Nick Vivarelli: Last News

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s Coccinelle Film Sales has acquired world rights to German director Veit Helmer’s poetic love story “Gondola,” which will world premiere at the upcoming Tokyo International Film Festival. Helmer is well known on the international festival circuit for funny, fable-like films with little or no dialogue such as “Tuvalu”; the Azerbaijan-set “Absurdistan,” which went to Sundance in 2008; and “The Bra,” that launched from Tokyo in 2018.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Oscar-winner Walter Salles, fresh from scoring the best international feature statuette for “I’m Still Here,” discussed the impact of his political drama on youth audiences in Brazil and underlined the importance of cinema as “an extraordinary tool of resistance” while attending the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra workshop in Qatar. “I’m Still Here,” the story of Brazilian activist Rubens Paiva’s 1970 disappearance at the hands of the Brazilian military dictatorship and his wife Eunice Paiva’s subsequent search for justice, recently marked a historic first Oscar win for Brazil.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent ‘Perfect Strangers’ director Paolo Genovese has done it again with a new concept comedy titled “Madness” that is set to hit the global market after scoring mightily in Italy. “Madness” – which is titled “FolleMente” in Italy – depicts a first date between a man and a woman in Rome and features all the voices that live in their brains which oscillate between embarrassment and laughter, each played by a different actor.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian auteur Nanni Moretti suffered a heart attack on Wednesday and is reportedly in intensive care in stable condition, according to Italian news reports. The 71-year-old idiosyncratic director, actor and screenwriter, who won the 2001 Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for “The Son’s Room,” was rushed in the afternoon to Rome’s San Camillo hospital where he underwent surgery.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Jeff Bezos is making headlines in Italy, where the Amazon founder and executive chair plans to marry Emmy-winning journalist, pilot and entrepreneur Lauren Sánchez this summer. Bezos and Sánchez were spotted in Venice on Tuesday making preparations for the three-day celebration that Luca Zuin, a spokesperson for the mayor of Venice, has said will run June 24-26.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “Theatre is Body – Body is Poetry” is the title chosen by Willem Dafoe for his first edition as artistic director of the Venice Biennale‘s International Theatre Festival, which kicks off May 31 with the European premiere of the revival of the Wooster Group’s “Symphony of Rats.” The lineup assembled by Dafoe for the fest – which runs through June 15 – stems from his own experiences and influences, and ranges from a Whose Who of big experimental theatre names such as the Odin Teatret, Italy’s Romeo Castellucci, Germany’s Thomas Ostermeier, and Switzerland’s Milo Rau, to emerging talents like Afro-Belgian multidisciplinary artist Princess Bangura who will present two solo shows: “Oedipus Monologue” and “Great Apes of the West Coast.” Dafoe speaks to Variety from Venice about assembling his lineup and deciding to personally participate with a homage to late great New York experimental theater guru Richard Foreman, who died in January. What are some of the discoveries that are part of your program? One is Davide Iodice’s “Pinocchio – What is a Person,” which I saw in Naples.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Paris-based sales company Celluloid Dreams has taken international distribution rights to Taiwanese director Shen Ko-Shang’s drama “Deep Quiet Room,” starring Ariel Lin and Joseph Chang. “Deep Quiet Room” – which has been a standout at the Asian and European co-production markets including Busan’s Asian Contents and Film Market – marks the feature film debut of Shen, a former artistic director of the Taipei Film Festival who previously made several well-received shorts and docs.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent MFE-MediaForEurope, the TV group controlled by Italy’s Berlusconi family, has launched a takeover bid for German broadcaster ProSiebensat.1 as part of its stated ambition to build a pan-European broadcaster that can compete with U.S. streaming giants such as Netflix.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “The Passion of the Christ” will resurrect this summer. Mel Gibson’s long-awaited sequel, titled “The Resurrection of the Christ,” will start shooting in August at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios, CEO Manuela Cacciamani has announced. Cacciamani, in an interview with Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore, said Gibson and Icon Productions have set an August start-of-shoot date for the follow-up to his 2004 biblical blockbuster “The Passion of the Christ,” which became the largest-grossing independent film of all time.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent A high-profile doc working-titled “Tesla Files” that seeks to expose the alleged danger of Elon Musk’s political influence is set to be unveiled as a work-in-progress this week at the CPH:DOX international documentary festival in Copenhagen. Produced by Germany’s Beetz Brothers and directed by Andreas Pichler (“The Milk System”) “Tesla Files” takes its cue from 100GB of leaked internal data provided by a whistleblower named Lukasz Krupski, who worked for Tesla in Norway, to German business newspaper Handelsblatt.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Oscar-nominated multi-hyphenate Uberto Pasolini – who produced “The Full Monty” and most recently directed “The Return,” starring Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus – has embarked on a TV series adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s classic satirical adventure “Gulliver’s Travels.” Prominent British writer William Ivory (“We Want Sex,” “The Great Escaper”) is writing the screenplay for the six-episode project on which Pasolini will serve as showrunner. The high-end show, now in early stages, is being produced by Italy’s Roberto Sessa (“The Sea Beyond”) and Germany’s Jan Wünschmann (“The Swarm,” “Concordia”).

