Roberto Rossellini Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

The historic Barberini Cinema in Rome reopens its doors to the public this Thursday for the first time in two-and-a-half years after an ambitious multi-million-euro refurbishment.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian director Paolo Taviani, who with his late brother Vittorio formed the revered filmmaking duo that in 1977 won the Cannes Palme d’Or for “Padre Padrone,” has died at 92. Taviani died on Thursday in a Rome clinic after suffering from a short illness, according to Italian media reports. “Paolo Taviani, a great maestro of Italian cinema, leaves us,” Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian actor Sandra Milo, known for memorable roles in Federico Fellini’s “8½” and “Juliet of the Spirits” as well as her work with Roberto Rossellini, died on Monday at her Rome home. She was 90.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Sting, Isabella Rossellini, and U.S. director Roger Ross Williams (“The Apollo,” “Life Animated”) came out to support the recent New York launch of Matteo Garrone’s Venice prizewinning immigration epic “Io Capitano” at the Museum of Modern Art. The movie – which is Italy’s now shortlisted Oscar candidate for best international feature film – narrates the Homeric journey of two two Senegalese teenagers, Seydou and Moussa, who decide to leave Dakar to reach Europe in pursuit of a better life.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Roberto Benigni, whose film “Life Is Beautiful” won three Oscars in 1999, has come out of the woodwork to support Matteo Garrone’s Golden Globe-nominated “Io Capitano,” which is Italy’s current Oscar candidate for best international feature film. The revered yet reclusive Italian actor/director, whose most recent big screen role is playing Geppetto in Matteo Garrone’s hit 2019 live-action adaptation of “Pinocchio,” is clearly a big fan of “Io Capitano” (the title translates to “Me Captain”). The movie narrates the Homeric journey of two young African men, Seydou and Moussa, who decide to leave Dakar to reach Europe.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian producer, director, and film and TV industry pioneer Renzo Rossellini is being honored with the Locarno Film Festival’s lifetime achievement award. The Swiss fest dedicated to indie cinema will pay tribute to the consummate filmmaker and renaissance man – who as a producer shepherded works by master directors such as Federico Fellini, Lina Wertmüller, Werner Herzog and Francis Ford Coppola – with a screening of Fellini’s 1980 work “City of Women” on its 8,000 seat open-air Piazza Grande venue on Aug. 10, followed by an onstage conversation the next day. Rossellini who also worked as assistant director for his father Roberto and, among others, François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol – and is a director in his own right – “Has never ceased his quest to pass on his knowledge of the cinema, teaching generations of students and cineastes with passion and commitment,” the fest said in a statement.

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.

Lily Aldridge flirts with a bit of fringe on her outfit as she arrives for Bulgari’s B.Zero1 event held at The Standard High Line during New York Fashion Week: The Shows on Wednesday night (September 8) in New York City.

It immediately says something about the differences between Jean Cocteau’s brilliant 1928 dramatic monologue The Human Voice — as first put on screen in 1948 by Roberto Rossellini with the immortal Anna Magnani — and Pedro Almodovar’s new version of it starring Tilda Swinton, that the latter features six costume changes within the first six minutes, while the original was content with a single drab bit of wardrobe.

Alberto Lattuada, the Italian filmmaker who generously supplied Federico Fellini’s first director’s credit for 1950’s “Variety Lights,” once claimed that he “invented Fellini.” His peer, Massimo Mida, disputed this, noting that if anyone invented il Maestro, it was legendary Italian auteur Roberto Rossellini. Respectfully, they’re both wrong.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentHigh-profile doc “The Rossellinis,” described as a tongue-in-cheek autobiographical look at the descendants of iconic Italian director Roberto Rossellini’s extended family, is among the standout world premieres in the lineup of the upcoming Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week.Directed by Roberto Rossellini’s grandson, Alessandro Rossellini, the doc is unspooling out of competition and will close the separately-run Venice section that will feature seven