Isabella Rossellini: Last News

Isabella Rossellini remembered her mother Ingrid Bergman on what would have been the Oscar winner's 107th birthday on Monday. In a touching but simple salute on Instagram, the 70-year-old actress shared a classic black and white photo of her beloved mom, writing, 'Mama #ingridbergman was born today August 29th 1915 and died the same day in 1982. I miss and think of her every day.'The Land of Dreams actress, who looks so much like her famous mama, was only 30-years-old when the Hollywood icon died from breast cancer at age 67.  Remembering: Isabella Rossellini remembered her mother Ingrid Bergman on what would have been the Oscar winner's 107th birthday Monday.

The big screen debut of Marcel The Shell With Shoes On opened at $170K on six screens in New York and LA, the highest PSA of the weekend at $28,267 for the iconic lonely snail voiced by Jenny Slate.

Selome Hailu When director Dean Fleischer-Camp and star Jenny Slate wrote and produced their viral 2010 short film “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,” they created the title character (voiced by Slate) as simply as possible. The tiny creature was made from a real seashell, doll shoes, a spot of clay and a googly eye.Becky Van Cleve, head of puppet fabrication on the feature-length adaptation of the short, in theaters June 24 via A24, made sure Marcel was always in sight as she worked to get him ready for the big screen.“I kept him right on my desk in a case,” says Van Cleve, knowing the little guy needed to be made of stronger stuff for the long haul: Because real shells are slightly translucent, they don’t hold up to studio lights.

Andrew Barker Senior Features WriterThe Palm Springs International ShortFest will mark an in-person return to the California desert oasis from June 21-27, showcasing 300 short films in 51 different curated programs. If that seems like a markedly high number of films considering all of the disruptions in both the film production and festival space over the past two years, interim festival director Sudeep Sharma has an explanation.“One thing I’ve been saying a lot is that the pandemic has seemingly affected everything except for the production of short films,” says Sharma, a ShortFest veteran currently manning the festival helm while director Lili Rodriguez is on maternity leave.

EXCLUSIVE: Vertical Entertainment has acquired North American rights to the political satire Land of Dreams, directed by Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari, which is making its North American premiere in the Spotlight Narrative section of the Tribeca Film Festival in June. The global indie distributor has slated the film for a day-and-date theatrical release in 10 of the top 20 markets—including in Los Angeles and New York—this fall. (Watch a new trailer unveiled today by the company above.)

Sasha Urban editorThe annual Palm Springs International ShortFest returns for its 28th edition from June 21 to 27, holding all of its screenings at the Camelot Theatres at the Palm Springs Cultural Center.The festival will feature 51 programs that showcase 300 films. That list includes 38 world premieres, 17 international premieres, 35 North American premieres and 18 U.S.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItaly’s Nexo Digital, which produces and distributes theatrical event content for the global market, has scored sales in Cannes on doc “Portrait of the Queen,” about Queen Elizabeth II, by Italian fashion photographer Fabrizio Ferri.By Experience, which handles theatrical events for New York’s Metropolitan Opera and London’s National Theater, has acquired theatrical distribution for the U.S., while other pacts include Sharmill Distribution for Australia; A Contracorriente for Spain; Pannonia for Hungary; and Aero Films for the Czech Republic.“Portrait of the Queen” features photographs and fragments of the queen’s biography, with each portrait presented as a piece of a mosaic; Charles Dance (“The Crown”) narrates  from the diaries of several famous photographers who worked with the queen. There are also conversations with Isabella Rossellini, described as one of the most photographed women in the world, and others that give viewers a more private, intimate reflection on the role, obligations and complexities of being a monarch.The doc is based on Italian writer Paola Calvetti’s book “Elizabeth II.

Manori Ravindran International EditorNeon has acquired the North American distribution rights to Alice Rohrwacher’s “La Chimera,” starring Josh O’Connor and Isabella Rossellini.Written and directed by Rohrwacher, the film is set in the 1980s in the clandestine world of the tombaroli (tomb robbers) and tells the story of a young English archaeologist (O’Connor) who gets caught up in the illegal trafficking of ancient finds.The cast also includes Carol Duarte, Alba Rohrwacher and Vincenzo Nemolato. The film has wrapped phase one of production in Tarquinia and southern Tuscany and will continue in August and September in central Italy and Switzerland.The film is produced, as all of Rohrwacher’s previous films, by Carlo Cresto-Dina with his company Tempesta and long-time backers Rai Cinema, in co-production with Neon, Amka Films (Switzerland) and Ad Vitam Production (France), and in partnership with Arte France Cinema, Canal+, Ciné+, RSI/SSR SRG (Switzerland) and French distributor Ad Vitam.

