FESTIVAL
The 78th Venice International Film Festival (Sept. 1-11) will include an out of competition screening of “Ennio” by Giuseppe Tornatore, director of the Oscar winning “Cinema Paradiso.” “Ennio” is a comprehensive portrait of two time Oscar winning composer Ennio Morricone, among the most influential and prolific musicians of the twentieth century, who has scored over 500 movie soundtracks.
The documentary tells the Maestro’s story in a long interview of him with Tornatore, and with comments by artists and directors such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Giuliano Montaldo, Marco Bellocchio, Dario Argento, the Taviani brothers, Carlo Verdone, Barry Levinson, Roland Joffé, Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino, Bruce Springsteen, Nicola Piovani, Hans Zimmer and Pat Metheny, and through music and archive footage.
The film also seeks to reveal Morricone’s lesser-known aspects, such as his passion for chess, and the origin of some of his musical intuitions, like the howl of a coyote that inspired the theme of “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.”
“I worked with Ennio Morricone for thirty years,” said Tornatore. “I made almost all my films with him, not to mention the documentaries, commercials and projects that we tried unsuccessfully to put together. During this time, our friendship was increasingly consolidated. Thus, film after film, as my understanding of his character as a man and an artist grew ever deeper, I always wondered what type of documentary I could make about him. And today my dream has come true.”
“I wanted to make ‘Ennio’ to tell Morricone’s story to the audiences around the world who love his music,” Tornatore added. “My intention was not just to have him tell me his life story and talk about his magical relationship with music, but also to search archives around the world for repertory interviews and other footage relative to the countless past collaborations between Morricone and the most important filmmakers of his career. I structured ‘Ennio’ as an audio-visual novel that relied on clips from films for which he composed the music, repertory images and concerts, to introduce the spectator to the formidable existential and artistic career of one of the most beloved musicians of the twentieth century”.
Alina Robert
Courtesy of Yusnel Suarez, OMG Studios
CASTING
Cuban actor Alina Robert has joined the cast of drama series “The Roar of the Butterflies,” portraying one of the Dominican activist Mirabal sisters, Patria Mirabal. Filming for the series has commenced in Colombia. It is based on the true story of the sisters who opposed the regime of dictator Rafael Trujillo who controlled the Dominican Republic for over 30 years.
The cast also includes Dominican actor Sandy Hernandez, Cuban actor Luis Alberto Garcia and Spanish actor Susana Abaitua.
This is of the first exclusive series acquired by Star Plus, the new Latin America streaming service, which is part of The Walt Disney Company Latin America and is available from Aug. 31.
Robert’s TV credits include roles in “Jenni Rivera: Mariposa de Barrio” (Netflix) and Betty en NY (Telemundo). In film she starred in “Making Love Great Again” (2018) and will seen in “Plantados” and “El Caballo.”
DISTRIBUTION
Fremantle has entered into a partnership with Cosentino Media to source, support and deliver Canadian productions to global audiences. The outfits will partner with leading scripted and non-scripted Canadian producers whose domestic productions have international ambitions.
CosMediaInc is the newly launched company led by Canadian veteran media executive Mike Cosentino, the former President Content and Programming for CTV and Bell Media. Programs he has previously greenlit that have gone on to enjoy worldwide distribution success include “Letterkenny” (Hulu), “Transplant” (NBC/SKY/Globoplay), “Cardinal” (BBC/Hulu) and “Holmes Family Effect” (FOX/TUBI).