Alessandro Borghi: Last News

Downton Abbey star Jessica Brown Findlay has revealed her pregnancy during a red carpet appearance at the Venice Film Festival. The actress attended the screening of her new movie The Hanging Sun where she debuted her baby bump. Brown Findlay wore a plunging pink dress to the event which she attended with her husband Ziggy Heath where she could be seen cradling her bump.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The teaser has been debuted for “The Captive,” the origin story of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of the novel “Don Quixote.” The historical epic is directed by Alejandro Amenábar, who won an Oscar for “The Sea Inside” and was BAFTA nominated for “The Others.” It will be released by Disney in Spain, while Film Constellation is selling other territories. “The Captive” recently sold to France (Haut et Court), Greece and Cyprus (Filmtrade/Tanweer), Portugal (Nos Audiovisuais), Bulgaria (Pro Films), Former Yugoslavia (Discovery), and CIS (Russian World Vision), with buyers circling in North America. The film, which shot last year on locations in Valencia, Alicante and Seville in Spain, is now in post-production.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Film Constellation has revealed the first pre-sales on historical epic “The Captive” by director Alejandro Amenábar, who won an Oscar for “The Sea Inside” and was BAFTA nominated for “The Others.” “The Captive” sold to France (Haut et Court), Greece and Cyprus (Filmtrade/Tanweer), Portugal (Nos Audiovisuais), Bulgaria (Pro Films), Former Yugoslavia (Discovery), and CIS (Russian World Vision), with buyers circling in North America. The film, which shot last year on locations in Valencia, Alicante and Seville in Spain, is now in post-production. It has been dated for release in Spanish theaters on Oct.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent John C. Reilly will soon appear on the big screen as Buffalo Bill in “Heads or Tails?” a surreal Western by Italian directorial duo Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis (“The Tale of King Crab“). The film is inspired by a true event that took place during Buffalo Bill’s stay in Italy.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Principal photography has begun on “The Captive,” a historical epic from “The Others’” Alejandro Amenábar, starring Julio Peña (“Berlin”) as “Don Quixote” author Miguel de Cervantes, a prisoner of Ottoman corsairs, seen in a very first still from the film, alongside Alessandro Borghi (“Suburra”), playing his captor, which has been shared in exclusivity with Variety. Paris and London-based production, finance and sales house Film Constellation handles worldwide sales.

streamer’s new miniseries “Supersex” has been slammed on social media for being extra explicit, with prudish pundits promising to cancelling their subscriptions. The steamy show is loosely based on the life of Rocco Siffredi, a famous porn star known as the “Italian Stallion.”But subscribers were less than impressed when Netflix posted an excerpt of the erotic offering on its US Instagram account on Mar.

EXCLUSIVE: It was on the set of Sky and HBO’s We Are Who We Are where Lorenzo Mieli asked Francesca Manieri, a feminist screenwriter, to pen a TV series about Rocco Siffredi, the infamous hardcore porn star. Initially, she could barely believe it. “I laughed,” she recalls. “I was sure he was joking.”

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Netflix has dropped a teaser trailer for “Supersex,” the series freely inspired by the real life of global porn star Rocco Siffredi, which will world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival and drop March 6 on the streamer. “Every power is an enigma. It can give you light, or throw you into darkness.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Netflix has set a March 6 premiere date for “Supersex,” the series freely inspired by the real life of global porn star Rocco Siffredi, who has more than 1,500 hardcore films to his name. The series is created and written by prominent Italian screenwriter Francesca Manieri (“We Are Who We Are,” “L’Immensità”) who is known to be a militant feminist.

Belgian directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s Italian-language drama The Eight Mountains and veteran Marco Bellocchio’s Exterior Night topped the 68th edition of Italy’s David di Donatello Awards on Wednesday evening.

“I didn’t expect to find a friend like Bruno in my life. Nor that friendship was a place where you put down roots, that remains waiting for you.” It’s with these words, delivered in wistful voiceover, that Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch open “The Eight Mountains,” their sublime and gently aching adaptation of the Italian bestseller by Paolo Cognetti.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Global porn icon Rocco Siffredi’s life will be depicted in the Netflix original series “Supersex,” but he’s claiming that the show will not be a realistic portrayal. “This beautiful story is inspired by my life, but it is not my life,” Siffredi said in an interview published over the weekend by Italy’s FQ Magazine. “Everything you will see in ‘Supersex’ originates from me, but then the writer put a lot of herself into it.” “Supersex” is created and written by prominent Italian screenwriter Francesca Manieri (“We Are Who We Are,” “L’Immensità”). It was described in a Netflix statement last week as “a profound story” that runs through Siffredi’s life “since childhood.” The show will look at Siffredi’s family, his origins, his relationship with love and “the starting point and the context that led him to embark on his path in pornography.”

