Raffaella Leone: Last News

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.

Donald Trump across the Atlantic, the new political order could prove aboon to Europe’s creative industries, which have flourished thanks to government-backed incentives and an exodus of U.S. talent to the Continent. If anything, the election outcome crystallizes a shift in the way America is perceived abroad, one that has made Europe a land of opportunity for talent.

EXCLUSIVE: Amid a surfeit of horror projects heading to next week’s American Film Market, here instead comes a legit blue chip crime-drama-thriller in the shape of James Gray‘s next movie, Paper Tiger, which will star Oscar nominee Adam Driver, Emmy and Tony winner Jeremy Strong and Oscar winner Anne Hathaway.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Willem Dafoe, who stars in Tim Burton’s fest opener “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” along with jury members Kleber Mendonça Filho (“Bacurau”) and Giuseppe Tornatore (“Cinema Paradiso”) turned up at the annual Venice Film Festival‘s pre-opening party on the rooftop of the Danieli Hotel on Tuesday night. Co-hosted by the Leone Film Group, Variety and the Danieli Hotel, the glamorous bash brought together a mix of stars, global industry movers and shakers, including hitmaking Italian director Paolo Genovese, Los Angeles-based producer Niels Juul (“Ferrari”) and Bárbara Paz, a Brazilian actor and filmmaker.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s Leone Film Group is taking the legacy of its founder, spaghetti Western master Sergio Leone, to the next level. As the Rome-based company run by the maestro’s children, Raffaella and Andrea, celebrates its 35th anniversary, it continues to consolidate its standing as the preeminent supplier of U.S. indie product to Italy.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Francesco Zippel’s Sergio Leone doc, which premieres on Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival, is the first portrait of the Italian master made with full support of his children Raffaella and Andrea. Titled “Sergio Leone: The Man Who Invented America,” the high-profile doc is premiering in the Venice Classics section for docs on cinema. It features an impressive list of voices holding forth on what makes Leone special for them. Among these are: Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Giuseppe Tornatore, Frank Miller, Darren Aronofsky, Damien Chazelle and Robert De Niro (see clip). But aside from Leone’s visionary talent as a director what emerges is that as his career escalated from the so-called “Dollars Trilogy” to “Once Upon a Time in the West” through to his final masterpiece, “Once Upon a Time in America,” Leone’s life was steeped in two inextricably linked passions: film and family. 

Disney+ has greenlit The Lions of Sicily, an Italian series based on Stefania Auci’s The Florios of Siciliy from Paolo Genovese.

Naman Ramachandran Disney+ has commenced production on Italian original series “The Lions of Sicily,” a family saga based on Stefania Auci’s bestseller “The Florios of Sicily.” Principal photography has started in Rome and will take place between there and Sicily. It is directed by Paolo Genovese (“Superheroes”).

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentWattpad Webtoon Studios, the user-generated fiction entertainment outfit, and Italy’s Leone Film Group have announced a deal to co-develop a slate of films for the Italian and international marketplace based on original fiction stories from Wattpad.The pact is an expansion of their previously announced deal to make a film based on Blair Holden’s “The Bad Boy’s Girl,” which is among the most popular stories on the storytelling platform.Australian writer Hannah Lehman, whose series “Two Sides,” released under Snapchat’s ‘Snap Originals’ in 2019, started out with a self-made pilot and reached 6.5 million views on Facebook, is set to pen the script.Lehman also wrote and directed Facebook Watch’s first ever digital series, “The Unboxing.” Leone Film Group has now also optioned the full series of novels in “The Bad Boy’s Girl” saga, which has more than 223 million reads on the platform.Aside from the “Bad Boy’s Girl” franchise, the plan is to develop 1-3 films per year through “a wide-ranging partnership on projects for young adult audiences that we select and co-develop and co-produce together,” Leone Film Group CEO Raffaella Leone (pictured) told Variety. “These will be Italian productions for global distribution,” she added.“Leone Film Group understands the power of listening to audiences and nurturing fandoms,” said Aron Levitz, president at Wattpad Webtoon Studios, in a statement.