Ralph Fiennes has signed up to lead conspiracy thriller feature Conclave, with John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini also joining the cast and Edward Berger helming. FilmNation Entertainment will launch international sales at the upcoming Cannes Market and is co-repping US rights with CAA Media Finance.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaRalph Fiennes will star in “Conclave,” a conspiracy thriller that boasts a cast that also includes John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini. “Conclave” is the story of the political machinations that grip the Vatican following the death of a pope and the jockeying that takes place as a group of Cardinals from across the globe gather to select a new leader for the Catholic Church.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter“Julia” has been renewed for Season 2 at HBO Max.The series is inspired by the life of Julia Childs and her long-running cooking show “The French Chef.” Through Childs’ perspective, the series explores the emergence of public television as a new social institution, feminism and the women’s movement, the nature of celebrity and America’s cultural evolution.Sarah Lancashire stars as Childs. The cast also includes David Hyde Pierce, Bebe Neuwirth, Brittany Bradford, Fran Kranz, and Fiona Glascott.

Jenny Slate is stepping back into her cutest role ever. 

EXCLUSIVE: A24 has dated two recent festival faves for theatrical release this summer: the Jenny Slate animated comedy Marcel the Shell With Shoes On on June 24 and the horror comedy feature Bodies Bodies Bodies on Aug. 5.

HBO Max has unveiled the first trailer for “Julia,” an upcoming series about the life of beloved culinary icon Julia Child.Created by Daniel Goldfarb (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), “Julia” focuses on Child (played in the series by Sarah Lancashire) during the years following the publication of her iconic cookbook “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” The series sees Child kickstarting her first television series, “The French Chef,” at the public television station WGBH.

Sarah Lancashire becomes Julia Child in the new biographical comedy series, “Julia”.

HBO Max has unveiled the first footage for its upcoming Julia Child drama series Julia, starring Sarah Lancashire as The French Chef creator and host herself.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentEmmy-winning “The Crown” star Josh O’Connor will be the protagonist of Italian auteur Alice Rohrwacher’s next film “La Chimera,” which is set in the world of archeological looting and is currently shooting in and around Southern Tuscany.O’Connor, who in “The Crown” played the young Prince Charles, in “La Chimera” is playing a young British archeologist named Arthur who gets involved in an international network of stolen Etruscan artifacts during the 1980s.Also starring in “La Chimera,” which can be loosely translated as “The Unrealizable Dream,” are Isabella Rossellini as a retired opera singer; Brazilian actor Carole Duarte (“The Invisible Life”) who plays another non-Italian woman who intersects with Arthur; Alba Rohrwacher as an international artifacts trafficker; and Vincenzo Nemolato (“Martin Eden”) who plays one of the “tombaroli,” literally grave robbers, as artifacts thieves are known in Italy. “‘La Chimera’ is the story of a young English archaeologist who gets involved in the underground world of the ‘tombaroli,’ the nocturnal raiders of Etruscan tombs,” the director said in a statement.Rohrwacher added that the film “is the final piece of a triptych on territory that I started with ‘The Wonders’ and which poses a central question: what to do with the past?” “Is the past merely a lost world, or does it intimately concern our present?,” Rohrwacher asks.“The Wonders,” which screened in Competition in 2014 at Cannes, winning the Grand Prix, was followed in 2018 by “Happy as Lazzaro” that also launched from the Croisette where it scooped the award for best screenplay.

Albert Square back in 2000. Mo had previously lived in Walford and returned after 40 years away with son-in-law Charlie Slater and granddaughters Lynne, Kate, Little Mo and Zoe. READ MORE: EastEnders Heather Trott star's toyboy husband and life 10 years after soap exit She immediately reignited her rivalry with Pat Butcher before they emotionally reconciled at the grave of Mo's ex-husband, Jimmy Harris.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentAs we enter the final countdown to the Feb. 8 Oscar nominations announcement, Isabella Rossellini is clearly rooting for Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” which is Italy’s candidate for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and among the shortlisted titles.To help promote the pic with Academy voters, Rossellini engaged in an online chat with the director and young Italian actor Filippo Scotti, who plays Sorrentino’s alter-ego Fabietto in the pic. She also wore a gold horn amulet that belonged to her father, the late great Italian master Roberto Rossellini, for good luck.Here are edited excerpts of the conversation, to which Variety has been given exclusive access.