Netflix has unwrapped its latest Italian series, Supersex.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The life of global porn icon Rocco Siffredi is the subject of a new Netflix original series titled “Supersex,” which has started shooting in Rome. The seven-episode drama is freely inspired by the real life of Siffredi, who has more than 1,500 hardcore films to his name. But, in an interesting career twist, Siffredi has also shot two arthouse pics, Catherine Breillat’s “Romance” and “Anatomy of Hell.” His Budapest-based Rocco Siffredi Prods. is a porn industry powerhouse. Siffredi was also the subject of the documentary “Rocco,” directed by French duo Thierry Demaiziere and Alban Teurlai, which screened at the 2016 Venice Film Festival. 

A reformed criminal goes on the run in The Hanging Sun, an adaptation of Jo Nesbo’s novel Midnight Sun. The author also co-writes the screenplay of this fiction feature debut from Francesco Carrozzini, the photographer who helmed the documentary Franca: Chaos and Creation. The closing film of Venice Film Festival, it’s well performed and gripping enough, though geographically confusing.

Jessica Kiang It’s kept deliberately vague where precisely Italian music-video director Francesco Carrozzini has set his feature debut, an adaption of the Jo Nesbø bestseller novel “Midnight Sun,” which closed a prestige-laden Venice Film Festival on an improbable note. One leans toward, maybe, Norway? But it could be Iceland or Greenland or any one of those far-flung, fjordy locales that usually turn out to belong to Denmark. It’s not like the language cues help: The dialogue is in English and the grand, windswept coastal landscapes are carefully scrubbed of signage that might, by so much as a single ‘ø,’ betray their provenance. The actors’ nationalities are less use still. Headlined by Italy’s Alessandro Borghi (“The Eight Mountains”), the rest of the cast is stacked with UK talent (Charles Dance, Peter Mullan, Jessica Brown Findlay), though we do know for sure, by the way the sun never sets and the mood is set firmly to “Nordic despair,” that we’re definitely not in either of those countries. Not to worry: Even without understanding exactly where we are, “The Hanging Sun” will feel familiar as a pair of worn-in pyjamas to anyone who has switched on a TV in the last decade. Because really, we’re in Scandiland, an amalgam location of every movie and television show from the recent “Scandi-noir” wave, a place sinister with secrets, seasonal affective disorders and Sarah Lund sweaters. 

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorMichele Vannucci’s “Delta” has debuted its trailer ahead of its world premiere on the Piazza Grande at the Locarno Film Festival. True Colours is handling world sales.The Po Delta in Italy is the setting of the clash between fishermen and poachers. Osso wants to save the river from overfishing at the hands of the Florians, a family on the run from the Danube.

A Sky original film called The Hanging Sun has been given the closing slot at the 79th Venice International Film Festival. The annual film festival promotes international cinema in all its forms and celebrates the best productions.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItaly’s True Colours has sold Mario Martone’s Naples-set Cannes competition drama “Nostalgia” to Curzon Film for the U.K. and Ireland, among other new territories.The deal, negotiated by True Colours sales manager Francesca Tiberi and Curzon acquisitions executive Eleonora Pesci, marks the first partnership between the companies.At the Italian Screenings market event recently held in Lecce, Southern Italy, the Rome-based sales company also sealed fresh deals on several other films, including pre-sales on upcoming Locarno title “Delta,” which is a revenge drama with a contemporary Western vibe.Martone’s “Nostalgia,” which has been praised by Variety critic Guy Lodge as the prolific Italian auteur’s “most rewarding film in years,” stars Pierfrancesco Favino as the middle-aged Felice Lasco, who returns to the bustling port city after having lived in Egypt for 40 years.

Patrick Dempsey is looking sharp in his two grey suits for the second season launch of Diavoli, held at The Space Odeon on Thursday (April 7) in Milan, Italy.

Fremantle has acquired 70% of Lux Vide, the 30-year-old Italian producer of Medici, Leonardo and Coco Chanel.