Paolo Sorrentino Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Roughly two years after his return to Naples for “The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino is heading back to his hometown for a movie that plays on local mythology. The still untitled film is about a woman named Partenope “who bears the name of her city but is neither siren nor myth,” the Oscar-winning auteur has revealed to Variety. In Greek mythology, Parthenope, as she is known in English, is the name of a siren who having failed to entice Odysseus with her songs, cast herself into the sea and drowned. Her body washed up on a symbolic foundational rock where Naples lies. Neapolitans in Italy are also known as “Parthenopeans.”

Lily Moayeri A theme song sets the tone for a series. This is certainly the case for HBO’s awards favorite, “The White Lotus,” which won an Emmy for “Aloha” last year. The jungle sounds, exotic tones, yodels and screams laid over percussive rhythms and high-pitched flutes became instantly identifiable and an echo of the contentious characters vacationing at the Hawaii-based titular resort. Considering how iconic “Aloha” became, changing the theme for the Sicily-based second season was a bold choice. Chilean Canadian composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer drew his original musical ideas from the script and from conversations with series creator Mike White. White “wanted the music to feel like it was boiling under these characters,” de Veer says from his studio in Montréal.

Isn’t she lovely! Zendaya turned heads at the Bulgari jewelry show in Italy on Tuesday, May 16.  

EXCLUSIVE: On the eve of his acting return at the Cannes Film Festival, Johnny Depp has set a buzzy cast for Modi, his first directorial effort in 25 years.

French fashion house Saint Laurent is moving into the world of cinema with an official production banner headed by house creative director Anthony Vaccarello.

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.”

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winner Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty) is due to start filming a new movie in June, we can reveal.

Berlinale Series and one of Disney+’s early big plays in Southern Europe, U.K.-Italian mafia series “The Good Mothers” walked off on Wednesday night with the Berlin Festival’s inaugural Berlinale Series Award.  A large virtue of the series is to come in at the mafia from a novel angle: a real story of women who dare to defy the Italian mob.  The title forms part of the first European slate by new Disney+ international streaming service Star. It tells how bosses at the the Calabrian mob were targeted by a female prosecutor – thanks to the collaboration of three women inside the ‘Ndrangheta organized crime clan. 

Colin Farrell, Paul Mescal and Cate Blanchett were among the stars wearing a blue ribbon at the EE BAFTAS 2023 to show their support for refugees and displaced people around the world. Bill Nighy, Jamie Lee Curtis and Angela Bassett were also brandishing the #WithRefugees ribbon as they stepped out on the red carpet at London's Royal Festival Hall on Sunday. Speaking to the PA news agency about why she wanted to wear the ribbon, supporting actress nominee Jamie Lee said: “My friend Cate Blanchett is asking people to remind us all in the midst of all the season of shiny things that of course there are terrible refugee crises going on all over the world everywhere all at once and we need to do our part.” These blue ribbons sport the hashtag #WithRefugees, in solidarity with all people forced to flee oppression.

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.

The pals on My Brilliant Friend are all grown up.

Iranian director Emad Aleebrahim-Dehkordi’s feature directorial debut A Tale Of Shemroon won the top Étoile d’Or—the Festival Grand Prize – at the Marrakech International Film Festival on Saturday.

Mélita Toscan du Plantier has spent the best part of two decades running Morocco’s Marrakech International Film Festival.

After Netflix-backed feature The Hand Of God, high-end drama The New Pope, and a recent TV adaptation of Italian play Sei Pezzi Facili for state Italian broadcaster Rai, Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino says he wants to reconnect with the cinema theatre.

Indian acting star Ranveer Singh took centre stage at the opening night of the Marrakech International Film Festival on Friday evening, treating spectators to dancing and an impromptu rap session as he received a tribute award.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The Marrakech International Film Festival will make a big comeback this year with a star-studded jury, including Oscar Isaac (“Scenes from a Marriage”), Vanessa Kirby (“The Son”), French actor Tahar Rahim (“The Serpent”), Australian director Justin Kurzel (“Nitram”) and Danish director Susanne Bier (“The Undoing”). Lebanese director and actor Nadine Labaki (“Caparnum”), German actor Diane Kruger (“Inglorious Basterds”) and Moroccan director Laïla Marrakchi (“Marock”) complete the high-profile jury. As previously announced, Paolo Sorrentino, the Oscar-winning director of “The Great Beauty” and “The Hand of God,” will preside over the jury, which spans 10 countries from four continents.

Italian producer Lorenzo Mieli gave a spirited and often humorous rundown of his career as a producer working with directors such as Luca Guadagnino and Paolo Sorrentino during a keynote talk at the London Film Festival Monday.

