Venice to host first film festival of COVID era

Andreas Wiseman International EditorEagle Pictures, one of Italy’s leading film distribution and production houses, has acquired fellow distributor M2 Pictures for around €8.5M ($10M), the company has confirmed to us.The deal will see M2’s 99 movies head to Eagle as the company looks to grow its library and bolster its position in the local market.

In the summer of 1989, less than two months after the release of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, a dramatization of racial tensions between Black and Italian Americans in Brooklyn, Yusuf Hawkins was shot to death for being a Black boy in a white neighborhood just a few miles from the film's Bedford-Stuyvesant setting. Sixteen years old, Hawkins was the victim of an impromptu mob in Bensonhurst that had gathered to attack another Black youth rumored to be dating an Italian-American girl.

We are less than a month away from the opening night of the Venice Film Festival. Not only is this one of the biggest film festivals of any year, but Venice has even more significance in 2020 after the film festival circuit has been decimated by the pandemic.

Tom Grater International Film ReporterEXCLUSIVE: And they’re off! Poland is first out of the blocks this year by naming its submission to the 2021 International Oscar race – Malgorzata Szumowska’s Never Gonna Snow Again.The comedy drama is set to premiere in Competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

The salutary effect on Brits of the sunny Continent, with its heart-opening, upper-lip-loosening powers, has fueled a well-populated movie subgenre. Using the change of scenery to explore a father-son relationship, the Tuscany-set Made in Italy arrives as a less-than-memorable entry, peppering predictable dashes of romance and real estate into a neatly defined recipe.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentBindu de Stoppani, the India-born but Switzerland-raised multi-hyphenate who directed Swiss films “Jump” and “Finding Camille,” is set to direct her third feature, a female-driven dramedy titled “40 & Climbing” set in an Alpine valley and featuring a strong Italian cast.Italy’ s Anna Ferzetti, tapped this year as Venice Film Festival MC – after scooping multiple local prizes for her role in dramedy “Domani è un altro giorno” – is set to star in “40”

The Venice Film Festival just got a bit more star power. As is common during the lead-up to festivals, the Italian event has augmented its offering of films with a couple of projects featuring some superstar talent, including Tilda Swinton, Pedro Almodovar, and Regina King.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentLeone Film Group’s Lotus Production shingle is setting up Lotus Factory, a new unit for high-profile genre projects out of Italy made for the international market.These currently include a live action TV series in development on the origins of Santa Clause, for which Lotus chief Marco Belardi has recruited top U.S.

Animation powerhouse Pixar has unveiled its next feature, Italy-setLuca, to be directed by Enrico Casarosa, writer and director of the studio's 2012 Academy Award-nominated animated short La Luna. Walt Disney said Luca, which will be produced by Andrea Warren (Lava, Cars 3),is set to open in U.S.

What’s Pixar Animation Studios up to these days? Well, apart from waiting for the right available theatrical window to unveil their jazz movie“Soul,” currently due November 2020, but who knows if that sticks given the COVID-19 shifts, they have four more mystery films on the docket with various release dates between 2021 and 2023.

Pixar has revealed their next film, titled Luca!

Rebecca Rubin News Editor, OnlinePixar announced its next original animated movie will be called “Luca,” and will release in U.S. theaters next summer.Enrico Casarosa (“La Luna”) is directing the film, which is expected to open on the big screen on June 18, 2021.“This is a deeply personal story for me, not only because it’s set on the Italian Riviera where I grew up, but because at the core of this film is a celebration of friendship.

Venice Film Festival has announced its official lineup for this year's fest, to run Sept.

Off the back of a string of award-nominated films about romance and angst in the Italian countryside (with the notable exception of “Suspiria”), Luca Guadagnino is bringing his sunny, sentimental cinematic style to television for the first time, with the eight-episode series “We Are Who We Are.” A story about two American kids who live on a U.S. military base in Italy, the series explores friendship, first love, identity, and all the messy exhilaration and anguish of being a teenager.

Andreas Wiseman International EditorThe 77th Venice Film Festival (September 2 – 12) has revealed all jury members, with Competition jury president Cate Blanchett joined by Austrian director Veronika Franz (Goodnight Mommy), Brit filmmaker Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir), Italian writer Nicola Lagioia, German filmmaker Christian Petzold (Barbara), Romanian director Cristi Puiu (The Death of Mr.

Matt Dillon holds hands with girlfriend Roberta Mastromichele while attending the second day of the Filming Italy Sardegna Festival on Thursday (July 23) at Forte Village Resort in Cagliari, Italy.

Nancy Tartaglione International Box Office Editor/Senior ContributorIn a first for an Italian movie in over a decade, Daniele Luchetti’s Lacci has been set to open the Venice Film Festival’s 77th edition on September 2. The drama is based on the novel by Domenico Starnone and stars Alba Rohrwacher, Luigi Lo Cascio, Laura Morante, Silvio Orlando, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Adriano Giannini and Linda Cadri.

Manori Ravindran International EditorThe Venice Film Festival is set to open with Daniele Luchetti’s “Lacci.”The Naples-set film, which will play out of competition, stars Alba Rohrwacher, Luigi Lo Cascio, Laura Morante, Silvio Orlando, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Adriano Giannini and Linda Caridi.“Recently, we have all feared that cinema might become extinct,” said Luchetti. “Yet during the quarantine it gave us comfort, like a light gleaming in a cavern.