Submarine Boards Italian Fashion World Doc ‘Milano’ With Sharon Stone, Samuel L. Jackson, Frances McDormand, Launches Sales at EFM – Watch Clip (EXCLUSIVE)

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Warning: This story contains a graphic image. David Cronenberg has made a short film featuring female wax corpses made during the 18th century in Italy. The wax figures were intended for medical studies, in order to train surgeons prior to operating on real bodies. The Canadian director, known as the father of body horror thanks to films such as “The Fly,” “eXistenZ,” and his latest pic “A History of Violence,” has been recruited by Italian fashion house Prada to shoot the short film. It features anatomical wax works from the La Specola museum in Florence, one of the oldest scientific museums in Europe. The museum is currently being renovated and is closed to the public.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie are shooting flight scenes for “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two” on a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Adriatic Sea, which Cruise reached by helicopter from the Italian port city of Bari, where he jetted into on Saturday. Confirming Italian press reports, the head of the Apulia Film Commission Antonio Parente told Variety on Thursday that Cruise flew into Bari, which is the Apulia region’s capital city, on Saturday Feb. 25. After spending the night in Bari’s 5-star Hotel Delle Nazioni, Cruise on Sunday hopped on a private helicopter from the Bari airport to go shoot scenes for the eighth “Mission Impossible” installment on an U.S. aircraft carrier “which is probably the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush, but we are not sure,” Parente said.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Prior to becoming an actor, Giancarlo Giannini, who on March 6 will be getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, studied electronic engineering, a skill he’s been known to put to good use even on movie sets. “I was meant to start working on the first artificial satellites, or on the first computers at IBM,” the Italian film and theater thesp recalls. But then Giannini enrolled in acting school and soon was given major roles, first by Franco Zeffirelli and then by Lina Wertmüller, with whom he went on to make nine movies that brought them both international fame. “I owe it to Lina that I will be getting the star. The only other Italian actor who has one is Rudolph Valentino,” he notes.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s 2,500 dubbing industry workers are on a protracted strike demanding higher wages, less frenzied work conditions, and protection against digital dubbing devices, which they claim threaten their jobs. The country’s unions representing Italian voice actors and dubbing directors have been on the war path since Feb. 21. On Tuesday they announced the strike will continue for at least another week. The unions are demanding that standard contract wages that have remained unvaried for the past 15 years be raised. But they are also clamoring for the right to be able to work at a slower pace, claiming that “current production rhythms are not conducive to [good] quality of work and of life,” according to a statement issued by Italian dubbers’ union ANAD.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Khaby Lame, the Senegalese-born Italian social media personality who is the world’s most followed content creator on TikTok, has joined “Italia’s Got Talent” as a juror. Lame is a former factory worker in Italy who after being laid off from his job in March 2020 launched a TikTok channel in which he performed absurdly comic skits that went wildly viral. The TikTok star whose comedy bits started with ironic takes on “life hacks” relies on iconic facial expressions and body language in videos delivered without speaking so that the humor is understood universally. The short-form comedy video virtuoso, who has more than 154 million followers on TikTok, will now be making his debut as an Italian TV personality on the hit talent show.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent In the first few months of 2020, huge swathes of Northern Italy were hit by the COVID-19 virus. Soon the death toll in the city of Bergamo reached such heights that an army convoy had to transport coffins out because its cemeteries and crematoriums were full. In his powerful doc “The Walls of Bergamo,” which world premieres on Friday in Berlin’s Encounters section, prominent Italian documentary director Stefano Savona – whose “Samouni Road” won the Golden Eye prize in 2018 at Cannes – and a team of student filmmakers take the pulse of the city when it is on the brink of collapse and, subsequently, as Bergamo begins its healing and recovery process.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian animation auteur Enzo D’Alò – whose globally known works include “The Blue Arrow,” “Lucky and Zorba,” “Momo” and “Opopomoz” – is back with Roddy Doyle adaptation “A Greyhound Of a Girl” launching from the Berlin Film Festival’s Generation Kplus section. “Greyhound of a Girl,” which is D’Alò’s first English-language film, is about four generations of Irish women who embark on a car journey. One of them is dead, one of them is dying, one is driving, and the fourth is twelve-year old Dublin school girl Mary O’Hara. Mary shares her grandmother’s rebel spirit and love of cooking and is bravely dealing with the fact that her granny’s days are drawing to a close.

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.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent New Disney+ original series “The Good Mothers,” which provides a fresh female take on the Calabrian mob, marks a case of truly organic collaboration between the U.K. and Italy to ensure that a great story didn’t risk losing an iota of authenticity.  The show, which is competing in the “Berlinale Series” section, depicts the Calabrian mob through the prism of three daring women inside the ‘Ndrangheta organized crime clan who collaborated with a female prosecutor and withstood the consequences of their attempt to escape its iron grip. It is produced produced by Juliette Howell, Tessa Ross and Harriet Spencer for London’s House Productions, which originated the project, and by Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Gangarossa for Rome’s Wildside, a Fremantle company, which helped to firmly root the story in its Calabrian context.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Paris-based Italian director Giacomo Abbruzzese says making the Berlin Film Festival competition cut with his first feature, “Disco Boy,” which toplines German star Franz Rogowski (“Passages,” ”Undine”), is “certainly a dream come true.” But he also points out that his remarkable debut was a long time coming.  A graduate of several film schools, including France’s prestigious Le Fresnoy, Abbruzzese started developing “Disco Boy” in 2013 following an encounter in a French disco with a classical dancer who had been a soldier.  

