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The pastures in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s luminous new film are only dry at the very end. Save for that brief summery coda, the landscape in About Dry Grasses remains a snowcapped immensity where prairies are ringed by belittling peaks, people stand out as calligraphic silhouettes, and snow falls so heavy as to blot out everything. It’s as if it fell “to make oblivion possible,” observes art teacher Samet (Deniz Celiloglu), and in a film populated with wanderers trying to start anew, those words echo like a prayer. Geographically and thematically close to the rest of Ceylan’s oeuvre, the film finds him working once again in a remote corner of Eastern Anatolia and revisiting leitmotifs in his preferred mode: long, talky symposiums that pit characters against each other in games of verbal fencing. But none of it feels like a retreading. If anything, About Dry Grasses is both...

“I knew from day one it was Geraldine Chaplin who needed to play The General,” says director Jessica Woodworth about having Charlie Chaplin’s daughter play one of the central characters in her latest drama, “Luka,” which is having its world premiere in the Big Screen Competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

“Not because she’s female, however,” emphasizes the director. “This had nothing to do with it. In fact, my intention was to have her incarnate a male character, but our working relationship is so strong, I told her I couldn’t make a film without her. In the end, it became totally irrelevant whether she was male or female.”

The film is inspired by Dino Buzzati’s classic novel “The Tartar Steppe,” and stars Chaplin and Jonas Smulders, a previous European Shooting Star, as the titular character. “I studied Italian literature at university, and lived in Italy for a while,...

The trailer has debuted for Jessica Woodworth’s sci-fi epic “Luka,” which has its world premiere in the Big Screen Competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Films Boutique is handling international sales.

The film is Woodworth’s take on Dino Buzzati’s “The Tartar Steppe,” in which she crafts a fantasy of post-truth lunacy. Geraldine Chaplin plays the twisted General in a drama tinged with the conjured terrors of George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” and the rapturous brotherly love of Jean Genet’s “Un chant d’amour.”

In the film, Luka, a young and ambitious soldier, embeds himself in Fort Kairos where heroic warriors defend the remains of civilization. His hopes to serve as an elite sniper are crushed when he is assigned to maintenance and must submit to the code of Kairos: obedience, endurance and sacrifice. As he rises through the ranks, Luka finds joy and strength in friendships with Konstantin,...

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The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) on Monday unveiled its full line for its 2023 event.

After two all-virtual festivals, the IFFR is finally returning in-person fest, running January 25-February 5 in the Dutch port city. Rotterdam is one of the last major festivals to return post-pandemic, its 2022 event having been forced to go online-only at the last minute when Dutch authorities imposed a new lockdown in December last year, just weeks before the IFFR kicked off.

The resulting revenue shortfall —closed theatres equals zero ticket sales —meant IFFR had to slash its budget, cutting 15 percent of its staff and restructuring.

Festival director Vanja Kaludjercic, who runs the IFFR together with managing director Marjan van der Haar, told The Hollywood Reporter the cuts were made “in order to avoid having to make big changes to the festival.” The 2023 edition, however, will be significantly smaller than the pre-pandemic versions,...

For some cinephiles, Sicily may still conjure images from “The Godfather” franchise, but the Italian isle has long moved on.

When you see Sicily on screen these days in movies and TV series made for global audiences, the narratives now seldom involve Cosa Nostra tropes as they once used to. What’s taking precedence for producers now is the sheer beauty of the Sicilian landscape in its plethora of forms.

“For decades Sicily was where you would come to film stories that were centered around the Mafia and organized crime; but now this is changing,” says Sicilian Film Commission chief Nicola Tarantino. He notes that only 10 of the roughly 45 projects supported by the commission last year have anything to do with the mob.

While the crime angle may have boosted Sicily’s profile as a location, productions that chose the island for filming are just “less and less interested in this theme,...

Geraldine Chaplin, Jonas Smulders star.

Berlin-based sales firm Films Boutique has boarded Jessica Woodworth’s Belgian feature Fortress starring Geraldine Chaplin and Jonas Smulders.

It has released a first-look image of the film, which is in post-production, above.

Fortress shot for six weeks in Sicily in autumn 2021, with filming in black-and-white on Super 16mm film. US-Belgian filmmaker Woodworth wrote the screenplay, adapted from Dino Buzzati’s 1940 novel The Tartar Steppe.

It is about a young soldier, hungry for battle, who embeds himself in an isolated fort where men wait in vain for an enemy to strike. Jan Bijvoet and Sam Louwyck also star.