Italian producer Lorenzo Mieli, whose recent credits include Luca Guadagnino’s Bones And All, Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand Of God and HBO’s hit TV version of My Brilliant Friend, has unveiled plans for a limited series adaptation of Italo Calvino’s classic Italian novel The Baron In The Trees.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Iceland’s leading production company Sagafilm Nordic has teamed with Swiss banner C-FILMS on “Codeword: Rubicon,” an espionage thriller series inspired by the infamous CIA operation involving the firm Crypto AG. Created by Hungarian director-writer Balazs Juszt(“I Love You, Too”), the eight-episode series has been commissioned by broadcaster Swiss Television (SRF). The show chronicles the story of how Crypto AG, a Swiss family-owned company manufacturing code-making machines founded in 1952 by a Swedish mathematician was secretly owned and operated by the CIA in partnership West German Intelligence services. From decades, the Swiss company sold equipment to more than 120 countries, including Iran and nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican, according to the Washington Post. The role of the U.S. and West German intelligence was revealed by the Crypto Leaks.

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran film executive David Kosse is leaving his post as VP of International Film at Netflix amid a restructure of the company’s European content business. Kosse joined the streamer in 2019, overseeing all international film production and acquisitions with a focus on making and acquiring significant non-English language films with global appeal. He is expected to continue to produce for Netflix and others.

There is definitely a trend of late for film directors to take a look in thinly disguised cinematic memoirs of their early influences that shaped the artist and person they have become. Kenneth Branagh with Belfast and Paolo Sorrentino with The Hand Of God did it last year. Of course there is Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, others over the years. Sam Mendes, while not drawing a portrait of his younger self revisits the movie palaces of his youth in another 2022 offering, Empire Of Light, which premiered last weekend at Telluride and will also hit the Toronto International Film Festival. TIFF is also where the man I recently described as the GOAT, Steven Spielberg, has chosen to debut his own story where the names have been changed but the story is  clearly his. The Fabelmans basically chronicling his early Jewish family life and infatuation with making movies  had its World Premiere Saturday night, the first of Spielberg’s directed movies ever to premiere at a film festival. This one seems entirely appropriate, and it has been gestating in the director’s head ever since he and his co-writer Tony Kushner started kicking it around during the making of Lincoln over a decade ago. He says he finally made it primarily as a way to bring his late parents Leah and Arnold (to whom the film is dedicated) somehow back to his life. Movies can do that, and no one knows it better than Steven Spielberg.

Italian director Paolo Sorrentino has been named as jury president of Morocco’s Marrakech International Film Festival, which will run as a physical event for the first time in three years from 11 to 19 November.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Paolo Sorrentino, the Oscar-winning director of “The Great Beauty” and “The Hand of God,” is set to preside over the jury of the Marrakech International Film Festival. The popular fest will make a comeback this year after a pair of editions were canceled due to the pandemic. The upcoming fest will take place Nov. 11-19. Sorrentino’s jury will award the Étoile d’Or to one of 14 feature-length films set to compete at the festival, which aims at showcasing rising filmmakers from around the world. The helmer follows the footsteps of prestigious directors and talents such as Martin Scorsese and Tilda Swinton, who presided over previous years.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Fremantle Group CEO Jennifer Mullin and Fremantle Group COO and CEO Continental Europe Andrea Scrosati are set to deliver a keynote address at Mipcom. The session comes on the heels of Fremantle Group’s recent high-profile acquisitions, including Element Pictures (“Conversations With Friends”), Lux Vide (“Medici”), Dancing Ledge Productions (“The Salisbury Poisonings”) and Eureka (“Holey Moley”). alongside talent partnerships with globally-renowned creatives including Angelina Jolie, Neil Cross, Paolo Sorrentino, Luca Guadagnino, Michael Winterbottom, Jimmy Fallon, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Simon Cowell, Penelope Cruz, Pablo and Juan De Dios Larrain and Cara Delevingne.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Italian film industry is in a paradoxical state: production is booming but box office is bust. Italy’s five features vying for a Venice Golden Lion – plus a myriad more scattered in other Lido sections – reflect cinema Italiano’s current creative vibrancy, if you look at the cream of the crop; however, the average quality is not that great. On the plus side, the country is making a quantum leap forward in terms of the global visibility of its movies just as the number of Italian directors considered bankable in Hollywood, such as Paolo Sorrentino, Luca Guadagnino and Stefano Sollima (“Without Remorse”), to name but a few, is growing.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Italian film industry is in a paradoxical state: production is booming but box office is bust. Italy’s five features vying for a Venice Golden Lion – plus a myriad more scattered in other Lido sections – reflect cinema Italiano’s current creative vibrancy, if you look at the cream of the crop; however, the average quality is not that great. On the plus side, the country is making a quantum leap forward in terms of the global visibility of its movies just as the number of Italian directors considered bankable in Hollywood, such as Paolo Sorrentino, Luca Guadagnino and Stefano Sollima (“Without Remorse”), to name but a few, is growing.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe mob in Italy, besides being an endemic plague, has always been grist for the film and TV mill, with gritty Naples-set show “Gomorrah,” the country’s top TV export, being one recent example.But a major change is underway in how Italian producers and talents are tackling organized crime tropes that were once exclusively imbued in patriarchal pathos. Mob stories coming out of Italy are primarily a woman’s thing these days.

