Paolo Sorrentino Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

While this year’s BAFTA nominations offer up a more balanced split between streamers and traditional distributors and studios than in recent years, Netflix still remains the dominant streamer in the 2021 race.

Editors note: When we think of Robert De Niro and Italy, it’s easiest to focus on the Sicilian town of Corleone, because of his Oscar-winning turn in The Godfather: Part II. But De Niro wanted to focus on Naples, which director Paolo Sorrentino brought to life in The Hand of God. De Niro was so moved, he wrote a guest column for Deadline on why the film touched him so dearly.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentAs we enter the final countdown to the Feb. 8 Oscar nominations announcement, Isabella Rossellini is clearly rooting for Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” which is Italy’s candidate for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and among the shortlisted titles.To help promote the pic with Academy voters, Rossellini engaged in an online chat with the director and young Italian actor Filippo Scotti, who plays Sorrentino’s alter-ego Fabietto in the pic. She also wore a gold horn amulet that belonged to her father, the late great Italian master Roberto Rossellini, for good luck.Here are edited excerpts of the conversation, to which Variety has been given exclusive access.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItaly’s True Colours has taken international sales on “Perfect Strangers” director Paolo Genovese’s new movie, a comedy drama titled “The First Day of My Life.”The Rome-based sales company will be launching pre-sales at the upcoming online EFM market on Genovese’s latest concept pic, which has echoes of Frank Capra’s classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”Based on Genovese’s novel of the same title, which was a bestseller in Italy, “The First Day of My Life” revolves around four characters on the brink of taking their lives who make a pact with a stranger with supernatural powers, played by “The Great Beauty” star Toni Servillo. The mystery man gives them a chance to travel forward in time to see for a week how their friends and relatives would react to their deaths and what the world would be like without them.

When Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino reached his milestone 50th birthday, he decided the occasion was ripe with the potential to break away from many of the enduring ways he made distinctive, much lauded projects (including Academy Award winner The Great Beauty, Youth, Il Divo, The Consequences of Love and The Young Pope) and experiment with new cinematic and storytelling techniques. And for his next film, The Hand of God, he decided to plumb the depths of his own past as well.

EXCLUSIVE: Amid its continuing drive to ramp up local feature productions, Netflix has a host of ambitious titles coming out of Europe in the next year. Already, Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-shortlisted The Hand Of God launched on the service in late 2021, hitting the Top 10 in 11 countries, while ahead are films from such directors as Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Louis Leterrier, Romain Gavras, Edward Berger, Roar Uthaug and Oscar winner Sébastian Lelio, among others. Currently in production for later down the pike are J.A. Bayona’s Society Of The Snow and the Spanish feature spinoff of Netflix hit series Bird Box.

Kate Aurthur editorFor Variety’s FYC Fest, screenwriters Aaron Sorkin (“Being the Ricardos”), Paolo Sorrentino (“The Hand of God”), Adam McKay (“Don’t Look Up”), Tracey Scott Wilson (“Respect”) and Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”) gathered virtually to discuss their own individual movies, as well as the state of the film business.McKay kicked off the conversation by talking about how he’d adjusted “Don’t Look Up” — his Netflix comedy-tragedy about a comet hurtling toward Earth — because of COVID-19,

Going home has been a common theme for filmmakers over the past few years. Alfonso Cuaron revisited his childhood in Mexico City with “Roma.” Kenneth Branagh has done the same with his appropriately titled Oscar contender “Belfast.” And now, Paolo Sorrentino has given his birthplace, Naples, Italy, the same treatment in “The Hand of God,” Italy’s submission for the International Film Oscar.

Talking Heads frontman David Byrne before he filmed This Must Be The Place.Starring Sean Penn and Frances McDormand, the 2011 drama film follows wealthy former rock star Cheyenne who, bored in his retirement, ventures out to find a Nazi war criminal who tormented his father.The film, named after the Talking Heads song, was soundtracked by Byrne.

After Paulo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God” debuted at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, media and attendees were buzzing about the film’s star, newcommer Filippo Scotti. The 21-year-old actor portrays Sorrentino at a crucial moment in the filmmaker’s life and has a natural charisma that had many referring to him as the “Italian Timothée Chalamet.” Speaking partially through a translator last month, Scotti appreciates the sentiment but is hoping the world takes him on his own merits.

Paolo Sorrentino said the experience of turning 50 two years ago helped encourage him to depict the experiences of his youth onscreen. That led to the Netflix film The Hand of God.

Paolo Sorrentino's films can be overwrought, grotesque and uneven but they are rarely not alive.His latest, “The Hand of God,” is a catalog of wonders — of miracles both banal and eternal. The glittering night vista of the Naples harbor.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe Italian theatrical release of Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God” is sparking protests from some of the country’s exhibitors who claim the hand of Netflix is cutting them out of the hot title’s big screen bonanza.“Hand of God,” a Netflix original film produced by Fremantle’s The Apartment, went out on 250 screens in Italy on Wednesday via local distributor Lucky Red, marking the pic’s first theatrical outing, roughly three weeks before its Dec.

