Producer Lorenzo Mieli Breaks Down His Two New Genre Series, ‘Bang Bang Baby’ and ‘The King’
variety.comNick Vivarelli International CorrespondentProducer Lorenzo Mieli, who has brought to the screen top Italian TV series such as “The Young Pope” and “My Brilliant Friend,” is launching two new crime shows with innovative elements: “The King” and “Bang Bang Baby.”Both stem from his bent to push boundaries of genre storytelling that is “borne from authenticity,” he says.“The King,” which is Italy’s first prison drama, recently bowed positively in Italy on Comcast-owned Sky’s pay-TV service and also premiered internationally at the Series Mania fest.The dark show stars Luca Zingaretti, best known as the titular character in Italy’s widely exported “Inspector Montalbano” series.
He plays Bruno Testori the sometimes psychopathic director of a maximum security penitentiary located on an unspecified Italian border territory that is not subject to Italian law.
There Testori, who is a mixture of good and evil, can apply his totally personal idea of justice. The show’s larger narrative has to do with how Italy contends with terrorism and its ramifications in the country’s jails and also the link between terrorism prevention and the country’s secret services. “Bang Bang Baby” (pictured) which is premiering at the Canneseries fest and will drop globally on Amazon’s Prime Video starting on April 28, is a “family melodrama steeped in crime,” as Mieli puts it.The 10-episode show, which is set in 1980’s Milan, turns on a shy, insecure teenager named Alice who becomes the youngest member of the Calabrian mob, known as the ‘Ndrangheta.
She does this not for money, ambition, or a burning desire for power, “but to win the love of her father,” he says.“Bang Bang Baby” originates from a doc produced by Mieli titled “Lady ’Ndrangheta” about.
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