Riccardo Vannuccini: Last News

K.J. Yossman First look images from upcoming U.K./Italian co-production “Commedia” have been released, Variety can exclusively reveal.Actor and writer Greta Bellamacina, who will next be seen in Sky Atlantic’s “This Sceptred Isle,” plays the lead, Irene.Helmed by Italian film and theater director Riccardo Vannuccini, “Commedia” will be Vannuccini’s first English-language film and is intended as an homage to renowned Italian filmmaker Marco Ferreri (“Storie di ordinaria follia,” “The House of Smiles”).Set as a “film within a film,” Vannuccini also co-stars in the feature, playing a director called Rocco Cucovaz who unsuccessfully directs Bellamacina in a variety of scenes, each one descending into chaos until the female actors eventually take over the production.

K.J. Yossman Riccardo Vannuccini has set a sequel to his feature “Commedia.” Titled “Tarzan,” the project will see him again team up with “This England” star Greta Bellamacina, with whom he starred in “Commedia.” The duo will reprise their roles as Rocco and Irene, this time in a post-industrial landscape. Manolo Cinti is on board as DP. “Tarzan,” which begins shooting in Italy this November, is co-produced by Artestudio in Rome and Sulk Youth in the U.K. “Commedia” is set to be released on Prime Video in the U.K. and U.S. this month. “Our heroes have managed to mysteriously escape from where they were – but where were they?” says Vannuccini. “They are busy doing nothing, making small acts, to leave imaginative traces of their passage, imagined signs of being in the world. Scratches, noises, silences, poses, runs, drinks, wounds, escapes, kisses, stealing. The world they inhabit is our own post-industrial landscape, a world scarred by the industry and sadness of the twentieth century, but in it they find beauty, and they create beauty. They are the archetypal romantic runaways.”