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Prime Video on Monday unveiled teaser footage, plot details and an Oct. 10 launch date for “Citadel: Diana,” the hotly anticipated spy show starring Matilda De Angelis (“The Undoing”) that is part of the “Citadel” franchise.

Details of “Citadel: Diana” – which marks the streamer’s most ambitious Italian original to date – were unveiled during a gala evening presentation of Prime Video’s Italian slate held in the palatial Villa Miani on a hill overlooking the Eternal City.

The six-episode series is set in a near-future Milan, in 2030, where eight years earlier the independent global spy agency Citadel was wiped out by Manticore, the powerful enemy syndicate that manipulates the world from the shadows. Since then, Diana Cavalieri (De Angelis) – who is an undercover Citadel agent – is alone, “trapped behind enemy lines as a mole in Manticore,” as the provided synopsis puts it.

When Diana finally sees a way out and the chance to disappear forever,...

The 2022 cohort included several US-financed titles that would go on to become major awards contenders.

As this year’s Venice Film Festival prepares to kick off on August 30, Screen International looks at how 2022’s Competition titles fared at the global box office.

Scroll down for box office figures

The 2022 cohort included several US-financed titles that would go on to become major awards contenders, with Oscar best actor-winner The Whale the highest-grossing competition title with global takings of $54m. Its biggest international territory outside of North America was Mexico with $8.3m.

Next was nine-time Oscar nominee The Banshees Of Inisherin on $49m,...

Belgian directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s Italian-language drama The Eight Mountains and veteran Marco Bellocchio’s Exterior Night topped the 68th edition of Italy’s David di Donatello Awards on Wednesday evening.

The Eight Mountains won best film as well as best non-original screenplay, photography and sound.

Based on the novel of the same name by Paolo Cognetti, it stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as two men from different backgrounds who form a life-long bond during summers spent together as children in a remote mountain village.

The film world premiered in Competition at Cannes last year where it co-won the Jury Prize. Read the Deadline review here.

It is the second time in the history of the awards that a film by non-Italian directors has clinched the best film prize.

The last time was in 1971 when the Dino de Laurentiis-produced epic Waterloo by Russian director Sergei Bonderchuk,...

Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” Roman Polanski’s “The Palace,” “The Son” with Anthony Hopkins, and “Golda” with Helen Mirren are among the theatrical releases lined up for the rest of this year and next year for Italy’s 01 Distribution. Paolo Del Brocco, CEO of the distributor’s parent company, Rai Cinema, presented the lineup at the Torino Film Festival on Friday, and discussed an adjustment in his company’s production strategy in favor of bigger budget Italian films.

As well as the stellar international titles, there is also a strong Italian contingent on the 01 Distribution slate, including Marco Bellocchio’s “La Conversione,” Matteo Garrone’s “Io capitano,” “Il ritorno de Casanova,” starring Toni Servillo, and Saverio Costanzo’s “Finalmente l’alba,” starring Lily James.

“It is a luminous list because cinema in theaters illuminates cities, urban spaces,...

Italy’s theatrical box office is finally showing some encouraging signs after long lagging behind other European countries in terms of post-pandemic returns.

“Don’t Worry Darling,” segueing from its Venice launch, opened better in Italy than in France and Germany last weekend when the Harry Styles and Florence Pugh-starrer scored €965,000 from Italian screens in the frame ending September 25, landing in the number two spot.

The “Avatar” re-release weighed in at number one in Italian theaters with €1.65 million (1.61 million), a better opening than Germany.

The same frame saw three Italian films – all Venice launches – among the top ten. Most notable of these is Gianni Amelio’s “Lord of the Ants,” a biopic of Italian poet and playwright Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968 due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law. “Ants” has now scored a decent more than €1.4 million (1.36 million) since bowing on Sept. 8 and briefly reaching the numero uno slot.

Film is directed by Mario Martone and stars Pierfrancesco Favino.

Italy has selected Mario Martone’s Nostalgia as its entry for the best international feature film category at the 2023 Academy Awards.

Based on the novel by Ermanno Rea, Nostalgia is set in Martone’s hometown of Naples and stars Pierfrancesco Favino as a man who returns to his origins after four decades of being away.

The film premiered in competition at this year’s Cannes film festival. It is produced by Picomedia, Mad Enertainment and Medusa Film, with True Colours handling international sales.

The other 11 titles under consideration by the...

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Italy’s version of National Cinema Day — a five-day event called Cinema in festa offering discount tickets for certain films at participating theaters across the country —has proved a major success, with more than 1.1 million people crowding in, bringing in around 3.9 million (€4 million) in box office revenue. Compared to the previous week, that represents a 2.1 million (€2.2 million) box office jump.