Fire broke out at Italy’s historic Cinecittà Studios on Monday afternoon (August 1), destroying part of an old set depicting Renaissance Florence, which was in the process of being dismantled, and disrupted Netflix film Old Guard 2.  

Rome’s historic Cinecittà Studios on Monday afternoon (Aug. 1) and was extinguished by three teams of firefighters. The fire broke out in the area where a set depicting renaissance Florence was housed and which was being decommissioned, destroying parts of it.

Apple Original Films continues to expand on its diverse film slate as it has landed the rights to Causeway, a new film starring and produced by Academy Award-winner Jennifer Lawrence, and directed by Lila Neugebauer. A24 produced and developed the project. The film will make its global debut in-theaters and on Apple TV+ later this year.

reported, Lawrence and Justine Ciarrocchi produced through their banner Excellent Cadaver. Scott Rudin and Eli Bush, who were attached when the film was announced in 2019, are no longer listed as producers.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentTim Burton is set to receive the 14th Lumiere Award at the Lumiere Festival, a week-long celebration of heritage movies and film masters held in Lyon, France, in October. Headed by Cannes Film Festival’s chief Thierry Fremaux, the Lumiere Festival previously honored Jane Campion, the Dardenne Brothers, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Jane Fonda, Wong Kar-wai, Catherine Deneuve, Pedro Almodóvar, Ken Loach, Gérard Depardieu and Milos Forman“From his first movies and early successes, Burton establishes his universe, skilfully blending his intensely personal expressivity with novelistic lyricism and pictorial references, traversing the entire history of art,” said the Lumière Festival in a statement.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentContent giant Fremantle is making a big push into feature films as it expands its horizons, says group COO Andrea Scrosati who is also the multi-pronged company’s continental Europe chief.At last year’s Venice fest Fremantle, known for talent shows “X-Factor” and “American Idol” and TV series such as “The Mosquito Coast,” was flying the flag with several pics including Paolo Sorrentino’s prizewinning and Oscar-nommed “The Hand of God.” More recently at Cannes, Fremantle-produced film “The Eight Mountains” scored the jury prize. All of which, Scrosati boasts, is pretty good for just the past nine months.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian playwright Stefano Massini’s “The Lehman Trilogy,” which just won five Tony Awards including the prize for best play, is set to become a high-end TV series to be produced by Italy’s Fandango and The Apartment, the outfits behind HBO’s Elena Ferrante adaptation “My Brilliant Friend.”The TV project, originated by Italian producer Domenico Procacci’s Fandango, to adapt into a series the epic drama written by Massini that charts the history of one of the financial institutions that helped spark the 2008 recession, has now been boarded by producer Lorenzo Mieli’s shingle The Apartment, the Fremantle-owned company behind Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-nominated “The Hand of God” and his “The Young Pope” and “The New Pope” shows. Fandango and Mieli previously collaborated on “My Brilliant Friend” for HBO and Italy’s RAI.Having Fremantle’s The Apartment on board gives “The Lehman Trilogy” TV series adaptation considerably more heft, though a commissioning broadcaster or streamer remains to be found.Mieli in a statement called “Lehman Trilogy” – which besides best play won Tony Awards for Sam Mendes’ direction and for the lead performance of Simon Russell Beale, among other prizes – “a marvelous and contemporary text” on the “intrinsic failures of a certain form of capitalism.”The chief of the Fremantle-owned company also noted that it’s rare for an Italian play to be celebrated outside national borders.

Manori Ravindran International EditorThe Cannes Film Festival invited eight male directors for an hours-long symposium on the future of cinema on Tuesday — a session that raised uneasy questions for those working with streaming services, and paid no attention to the lack of female filmmakers on the panel.Moderated by Cannes festival director Thierry Fremaux and Canal+ correspondent and festival associate Didier Allouch, guests included Guillermo del Toro, Claude Lelouch, Costa Gavras, Gaspard Noé, Paolo Sorrentino, Nadav Lapid, Mathieu Kassovitz and Robin Campillo. The directors were interviewed individually, with Del Toro present on stage throughout.The session — which ran for two and a half hours, with speakers remaining a mystery until the event was underway — is one of two forums about cinema organized by the festival.