. The film is about the story of love between Clara (Cruz) and her children, set in Rome in the ’70s.

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. 

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.

Emanuele Crialese put in a buoyant performance at the Venice Film Festival Sunday, during which he discussed how his identity informed his Golden Lion contender L’immensità.

Mario Gianani, CEO of Fremantle’s Rome-based The Young Pope and My Brilliant Friend production powerhouse Wildside, is enjoying a high-profile time on the international film festival circuit this year.

Gregg Goldstein Since 2007, Venice’s Queer Lion Award has reflected and elevated the best in LGBTQ cinema. Fifteen years later, founder Daniel N. Casagrande said this year’s Venice Film Festival will be “the most queer edition ever.” Among the fest’s 30 LGBTQ-themed titles, 19 are competing for the Queer Lion, including a record six films from the main competition. They include Todd Field’s orchestra conductor drama “Tár,” starring Cate Blanchett; Darren Aronofsky’s estranged gay father study “The Whale,” featuring Brendan Fraser; Laura Poitras’ doc “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” chronicling bisexual artist Nan Goldin’s life and anti-opioid crusade; Andrea Pallaoro’s trans woman family drama “Monica”; Emanuele Crialese’s “L’immensità,” starring Penélope Cruz as the mother of a transgender child; and Gianni Amelio’s “Il signore delle formiche,” the true story of an Italian artist jailed under an infamous anti-gay law.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Directing Penélope Cruz in Venice competition title “L’immensità,” Italy’s Emanuele Crialese is teaming with Argentina’s Nicolás Gil Lavedra to produce “Rona,” the second feature by Emiliano Torres, writer-director of San Sebastian Special Jury Prize winner “The Winter.” Produced by Crialese’s Italy-based Now and Buenos Aires Gamán Cine, set up by Lavedra and Torres, “Rona” is being structured as a majority European production and will shoot mainly in English. Lavedra, whose recent production credits include Paz Encina’s Rotterdam Tiger Award winner “Eami,” will oversee production.  “Rona” is one of the highest-profile of 14 titles at this year’s San Sebastian Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, one of the Spanish festival’s centrepiece industry events.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian director Emanuele Crialese broke out with 2002 Cannes Critics Week winner “Respiro,” followed by “Nuovomondo” and “Terraferma,” which both scooped prizes in Venice. He’s back on the Lido with his ambitious, boldly personal drama “L’immensità.” Set in 1970s Rome, the film features Penélope Cruz as the mother of two children, one of whom is a 12-year-old named Adriana who wants to change her name and gender identity and convince everyone that she is male. In his director’s note, Crialese calls “L’immensità” a memory-based film for which he needed the necessary time, distance and self-awareness to make. Though not strictly autobiographical, it is based on the director’s personal experience transitioning. As Crialese tells Variety, Adriana’s character is a representation of himself.

It’s film festival season, which, as we articulated yesterday in the rash of first looks, is the time to get the first taste of some of the year’s most anticipated titles. The latest is “L’Immensità” starring Penélope Cruz.

EXCLUSIVE: Coda producer Pathé has concluded a raft of sales on its Cannes slate including for starry French drama Masquerade, Directors’ Fortnight entry Paris Memories and Penelope Cruz title L’Immensita.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentThe Cannes Film Festival is hoping to attract the likes of Baz Luhrmann, George Miller and David Cronenberg for its 75th anniversary. The milestone edition of the sun-dappled celebration of all things cinema may even land a megastar in the form of Tom Cruise, who festival organizers are banking can be convinced to unveil “Top Gun: Maverick,” giving Cannes the kind of blowout premiere that makes the French festival an unforgettable experience.The Cannes Film Festival runs from May 17 to May 28, and the full selection will be revealed in the third week of April.

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s your first look at Oscar winner Penelope Cruz in Italian drama L’immensita, which is in post-production.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentOscar-winning actor Penelope Cruz is set to star in the 1970s-set Italian movie “L’immensita,” to be directed by Emanuele Crialese, the critically acclaimed helmer of “Respiro.”“L’immensita” is represented in international markets by Pathé (“Judy,” “Pain & Glory”) and in the U.S. by CAA.