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s Kino Produzioni, the indie shingle that co-produced 2022 Berlin Golden Bear winner “Alcarràs,” is ramping up production with new films by emerging Italian filmmakers Carlo Sironi, Laura Luchetti and Irene Dionisio, as well as also Dutch director Michiel Van Erp and Argentine filmmakers María Alché and Benjamín Naishtat.  “We reached a turning point last year that started out well with the ‘Alcarràs’ victory,” said Kino chief Giovanni Pompili, speaking at the EFM. He noted that in 2022, the Rome-based outfit shot four films, “which for us was pretty challenging, but worked out well.” Meanwhile, the Kino team has grown. Producer Lara Costa-Calzado, who has been working for a decade between the U.S. and Europe on films such as Eliza Hittman’s Silver Bear winner “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” Sally Potter’s “The Roads Not Taken” and Halina Rejin’s “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” has joined Kino as head of production.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent In “Joan Baez: I Am a Noise,” which is premiering on Feb. 17 at the Berlin Film Festival, the folk icon with a supple soprano voice and a long history of activism, takes a disarmingly candid look on her life as she faces the end of her 60-year musical career. The immersive doc is co-directed by Karen O’Connor, Miri Navasky, and Maeve O’Boyle. They interweave Baez’s 2018 Fare Thee Well final concert tour with her early years, her rise to fame, struggles with drugs that ensued, and a darker psychological thread involving a form of child abuse on the part of Baez’s father. A surprising level of intimacy is reached thanks to a wealth of material obtained from Baez’s meticulously preserved personal archives comprising home movies, diaries, artwork, therapy tapes, and audio recordings of voice letters to her family. Some, while Baez was on tour in England in 1965 with Bob Dylan whom, she confesses in the doc, “broke my heart.”

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent   When the Iran-Iraq war broke out in 1980, director Sepideh Farsi was a high school student in Iran. At age 16, she was incarcerated for being an anti-Islamic Republic activist. Farsi stayed in her country until 1984 and then moved to France, where she experienced the second half of the conflict.  In her first animated feature, “The Siren” — which opens Berlin’s Panorama section — the Paris-based director revisits this war through the story of a 14-year-old boy named Omid, who decides to brave the Iraqi siege of Abadan, the capital of the Iranian oil industry. After opting to stay in the city with his grandfather and a bunch of other diehards, Omid and the others take over an abandoned boat he finds in Abadan’s port, which becomes their ark.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Gael García Bernal and Renate Reinsve (“The Worse Person in the World”) will soon be appearing on screen as lovers caught in an unusual bind in Italian director Piero Messina’s sci-fi film “Another End.” French sales company Newen Connect is launching sales on the pic at the European Film Market.  “Another End” is set in a near-future when a new technology exists that can put the consciousness of a dead person back into a living body, in an attempt to ease the grief of separation, providing a little extra time to say goodbye.  The English-language sci-fier by Messina — whose first feature, “The Wait,” launched with a splash in the 2015 Venice competition — sees Bernal play Sal, a man whose wife dies, and Reinsve as Zoe, the woman who then becomes his partner after renting out her body, in which the memory and consciousness of Sal’s former wife have been temporarily implanted. First look image of Reinsve as Zoe above.

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.

Sharon Stone has paid an emotional tribute to her brother Patrick Joseph Stone after confirming his tragic death. The Basic Instinct actress, 64, announced the sad news on her social media account, revealing that that the 57 year old died following a heart attack on Sunday, 12 February. A rep for the coroner's office said his death is being ruled as sudden cardiac death due to heart disease, TMZ reports.

Sharon Stone tearfully addressed the death of her younger brother Patrick Joseph Stone in an emotional video on Monday. Patrick's wife Tasha confirmed to TMZ on Monday that he died suddenly on Sunday morning after suffering a heart attack. He was 57.

Sharon Stone confirmed the death of her 57-year-old brother Patrick Stone on social media. "Yes, we did lose my brother, Patrick Joseph Stone, to a heart attack yesterday," she told fans in a video shared to Instagram. "Yes, he is the man who was the father to River, who we lost last year, at 11 months old," Sharon clarified.

Sharon Stone has paid an emotional tribute to her brother Patrick Joseph Stone after confirming his tragic death.The Basic Instinct actress, 64, announced the sad news on her social media account, revealing that that the 57 year old died following a heart attack on Sunday, 12 February. A rep for the coroner's office said his death is being ruled as sudden cardiac death due to heart disease, TMZ reports. In a tearful video shared on her Instagram, Sharon said: "Hello everybody, this message is to confirm that, yes, we did lose my brother, Patrick Joseph Stone, to a heart attack yesterday.

Sharon Stone is mourning the loss of her brother Patrick who sadly passed away on Sunday morning following a battle with heart disease.TMZ reports that his passing is being ruled by the coroner's office as "sudden cardiac death".WATCH: Stars gone too soonTaking to Instagram on Tuesday, Sharon, 64, shared a tearful video of herself confirming her brother's death.Fighting back tears, the celeb said: "This is to confirm that yes we did lose my brother, Patrick Joseph Stone, to a heart attack yesterday. Yes, he is the man who was the father to River who we lost last year at 11-months-old."She continued: "He is survived by his wife Tasha and his son Hunter and his daughter Kaylee.