Mario Martone Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Italian director Mario Martone said that his latest film Nostalgia is very similar to his 1995 film L’amore molesto (Troubling Love).During a panel discussion at Deadline’s Contenders Film: New York event, Martone explained the connection between adapting Elena Ferrante’s first novel L’amore molesto and Ermanno Rea’s book Nostalgia for the big screen.  “In L’amore molesto we followed this woman,” Martone said. “We walk alongside her, and we enter into her past.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Rome-based sales agency True Colours has added Edoardo de Angelis’ “Comandante,” which opens the Venice Film Festival, to its slate. The film, which plays in the main competition section, stars Pierfrancesco Favino (“World War Z,” “Angels & Demons”).

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.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Adrian Wootton, CEO of Film London and the British Film Commission, will preside over the jury of the Malta Film Commission’s inaugural Mediterrane Film Festival celebrating movies from the Mediterranean Basin. The fest, which will take place in Valletta, Malta’s capital, and other locations on the island between June 25-30, will showcase films from each of the MED9 nations, an alliance of nine Mediterranean and Southern European Union member states. It comprises: Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. Besides Wotton the other jury members are “Triangle Of Sadness”actor Zlatko Burić; Cypriot filmmaker Tonia Mishiali; French actor and director Vahina Giocante; Greek producer Amanda Livanou; Italian journalist Boris Sollazzo; Maltese critic Mario Azzopardi; Portuguese journalist and programmer José Vieira Mendes; Slovenian journalist Tina Poglajen; and Spanish programmer Carlos Reviriego.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Veteran auteur Mario Martone, whose Naples-set drama “Nostalgia” launched last year from Cannes, has quite a lot in common with Massimo Troisi, Italy’s beloved late comic actor-director who is best known internationally as the star of Oscar-winning film “Il Postino.” Which is why Martone was well-suited to direct the multi-layered doc about Troisi’s legacy “Somebody Down There Likes Me” that is screening in the Berlinale Special sidebar. For starters, they are both Neapolitan, and were born only a few years a part. Troisi – who in “Il Postino” played the simple postman who rides his bicycle on a sandy Italian island to deliver mail to his sole client, the Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda – died tragically of congenital heart failure at age 41 in June 1994, the day after “Il Postino” finished shooting at Rome’s Cinecittà studios.

EXCLUSIVE: Italian director Mario Martone, who has enjoyed prominence on the festival awards circuit over the past year with Oscar submission and Cannes title Nostalgia, is at the Berlinale this year with his passion project Somebody Down There Likes Me.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian director Daniele Luchetti, who most recently helmed the third season of RAI/HBO’s Elena Ferrante series “My Brilliant Friend,” is working on a new film titled “Confidenza” (“Trust”) toplining Elio Germano. Luchetti previously directed Germano in the drama “Our Life” in a role that in 2015 won the actor top honors in Cannes. Vision Distribution is launching sales on “Trust” at the European Film Market. In “Trust” Giordano (first look image, above) plays a teacher in his forties named Pietro Vella who works in a rundown Roman high school. He strongly believes he can help students strive for a better future and Teresa, and bright and rebellious student, is totally taken with him and his lessons. Then, a few years later, they meet up again and get romantically entangled. Teresa insists they must share their deepest secrets to bond for life. But as soon as Pietro really opens up, the relationship ends.

EXCLUSIVE: In October, Breaking Glass Pictures acquired Mario Martone’s Nostalgia, Italy’s entry for the Best International Feature Oscar for North America, and today we have a first look at the official trailer (check it out above). 

Deadline on Monday launched its streaming site for Contenders Film: International, the annual awards-season showcase of the buzziest movies in the hunt for the International Feature Oscar.

