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Exclusive: The Sea Beyond stars Giacomo Giorgio and Serena de Ferrari are among several Italian actors who have boarded Rai’s ambitious opera drama Bel Canto, which went into production this week.

Notably, Caterina Ferioli (The Tearsmith) and Adriana Savarese have landed the key roles as teenage sisters Carolina and Antonia, whose close friendship is tested by desires to become Italian opera singers.

Vincenzo Ferrera, another The Sea Beyond actor, has also joined the cast, alongside Andrea Bosca, Nicolo Pasetti, Carmine Ricarno (Loose Cannons), and Antonio Gerardi.

The series is among the highest profile drama series coming to of Europe this year. Production on the €15M ($16.3M) budget series began yesterday, with filming set to to take place in Naples, Rome and other parts of Italy such as the town of Pavia in Lombardia. France...

Exclusive: Italian production and distribution stalwart Lucky Red is teaming with local pubcaster Rai on drama series Belcanto, about the roots of opera in Italy.

The ambitious drama is set to star Vittoria Puccini (The Trial) and be directed by Carmine Elia (The Sea Beyond). Newen Connect will be handling international sales.

We understand the series is aiming for a budget in the €15M range. Additional casting is underway, including for two more prominent actress roles.

Belcanto was first pitched at Berlin’s co-pro series market last year. Co-created by Mariano Di Nardo, Antonio Manca and Federico Fava, the drama is set in 1798, as 14-year-old Carolina, her 17-year-old sister Antonia and their mother Maria seek refuge in the city of Milan after stabbing their violent father to death.

The elder sister dreams of becoming a renowned singer, much as her mother once hoped for when she was the girl’s age.

Oscar Wilde may be the most famous person to face imprisonment for being gay, but he wasn’t the only one to suffer under an archaic legal system. Set in 1960s Italy, Gianni Amelio’s expansive historical drama “Lord of The Ants” uncovers the story of Aldo Braibanti, an Italian playwright, poet, and director who faced imprisonment for a consensual relationship with a younger student. “Lord of The Ants” holds a mirror to this shameful chapter in Italian history, painting

The film opens on an intimate moment between the handsome and dignified Aldo (Luigi Lo Cascio) and beautiful Ettore (Leonardo Maltese). Glowing with adoration, Aldo and Ettore recite poetry to each other in an outdoor Roman movie theater, ensconced in each other’s brilliance. At another table a kind journalist named Ennio (Elio Germano) observes them with sensitivity. “Braibanti, the myrmecologist,” he points out to his cousin Grazie (Sara Serraiocco...

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Gianni Amelio’s chronicle of the persecution of Aldo Braibanti, Lord of the Ants (Il Signore delle Formiche), doesn’t avoid the propensity of many Italian period dramas for dense verbosity, with characters spouting great gobs of manicured prose. That’s perhaps especially the case since the protagonist was a poet, playwright and philosopher. But Amelio’s classical approach, and the dignified refusal of martyrdom in Luigi Lo Cascio’s lead performance, make this account of Braibanti’s controversial imprisonment for homosexuality in 1968 after a four-year trial a quietly stirring portrait of institutional intolerance.

The Braibanti case drew international attention in the wake of his conviction due to the number of influential public figures who spoke out against the travesty of justice — Pier Paolo Pasolini, Alberto Moravia, Elsa Morante, Marco Bellocchio and Umberto Eco among them.

What’s striking now about the courtroom...

Triumph of the (Court’s) Will: Amelio Delves into Infamously Homophobic Italian Court Case

Perennial Italian auteur Gianni Amelio goes back to the contentious political climate of late 1960s Rome with Il signore delle formiche (Lord of the Ants) to recuperate the uncomfortable history of a law used to penalize homosexuality (though this term wasn’t used explicitly in court) as the crime of plagia. In other words, the act of manipulating another person either physically or psychologically to submit to whatever heinous biddings are deemed culturally problematic. As the film announces, the script co-written by Amelio, Federico Fava, and Edoardo Petit is ‘loosely’ based on these events, as evidenced by the intimate relationships sandwiching the eventual courtroom melodrama.…...

Myrmecology is a study of science that looks at the life, society and hierarchy of ants. Early Myrmecologists believed that ant culture was utopian and thought by studying them in encased ant farms, they could find solutions to human problems. However, Gianni Amelio’s Italian post-wwii drama The Lord of the Ants (Il Signore Delle Formiche) flips this idea around. It examines why strict societies foster cultures of oppression where everyone must play their role or be punished.

The screenplay by Amelio, Federico Fava and Edoardo Petti chooses its dialogue with precision. They want us to know they resent post-Mussolini Europe and how not just homosexuals but anyone on the margins is oppressed under fascist rule.

Venice Film Festival: Deadline’s Full Coverage

In 1965 Rome, Aldo Braibanti (Luigi Lo Cascio) is caught sleeping with his young lover Ettore (Leonardo Maltese). Their relationship started a year earlier in small-town Italy, where Aldo was directing a play.

Gianni Amelio was in his late sixties when he came out as gay a few years ago. The announcement preceded the release of his documentary “Happy to Be Different,” which worked toward an overriding sunniness in contemplating the trials and challenges of being gay in Italy at various points in the 20th century. In turning to a gay-themed narrative project, Amelio narrows the focus and dims the mood: “Lord of the Ants” takes as its subject the gay Italian author Aldo Braibanti, and the social and legal opposition he faced over his sexuality in mid-1960s Rome. Solemn, stately and perhaps a little stifled, it’s the kind of queer statement you might expect from a veteran filmmaker who wasn’t until relatively recently out and proud, and is rather poignant for that.

In a key scene, the middle-aged Braibanti (played with urbane grace by Luigi Lo Cascio) takes his...

Featuring in this year’s eight iteration of the Berlinale Co-Production Market’s Co-Pro Series, Italian drama “Belcanto” will hope to follow a trail blazed by former participating European standouts such as “Babylon Berlin,” “Freud,” “Furia,” and last year’s Series Mania winner “Blackport.”

Co-created by the trio of Mariano Di Nardo, Antonio Manca and Federico Fava and produced by leading Italian distribution-production house Lucky Red, the series project is set in 1798, as 14-year-old Carolina, her 17-year-old sister Antonia and their mother Maria seek refuge in the city of Milan after stabbing their violent father to death.

The elder sister dreams of becoming a renowned singer, much as her mother once hoped for when she was the girl’s age. However, an unhappy and often violent marriage waylaid young Maria, who is now willing to go the extreme lengths to ensure that her daughter is afforded every opportunity withheld from herself.