Italy, which has always been attractive for international film and TV productions, is now making huge strides as a shooting destination mainly due to its Covid safety measures and smart rebate, on top its stunning locations.

The number of high-profile Hollywood shoots that since the pandemic have flocked to Italian sites — from the Alpine Alto Adige area to Sicily and Sardinia — has increased exponentially.

Productions taking advantage of Italy’s attractive incentives and deep crew base include “Mission: Impossible 7,” Netflix’s Dwayne Johnson-starrer “Red Notice,” Amazon’s “The Wheel of Time,” Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” “Indiana Jones 5” and also Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci,” Showtime’s “Ripley” series and Joe Wright’s “Cyrano.”

These last three productions have the distinction of being lensed almost entirely in the country.

Foreign production spend this year in Italy is estimated at roughly $250 million and is expected to double...

The film is a Belgian-Italian-Dutch-Bulgarian-Armenian co-production.

US actor Geraldine Chaplin and the Netherlands’ Jonas Smulders have joined the cast of US-Belgian filmmaker Jessica Woodworth’s drama Fortress.

Filming on the drama got underway this week in Sicily, and will run until October 5.

Woodworth has written the screenplay for the film, adapted from Dino Buzzati’s 1940 Italian novel The Tartar Steppe. It is about a young solder, hungry for battle, who embeds himself in an isolated fort where men wait in vain for an enemy to strike.

Woodworth is also producing with Peter Brosens for Belgium’s Bo Films and Krater Films.

Illustrator Lorenzo Mattotti is no stranger to film festivals. The artist – a long-time New Yorker cover artist and onetime Lou Reed and Michelangelo Antonioni collaborator – has designed posters for past editions of Venice and Cannes, and has contributed to films that played in Toronto and Rome.

This year, however, he experienced the festival rush from a whole new angle, as he brought his directorial debut, “The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily,” to Cannes and Annecy. The film screened at this week’s Mia market in Rome.

Adapted from a cult 1945 children’s book by Italian poet Dino Buzzati, the film uses hand-drawn 2D to spin a fable-like tale about a group of benevolent bears that descend the mountains of Sicily to bring some sense to the human world.

Pathé International is handling world sales.

You’ve worn many hats in your career. For how long have you wanted to direct?...

A classic Italian children’s book from 1945 gets an update in master illustrator Lorenzo Mattotti’s feature debut, “The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily.” Beautifully drawn with bold colors and appealing shapes, the film’s style is classic animation at its best, clear and pleasing, calculated to charm children and adults alike. The revised storyline, however, about how bears and humans clash, make amends, and then realize they’re too different to live together, can lead to unfortunate and inadvertent interpretations neither Mattotti nor the original author Dino Buzzati intended. In addition, the narrative’s pace, whizzing by from one scene to the next, frustrates an adult’s desire to relish the often-striking images, making the film most suitable for kids incapable of critically engaging with metaphor.

“The Bears’ Famous Invasion” first appeared in print toward the end of World War 2, written and illustrated by the multi-talented Buzzati, whose novel...

Eclectic Italian artist and illustrator Lorenzo Mattotti has designed everything from comic books to New Yorker covers in his long and acclaimed career, but The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily (La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia) is his first venture into feature filmmaking. Based on novelist Dino Buzzati’s (The Tartar Steppe) only children’s book, which takes its cue from local traditions like the wandering minstrel and storyteller, it is a colorful fairy tale for children that won't keep them up at night. Exactly why the Franco-Italian co-production ended up in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section needs ...

Eclectic Italian artist and illustrator Lorenzo Mattotti has designed everything from comic books to New Yorker covers in his long and acclaimed career, but The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily (La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia) is his first venture into feature filmmaking. Based on novelist Dino Buzzati’s (The Tartar Steppe) only children’s book, which takes its cue from local traditions like the wandering minstrel and storyteller, it is a colorful fairy tale for children that won't keep them up at night. Exactly why the Franco-Italian co-production ended up in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section needs ...

After some hestitation if Quentin Tarantino would finish Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in time for a Cannes premiere, the festival announced today that his 1969-set film would officially be ready to have its world bow there. Set to screen in 35mm, it clocks in at 2 hours and 45 minutes, but it’s not the longest film added to the competition line-up. The festival will also premiere Abdellatif Kechiche’s sequel Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo, which runs a whopping four hours.