The first calendar year to see the physical return of almost every major film festival since the pandemic, 2022 has been a huge morale booster for filmmakers from all around the globe. And now, with the third edition of Deadline’s Contenders Film: International kicking off Saturday at 8 a.m. PT, that outreach expands even further: leaving a carbon-free footprint, our online event will showcase the myriad films that soared at Sundance, beguiled Berlin, captivated Cannes, thrilled Telluride, vitalized Venice and touched Toronto, all the while shining a spotlight on the must-see movies that might have flown under your radar.

Deadline over the weekend kicked off movie awards season with Contenders Film: New York, a showcase for Big Apple audiences and voters highlighting some of the year’s buzziest movies so far. The event at Manhattan’s The Times Center featured eight films, with casts and creatives joining in for panel discussions about the stories behind their work.

The stars and creatives of several buzzy films turned out November 5 for Contenders Film: New York, Deadline’s annual daylong awards-season kickoff event. Click through a photo gallery of arrivals above.

EXCLUSIVE: In a deal with True Colours, Breaking Glass Pictures has acquired North American rights to Mario Martone’s Nostalgia, Italy’s entry for the Best International Feature Oscar. The drama debuted in the Cannes competition last May, and Breaking Glass will continue its festival run in the U.S. through the end of the year with theatrical rollout set for early 2023.

‘Power Of The Dog’ Producer Tanya Seghatchian To Lead London Film Festival Jury

Mario Martone’s Cannes competition title Nostalgia has been selected to represent Italy in the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian auteur Mario Martone, who was recently in Cannes with “Nostalgia,” is set to direct a high-profile doc about the late Massimo Troisi, one of Italy’s most beloved comic actors who starred in the Oscar-winning film “Il Postino.”Troisi, who played the simple postman who rides his bicycle on the sandy terrain of an Italian island to deliver mail to his sole client, the Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda, died tragically of congenital heart failure at age 41 in June 1994, the day after “Il Postino” finished shooting at Rome’s Cinecittà studios.The film directed by Michael Radford, which also starred Maria Grazia Cucinotta and Philippe Noiret, became an arthouse sensation one year later when it opened in the U.S. distributed by Miramax.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItaly’s True Colours has sold Mario Martone’s Naples-set Cannes competition drama “Nostalgia” to Curzon Film for the U.K. and Ireland, among other new territories.The deal, negotiated by True Colours sales manager Francesca Tiberi and Curzon acquisitions executive Eleonora Pesci, marks the first partnership between the companies.At the Italian Screenings market event recently held in Lecce, Southern Italy, the Rome-based sales company also sealed fresh deals on several other films, including pre-sales on upcoming Locarno title “Delta,” which is a revenge drama with a contemporary Western vibe.Martone’s “Nostalgia,” which has been praised by Variety critic Guy Lodge as the prolific Italian auteur’s “most rewarding film in years,” stars Pierfrancesco Favino as the middle-aged Felice Lasco, who returns to the bustling port city after having lived in Egypt for 40 years.

Unlike most films and series set in Naples, “Nostalgia” really does show us the city like we’ve never seen it before: from the melancholy perspective of someone who left forty years ago. Italian director Mario Martone makes the astute and powerful decision not to make this immediately obvious, opening the film with a stunning sequence showing a man (Pierfrancesco Favino) silently arrive in and explore the city at night.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentProlific Italian film and stage director Mario Martone, who is a Venice aficionado, is back in competition in Cannes 27 years after his Elena Ferrante adaptation “L’amore molesto” (“Troubling Love”) launched in competition from the Croisette in 1995. And there is a close connection between these two films that delve deep into the entrails of Martone’s native Naples.In his well-received “Nostalgia”, praised by Variety as Martone’s “most rewarding film in years,” ace actor Pierfrancesco Favino plays the middle-aged Felice Lasco, who returns to the bustling port city after having lived in Egypt for 40 years. Once back, he is caught up in memories of a distant life spent in his hometown, as his criminal youth slowly catches up with him.