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Istanbul-based distributor Madd Entertainment has released the international trailer for English-language drama “El Turco,” in which Turkish megastar Can Yaman plays a legendary historical figure that bridges Turkey with the Western world. The hotly anticipated six-episode “El Turco” series — featuring a starry cast of actors from nine different countries and combining history, action-adventure and romance – is set to rollout today, March 21, on Voyo in Romania, on IVI in Russia, and on Globoplay Brazil. It will then go out March 23 on Teleonce in Honduras, on March 27 on Mediaset in Italy, and on April 2 on Gaín in Turkey.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s Taormina Film Festival will pay homage to its Sicilian setting by celebrating the 25th anniversary of Giuseppe Tornatore’s steamy period drama “Malena” that launched Monica Bellucci‘s international career. The storied event, now headed once again by marketing guru Tiziana Rocca, will host a screening of a restored copy of the film about a 13-year-old boy’s obsession with a small-town siren in World War II Sicily that becomes the sad odyssey of a woman punished for her beauty, and is featuring a still of Bellucci in “Malena” on its poster.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s Rainbow Group — the company behind the hit “Winx Club” animation franchise — has optioned the rights to adapt mythological saga “Game of Gods,” which has drawn millions of young adult readers on user-generated fiction platform Wattpad. The “Game of Gods” film adaptation will be produced by Rainbow and its Colorado Film live action unit, in tandem with Wattpad Webtoon Studios as associate producer.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “Bad Boys 3” directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are shooting Saudi blockbuster “The Seven Dogs,” featuring Egyptian stars Karim Abdel-Aziz and Ahmed Ezz and involving the fight against a dangerous new drug called Pink Lady that is flooding the Middle East. Turki Al-Sheikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia‘s General Entertainment Authority, conceived the story of the $40 million action movie, the screenplay for which is written by Mohamed El Dabbah.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s Fandango Film Sales has landed a number of sales on Andrea Segre’s “The Great Ambition,” a biopic of the late Italian political leader Enrico Berlinguer, who was secretary of Western Europe’s largest Communist Party during the 1970s. The surprisingly timely film, which is produced by Rome-based indie Vivo film (“Nico, 1988,” “Le Quattro Volte”), opened the Rome Film Festival last year and went on to become a hit in Italian cinemas where it has pulled more than $4 million — and counting — becoming one last years’ top ten local box office draws.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land” has found a distributor in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where it is bound to have special resonance. Prominent Dubai-based distributor Front Row Filmed Entertainment has acquired MENA rights from Austrian outfit Autlook for the timely film, which is directed by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists: Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Basel Adra.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Kaleem Aftab, director of international programming at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival, has stepped down following a four-year stint. The London-based film critic had been a key member of the team that launched the rapidly growing event which takes place in Jeddah, on the Red Sea’s eastern shore, and aims to become the region’s top festival and market. In his role Aftab pushed boundaries by programming uncensored movies from the Western world, and also from Asia and Africa, in a country where cinema had been banned for religion-related reasons until 2017.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Want to hang out with George and Amal Clooney on Italy’s Lake Como and be pampered to the hilt, all for a good cause? In August, the couple will be hosting an exclusive five-day fundraiser for the Clooney Foundation for Justice, hosting 16 guests who are passionate about philanthropy but also eager to indulge “in the most incredible aspects of Lake Como,” according to Emma Ponsonby, CEO of Satopia Group, which is organizing the event. Participation starts at €160,000 ($173,000) per room (based on double occupancy) at the Passalacqua hotel, an opulent 18th century villa with frescoed suites, grand staircases and fountains overlooking the lake on land once owned by Pope Innocent XI.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Rocco Siffredi, the retired global porn star whose life story inspired Netflix’s recent series “Supersex,” is to star in “Blue,” an Italian drama set in the erotic social media world. Shooting is underway in Italy’s central Marche region on the film, which according to promotional materials revolves around a young female student named Luce contending with “tough choices” as she navigates the deceptive world of erotic websites and social media. The indie film is directed by first-timer Eleonora Puglia.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Belgian film festival Film Fest Gent and the World Soundtrack Academy will honor the memory of David Lynch by having young composers score an excerpt from the late auteur’s “The Elephant Man” as part of their annual Film Music Composition Contest. “The Elephant Man,” Lynch’s 1980 cult movie, tells the true story of English artist Joseph Merrick who, due to his severe physical deformities, became a national celebrity in Victorian England.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia‘s General Entertainment Authority, has forged a multi-year boxing promotion partnership with U.S. sports and entertainment conglomerate TKO and Saudi sports marketing company Sela in what is being touted as a landmark deal. Alalshikh – who has long been a driving force behind Saudi’s rise as a global hub for sports and entertainment – is known to be a big boxing fan and one of the most influential figures in this sport.