Paolo Sorrentino returns to the Oscar fray eight years after he bagged the International Feature prize for The Great Beauty. His latest film, The Hand of God, has been one of the buzz films of the fall festivals, taking home the Venice Grand Jury Prize and also playing at Telluride and London.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentPaolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God” kicked off its theatrical rollout with a gala event Tuesday evening in the director’s native Naples, the city to which he returned after 20 years to shoot his most personal film.“I am as excited as I was at my wedding,” said Sorrentino ahead of the red carpet screening in the central Cinema Metropolitan attended by some 400 guests including Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini and players from the 1980s SSC

For years now, people have considered Paolo Sorrentino one of the best filmmakers working today. And it would appear by the rave reviews from this year’s Venice Film Festival, “The Hand of God” might just be one of his best films yet.

e got off to a slow startthis year, but it has now heated up with the submissions of crowd-pleasing films from Norway and Denmark, movies from past winners from Italy and Iran and a French submission that could shake up the race even if it horrifies as many voters as it thrills.The latest big-name submission came on Tuesday, when the Italian selection committee announced the choice of “The Hand of God,” an autobiographical fantasia from director Paolo Sorrentino.

Italy has submitted Paolo Sorrentino’s Venice Grand Jury Prize winner The Hand Of God to represent the country for the Oscars’ International Feature Film category. The selection marks a natural continuation on the lauded title’s trajectory.

Naman Ramachandran The Italian Cultural Institute in London, La Biennale di Venezia and Curzon have teamed for ‘From Venice to London,’ a season where seven films from Venezia 78 will be shown at Curzon cinemas across London from Nov. 18-22.“The Lost Daughter,” directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal will open the season and “The Hand of God,” directed by Paolo Sorrentino, will close it.

The Venice Film Festival, the Italian Cultural Institute in London, and exhibitor Curzon are tying up on London screening series From Venice To London (18 – 22 November).

Lise Pedersen Multi-award winning Italian director Paolo Sorrentino has been speaking openly about his most intimate film to date, “The Hand of God,” at the Lumière Festival in Lyon, where his upcoming Netflix film received its French premiere.Speaking at a masterclass at the century-old Comédie Odéon theater, Sorrentino confided: “I am first and foremost an observer. It’s what I like doing.

France at the Oscars in 2022.“Happening's” Golden Lion win surprised many simply because of the high-profile competition which included the likes of Jane Campion and Paolo Sorrentino. Hers was a subtle film about a college student in France in the 1960s who is seeking to terminate an unexpected pregnancy and stars a relative unknown, Anamaria Vartolomei.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentAfter beating the odds last year by hosting a physical edition in the midst of the pandemic, Cannes’ chief Thierry Fremaux’s Lumière festival kicked off in Lyon with great fanfare and prestigious guests including Paolo Sorrentino, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos, Valeria Golino, Joachim Trier, Rossy de Palma, Melanie Laurent and Edouard Baer.

Jessica Kiang An event like the Festival Lumière, with its wide remit that sees classic films and retrospectives rub shoulders with the very latest and chic-est new titles, is always going to boast a thicket of hidden connections and surprising collisions.

With Venice Grand Jury Prize winner The Hand Of God, Paolo Sorrentino wanted to make a change. “For 20 years, I did a precise kind of movie and I was a little bit tired about that… When I turned 50, I thought it was the right moment to change everything, to change the producer, the crew, the tone, the style. Even the cinema can run the risk to be a routine,” he told Deadline’s Contenders Film: London event today.

Clayton Davis The honorees for the Middleburg Film Festival have been announced for its upcoming four-day festival.

Selome Hailu editorVariety has released this year’s list of 10 Screenwriters to Watch. A conversation with the honorees will take place on Oct.

Audrey Diwan’s 1960s abortion drama “L’Evenement” (“Happening”) won the Golden Lion at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, while the runner up honor went to Paolo Sorrentino’s semi-autobiographical “The Hand of God.”

Marta Balaga Canadian actor Sarah Gadon told Variety Saturday she was “really happy” with the decisions of Venice’s main jury this year, on which she served alongside Bong Joon-ho, Saverio Costanzo, Virginie Efira, Cynthia Erivo, Alexander Nanau and last year’s Golden Lion winner Chloé Zhao.The jury gave the Golden Lion to French director Audrey Diwan’s powerful abortion drama “Happening,” while Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama “The Hand of God” took

Are you old enough to remember when Netflix was an underdog in international film festivals? When trepidation towards the future of film distribution was enough to keep streaming titles from winning in major film competitions? With all due respect to the Cannes Film Festival, those days certainly seem to be coming to an end. The Venice Film Festival has announced its lineup of winners, and Netflix has made quite a show for itself in the major categories.

Audrey Diwan’s “L’Evenement” (“Happening”) has won the Golden Lion at the 78th Venice International Film Festival.

Zoe Saldana and Marco Perego make a beautiful couple.

Naman Ramachandran The 65th British Film Institute (BFI) London Film Festival has revealed the eight films in its official competition.The competition titles include a few films currently playing at the Venice Film Festival, including Michelangelo Frammartino’s “Il Buco” (Italy-Germany-France), Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God” (Italy) Harry Wootliff’s “True Things” (U.K.) and Michel Franco’s “Sundown” (Mexico-France-Sweden).

Happy Friday International Insiders. Tom Grater here with the week’s top international news. To get this sent to your inbox every Friday, sign up here.

The BFI London Film Festival has confirmed an eight-strong lineup for its Official Competition this year. The movies are:

Coming on the heels of the Venice debut this week of Paolo Sorrentino’s memories of Growing up in 1980’s Naples is a trip back in time for yet another celebrated director, and of course actor, Kenneth Branagh who revisits the memories of being  nine years old and growing up in Belfast, Northern Ireland right in the middle of troubles breaking out between the Protestants and the Catholics that so ravaged the country.