For decades, Italian filmmakers dominated Cannes.If the 1960s saw Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Luchino Visconti reign supreme, somehow the 1970s were even richer. Elio Petri and Francesco Rosi won shared top prizes in 1972, while for two consecutive years later that decade the Taviani brothers and then Ermanno Olmi hoisted Palmes across a border that sits just 40 miles away.This year’s lone competition title from an Italian director (the only other Italian language film, “The Eight Mountains,” comes courtesy of two Belgians), Mario Martone’s “Nostalgia” will probably not break that particular drought, but the Neapolitan director can take solace in another modest honor: Telling a story about mothers and sons, about gangsters and priests, and about a peculiar kind of longing for the past in a place where little has changed for hundreds of years, “Nostalgia” is a nigh perfect candidate to wave il Tricolore.Taking a thin amount of plot and stretching it as far and wide as it can go, the film itself is far from perfect, but it does benefit from “The Traitor” star Pierfrancesco Favino’s terrific lead performance as a man who learns the hard way that there’s no going home again.After forty years abroad, Felice (Favino, of course) returns to his native Naples a stranger in a familiar land.

Nostalgia has seldom looked grittier, or more treacherous, than it does in Mario Martone’s eponymous new film. The Italian director splashes his teaming, boisterous, unruly native city of Naples across the screen in fulsome fashion in telling the story of a man who left as a teenager but, some 40 years later, is drawn back into its sinister embrace.

Guy Lodge Film CriticHometowns forget us quickly when we leave them, even if some of the people left behind do not. Architecture, infrastructure and whole communities can change with scant warning or regard for our memories, or our bearings when we return.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian actor-turned-director Andrea Di Stefano, who helmed well-received U.S. indie thrillers “Escobar: Paradise Lost,” with Benicio del Toro, and “The Informer,” is set to make “L’Ultima Notte di Amore,” his Italian-language debut.Universal Pictures Intl., Focus Features, and Italy’s Vision Distribution have worldwide distribution rights on the pic, which toplines Pierfrancesco Favino (Cannes competition title “Nostalgia” from Mario Martone).The film’s title, which translates as “The Last Night of Love,” is a play on words.

EXCLUSIVE: Deadline has your first look trailer at Cannes competition title Nostalgia, directed by Italian helmer Mario Martone.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentAs they celebrate being held as a physical event, Italy’s upcoming 67th David di Donatello Awards epitomize the ongoing shift in generations and genres that is underway in Cinema Italiano. Leading the pack this year are seasoned auteur Paolo Sorrentino’s most personal film “The Hand of God” and young helmer Gabriele Mainetti’s second feature, the elegant effects-laden historical fantasy “Freaks Out,” which is set in 1943 Rome and involves four “freaks” working in a circus when the Eternal City is bombed by Allied Forces.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItaly’s True Colours has taken world sales on Italian director Mario Martone’s Cannes competition entry “Nostalgia,” starring Pierfrancesco Favino, who is known to Cannes audiences as the protagonist of Marco Bellocchio’s 2019 drama “The Traitor.”Set in Martone’s native Naples, “Nostalgia” sees Favino play the middle-aged Felice Lasco, who returns to the bustling port city after having lived in Egypt for 40 years. Once back, he drowns into the memories of a distant life he spent in hometown.Martone will be returning to a Cannes competition berth with “Nostalgia” 27 years after his Elena Ferrante adaptation “L’amore molesto” (“Troubling Love”) launched in competition from the Croisette in 1995.