Inspired by National Cinema Day in the US and the UK, and similar cinema promotion events in France and Spain, Italy’s Cinema in festa was organized by the national audiovisual group Anica together with exhibitors association Anec with the support of the Italian Ministry of Culture and with the collaboration of the Italian Cinema Academy. For the five-day period, from September 18-22, tickets at participating cinemas were fixed at 3.40 (€3.50).

The discount applied to a mix of new releases and re-run titles, with...

Gianni Amelio’s “Lord of the Ants,” a biopic of Italian poet and playwright Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968 due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law, has reached the top spot at Italy’s box office following its launch from the Venice Film Festival.

“Ants” on Monday reached the numero uno position at the local box office roster with a €483,474 intake from more than 300 screens following its September 8 release. While far from stellar in normal times, this result is being hailed as an encouraging sign for the country’s still sagging post-pandemic theatrical sector.

Amelio’s film is now ahead of Japanese anime pic “Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo,” which was released as an event on Monday for a three day run, and “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” which is at the end of its run, following it’s Aug. 18 Italian outing.

“After being excellently received at the Venice Film Festival,...

Veteran Italian auteur Gianni Amelio rose to prominence with Oscar-nominated “Open Doors” (1990) and also “Stolen Children,” which won the 1992 Cannes Grand Prix. He won the Venice Golden Lion in 1998 with period drama “The Way We Laughed” and competed again in Venice with “A Lonely Hero” in 2013. Amelio’s more recent work comprises “Hammamet,” a portrait of disgraced late Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi’s final years in Tunisia.

Amelio is back in Venice with “Lord of the Ants” a biopic of Italian poet, playwright and director Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968, after a four-year trial due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law. Pic, which is produced by Simone Gattoni and Marco Bellocchio, stars Luigi Lo Cascio (“The Ties”) as Braibanti, who was convicted after a complaint from his younger partner’s father, who later forced his son to be treated with electroconvulsive therapy in an ill-conceived attempt to rid him of his homosexuality.

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...

With Italy not being a nation typically associated with progressive views and attitudes regarding sexuality, it was reassuring to hear the largely local crowd at the “Lord of the Ants” press screening of the Venice Film Festival laugh at the preposterous words of an ultra-religious woman on screen talking about how she “cured” her son from homosexuality by sending him to a saint. Whether the scene was intended to provoke that reaction is another story.

Continue reading ‘Lord Of The Ants’ Review: Even Elio Germano Cannot Save This Plodding Historical Drama [Venice] at The Playlist.

Click here to read the full article.

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.

Since 2007, Venice’s Queer Lion Award has reflected and elevated the best in LGBTQ cinema. Fifteen years later, founder Daniel N. Casagrande said this year’s Venice Film Festival will be “the most queer edition ever.”

Among the fest’s 30 LGBTQ-themed titles, 19 are competing for the Queer Lion, including a record six films from the main competition. They include Todd Field’s orchestra conductor drama “Tár,” starring Cate Blanchett; Darren Aronofsky’s estranged gay father study “The Whale,” featuring Brendan Fraser; Laura Poitras’ doc “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” chronicling bisexual artist Nan Goldin’s life and anti-opioid crusade; Andrea Pallaoro’s trans woman family drama “Monica”; Emanuele Crialese’s “L’immensità,” starring Penélope Cruz as the mother of a transgender child; and Gianni Amelio’s “Il signore delle formiche,” the true story of an Italian artist jailed under an infamous anti-gay law.

With an average of eight to 10 nominees each year,...

Welcome to Deadline’s International Disruptors, a feature where we shine a spotlight on key executives and companies outside of the U.S. shaking up the offshore marketplace. As the Venice Film Festival kicks off today, we’re speaking with Rai Cinema CEO Paolo Del Brocco about some of the company’s 24 titles featuring in the festival this year as well as his ongoing challenge to lure Italian audiences back into the cinema after a rocky post-pandemic period.

Rai Cinema CEO Paolo Del Brocco is no stranger to the Venice Film Festival, having headed up the film arm of the top Italian public broadcaster Rai for more than a decade. But, in many ways, this year feels more significant than ever for the top exec as he touches down on the Lido to enjoy local and international projects on the big screen at a time when the cinema sector has...

Film arm of Italy’s state broadcaster has four films in competition at Venice.

Rai Cinema is investing €85m (86.9m) in 80 new projects this year, according to CEO Paolo Del Brocco.

Del Brocco was speaking to Screen as the film production and distribution arm of Italy’s state broadcaster gears up to premiere three films in the Venice Film Festival’s main competition. In total, Rai Cinema has 22 films debuting in all Venice sections including Horizons.

“Obviously, the overall production value of the films is higher, given that Rai Cinema’s investment covers only a part of the movies’ financial requirements,...