Month: September 2022

“L’Immensità” is director Emanuele Crialese’s first feature film in 11 years, and only his fifth in a quarter-century: The gifted Italian, best known to international audiences for his splendid, richly felt Ellis Island immigrant saga “Golden Door,” has never been one for unconsidered or impersonal projects. At first glance, then, one might wonder what drew

On the eve of the 79th Venice Film Festival, where his powerful Ukraine war documentary “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” will premiere out of competition on Sept. 7, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky was in a frantic race against time. Footage was still being shot in Ukraine into the second week of August, with

While waiting to pick up five-year-old Leila from judo practice, personable 40-ish schoolteacher Rachel introduces herself to another parent as Leila’s stepmom, before backtracking to awkwardly correct herself. Later, when a kindly stranger on a train remarks on the resemblance between the two, Rachel doesn’t bother clarifying, merely accepting the benign compliment. Her relationship to

In Italian director Emanuele Crialese’s new drama “L’Immensità,” which is set in 1970s Rome, Penélope Cruz plays a mother of three who, while contending with a violent Italian husband, winds up in a psychiatric institution. “I don’t think my character is crazy at all,” Cruz said. “She is trapped in her family. Trapped in her

Best Friend Forever has unveiled the trailer for “To The North,” Romanian Mihai Mincan’s feature debut which is world premiering in the Horizons section at Venice. [embedded content] Inspired by true events, the edgy thriller follows Joel, a religious Filipino sailor who finds a Romanian stowaway, Dumitru, hidden between some containers during his shift on

Brendan Fraser, the star of the Venice-premiering movie “The Whale,” says he needed to “learn how to move in a new way” in order to play his character Charlie, who weighs 600 lbs. Fraser takes on his most substantial role in a number of years with Darren Aronofsky’s latest, in which Charlie is slowly eating

Motion Picture Association CEO Charles Rivkin is at the Venice Film Festival with Stan McCoy, the org’s chief for Europe, to attend a panel on the economic impact of film and TV production in the U.S. and Italy, organized by the film unit of the Italian culture ministry. They spoke to Variety about the increasingly close

LevelK has boarded Icelandic crime drama “Cold,” directed by Erlingur Óttar Thoroddsen and based on the bestselling book “The Undesired” (“Kuldi”) by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir. Still in production, it was recently pitched at Venice Gap-Financing Market. The story centers on Óðinn, living alone with his daughter Rún. As he investigates decades-old deaths at a juvenile treatment

German helmer Alex Schaad takes on the body-swap trope in Venice Critics’ Week title “Skin Deep,” produced by Walker + Worm Film in co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk and Donndorffilm. Beta Cinema, which handles the sales, has shared its trailer exclusively with Variety ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Italian fest. The intimate, character-driven

It’s fair to say that Abbey Road Studios is the most documented recording facility in the world, but only if you count the crosswalk outside. Otherwise, the nine-bedroom mansion turned studio hasn’t really had its day in the cinematic sun, the way that more modest studios like L.A.’s Sound City and Alabama’s Muscle Shoals have.

Some films spring from abundance, while others are born of a need. Premiering in competition in Venice, Rebecca Zlotowski’s “Other People’s Children” clearly falls into the latter camp. “I’ve often used cinema as a guide for living, only aspects of my own life hadn’t been told,” Zlotowski tells Variety. “I imagined a 40-year-old woman, nearing the

Following the Venice Film Festival premiere of her Biennale College Cinema title “Palimpsest” – about two people that start to age backwards – Finnish helmer Hanna Västinsalo will continue to play with sci-fi elements in “Space Hobos: How to Bum a Ride from Sector B12 to Module C9.”  “It’s about workers like plumbers, welders or

In the era when content is king, Sam Mendes still believes in moving pictures. “Empire of Light” is the proof. While the world was in lockdown these past couple years, Mendes let his imagination run to his happy place: a grand old English movie palace he dubbed the Empire Cinema. Thousands pass through its art

Could Sarah Polley join the ranks of Jane Campion, Chloe Zhao and Kathryn Bigelow by becoming only the fourth female filmmaker to win an Oscar for directing? Based on the rapturous reception that “Women Talking” received at the Telluride Film Festival on Friday, it certainly seems possible. Even if that doesn’t happen, the ambitious film,