Main Competition“Holy Spider,” Ali Abbasi“The Almond Tree,” Valeria Bruni Tedeschi“Crimes of the Future,” David Cronenberg“Tori and Lokita,” Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne“Stars at Noon,” Claire Denis“Brother and Sister,” Arnaud Desplechin“Close,” Lukas Dhont“Armageddon Time,” James Gray“Broker,” Hirokazu Kore-eda“Nostalgia,” Mario Martone“RMN,” Cristian Mungiu“Triangle of Sadness,” Ruben Ostlund“Decision to Leave,” Park Chan-wook“Showing Up,” Kelly Reichardt“Leila’s Brothers,” Saeed Roustaee“Boy From Heaven,” Tarik Saleh“Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” Kirill Serebrennikov“Hi-Han,” Jerzy SkolimowskiUn Certain Regard“Les Pires,” Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret“Burning Days,” Emin Alper“Metronom,” Alexandru Belc“All the People I’ll Never Be,” Davy Chou“Sick of Myself,” Kristoffer Borgli“Domingo and the Midst,” Ariel Escalante Meza“Plan 75,” Hayakawa Chie“Beast,” Riley Keough and Gina Gammell“Corsage,” Marie Kreutzer“Butterfly Vision,” Maksim Nakonechnyi“Godland,” Hlynur Palmason“Rodeo,” Lola Quivoron“Joyland,” Saim Sadiq“The Stranger,” Thomas M. Wright“The Silent Twins,” Agnieszka SmocynskaOut of Competition “Elvis,” Baz Luhrmann“Top Gun: Maverick,” Joseph Kosinski“Three Thousand Years of Longing,” George Miller“Masquerade,” Nicholas Bedos“November,” Cedric Jiminez“Z,” Michel Hazanavicius (opening film) Special Screenings“All That Breathes,” Shaunak Sen“The Natural History of Destruction,” Sergei Loznitsa“Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind,” Ethan CoenMidnight Screenings“Hunt,” Lee Jung-jae“Moonage Daydream,” Brett Morgen“Fumer Fait Tousser,” Quentin DupieuxCannes Premiere“Non Frangins,” Rachid Bouchareb“Dodo,” Panos H.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe Venice Film Festival is exerting a positive impact on the Italian box office where Mario Martone’s “The King of Laughter” (“Qui Rido Io”) got a boost over the weekend from its Lido launch that landed the Toni Servillo-starrer in the number two spot after Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.”Italy’s box office results this past weekend saw “King of Laughter,” in which Servillo plays Neapolitan theater luminary Eduardo Scarpetta, score

The Great Beauty and The Hand Of God star Toni Servillo plays Neopolitan actor and playwright Eduardo Scarpetta in The King Of Laughter (Qui Rido Io), Mario Martone’s latest Venice Film Festival competition premiere. An affectionate, theatrical portrait set in the early 20th century, it culminates in an historic court case, but the build-up is leisurely to a fault.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian auteur Mario Martone is a Venice aficionado. He was recently in competition on the Lido in 2018 with “Capri Revolution,” and then again in 2019 with “The Mayor of Rione Sanità,” a contemporary adaptation of the play about organized crime by late Neapolitan playwright Eduardo De Filippo.

Guy Lodge Film Critic“I’ve never liked artists who have more fun offstage than onstage,” says Italian comic star Eduardo Scarpetta (played by Toni Servillo) in “The King of Laughter.” If that was indeed Scarpetta’s belief, he would have thoroughly approved of Mario Martone’s big, brash, garishly frosted celebration cake of a biopic, in which everyone involved seems to be having the very best of times, tumbling onto screen with the breathless energy of a community theater crew given a very

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentFilm Movement has acquired U.S.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian sales company True Colours has secured a seven-title slate of pics premiering in Venice across various sections, including Mario Martone’s competition entry “The King of Laughter” and high-profile doc “Django and Django: Sergio Corbucci Unchained,” in which Quentin Tarantino talks about the influential Spaghetti Westerns director.Martone (“Capri Revolution”), who is a Lido aficionado, will once again vye for the Golden Lion with “King of

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentTrue Colours has taken international sales on Italian auteur Mario Martone’s new film “The King of Laughter” (“Qui Rido Io”) starring Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”) as popular and prolific early 20th century Neapolitan actor and playwright Eduardo Scarpetta.Martone’s latest three works “Leopardi,” “Capri Revolution” and “The Mayor of Rione Sanità” all launched from the Venice competition.