It’s also not the only Tarantino update we got this week. Speaking to /Film about his re-edited Netflix version of The Hateful Eight, he revealed that his rumored director’s cut of the Django Unchained is a reality and it’s coming sooner than we thought. “I’ve actually cut a director’s cut of Django. That’s about like three hours and 15 minutes, or three hours and 20 minutes,...

Exclusive: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire set to direct Addicted To Violence.

Wild Bunch is unleashing sales on French director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s Addicted To Violence, an English-language project about a young photojournalist who develops a deadly obsession with hardcore situations during an assignment in Central America.

It will be Sauvaire’s third narrative feature after 2008 debut Johnny Mad Dog, which premiered in Un Certain Regard, and kick-boxing thriller A Prayer Before Dawn [pictured], which bows in Midnight Screenings tonight (May 19) after going down a storm in early Cannes screenings.

“He is the hot new director to sign,” commented Wild Bunch head of sales Vincent Maraval.

Wild Bunch is producing and handling world sales in all territories apart from North America, where the project is represented by CAA, which is also financing and casting the film. No actors have been confirmed yet.

Further titles

Wild Bunch is also kicking off sales on Lorenzo Mattotti’s The Bears’ Famous Invasion Of Sicily...

Exclusive: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire set to direct Addicted To Violence.

Wild Bunch is unleashing sales on French director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s Addicted To Violence, an English-language project about a young photojournalist who develops a deadly obsession with hardcore situations during an assignment in Central America.

It will be Sauvaire’s third narrative feature after 2008 debut Johnny Mad Dog, which premiered in Un Certain Regard, and kick-boxing thriller A Prayer Before Dawn [pictured], which bows in Midnight Screenings tonight (May 19) after going down a storm in early Cannes screenings.

“He is the hot new director to sign,” commented Wild Bunch head of sales Vincent Maraval.

Wild Bunch is producing and handling world sales in all territories apart from North America, where the project is represented by CAA, which is also financing and casting the film. No actors have been confirmed yet.

Further titles

Wild Bunch is also kicking off sales on Lorenzo Mattotti’s The Bears’ Famous Invasion Of Sicily...

Exclusive: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire set to direct Addicted To Violence.

Wild Bunch is unleashing sales on French director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s Addicted To Violence, an English-language project about a young photojournalist who develops a deadly obsession with hardcore situations during an assignment in Central America.

It will be Sauvaire’s third narrative feature after 2008 debut Johnny Mad Dog, which premiered in Un Certain Regard, and kick-boxing thriller A Prayer Before Dawn [pictured], which bows in Midnight Screenings tonight (May 19) after going down a storm in early Cannes screenings.

“He is the hot new director to sign,” commented Wild Bunch head of sales Vincent Maraval.

Wild Bunch is producing and handling world sales in all territories apart from North America, where the project is represented by CAA, which is also financing and casting the film. No actors have been confirmed yet.

Further titles

Wild Bunch is also kicking off sales on Lorenzo Mattotti’s The Bears’ Famous Invasion Of Sicily...

The following is an excerpt from "The Journey of G. Mastorna: The Film Fellini Didn't Make," which was released in an English translation by Berghahn Books in August. The book contains an annotated screenplay for this longtime passion project of the Italian filmmaker, which revolved around a musician killed in a plane crash who navigates the afterlife. This introduction, written by translator Marcus Perryman and reprinted with the permission of the publisher, outlines the history of the unfinished project. In 1965 Federico Fellini signed a contract with the producer Dino De Laurentiis to make a science fiction film based on Fredric Brown's "What Mad Universe." For all that this might have interested Fellini after his pretend spaceship and red-herring escape scenario in "8½," he quickly changed his mind; instead of "What Mad Universe" he began writing an original script of his own, "Il viaggio di G. Mastorna," based on an idea by Dino Buzzati,...

Based on the Greek mythological story of Orpheus and Eurudice, Dino Buzzati’s pioneering graphic novel Poem Strip was originally published in Italy in 1969 (as Poema A Fumetti), and it’s surprising that it’s taken four decades to see print in the U.S.—Marina Harss’ English translation is its first. Comics have been described as movies on paper, and this one reads like a rock ’n’ roll-sexploitation-fantasy-occult midnight cult favorite. Poem Strip is mostly an excuse for Buzzati to reimagine Milan as a phantasmagoria as alluring as any of the artists he liberally borrows from: His plot ...