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Italian star Luisa Ranieri, who played the emotionally troubled Aunt Patrizia in Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” has joined the cast of the Johnny Depp-directed film “Modì,” about Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. The film has started shooting in Budapest. Ranieri is starring in “Modì” alongside fellow Italian Riccardo Scamarcio, who plays th...

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The San Diego Italian Film Festival returns Tuesday with in-person and online screenings of movies, many of which are making their San Diego debuts. This year’s fest, which runs through Oct. 14, will show films at the Museum of Photographic Arts and San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park, as well as La Paloma in Encinitas and Digital Gym at UC San...

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It’s one of the most iconic scenes in one of the greatest movies in American history, and it has almost nothing to do with the rest of the plot. It’s mob capo Paulie Cicero, played by the late Paul Sorvino. He’s in a minimum-security prison with the rest of the wise guys. They’ve bribed the guards so they can have all the stuff they need for a prop...

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It’s sometimes the fate of a single city to epitomise an era: Berlin in the 1920s, perhaps, or London in the 1960s. So which one would represent our own period of ecological anxiety, true crime and fake news? I’d wager it’s one you might not suspect: Naples. In terms of cultural clout, the place is booming. The city’s famous bay, flanked by Mount V...

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Potentially Dangerous exposes the unknown story of how 600,000 Italians living in the U.S. during WWII were surveilled, stripped of their livelihoods and native language, and were forced to leave their homes; some were even sent to internment camps — all while one million of their sons were fighting and dying in Europe and the South Pacific to keep...

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In mid-century Italy, going to the cinema was the thing to do. The release of a new Totò film, the most recent Fellini, or Sergio Leone’s latest western were unmissable events. The next day’s water cooler chatter, newspaper headlines, and dinnertime gossip would revolve around new releases and their lingo, and to not be up to date was a special for...

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Studio 5 at Cinecittà is firing on all cylinders. In its day, it was Federico Fellini’s favorite, in which he filmed La Dolce Vita, Amarcord and Eight and a Half. The director’s association with the studio was so strong that a funeral chapel was built on the lot for his memorial service in 1993. This summer, a filmmaker of a different nature, Rolan...

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Italy has submitted Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano as its candidate for Best International Film at the 96th Academy Awards. The timely drama follows the hardships of two Senegalese teenagers as they try to make it to Europe via the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean Sea. The film world premiered to critical acclaim in Competition in Venice winning B...

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Michael Mann’s racing drama “Ferrari” is set to close the 61st annual New York Film Festival. The sports biopic, starring Adam Driver as automotive mogul Enzo Ferrari, will make its North American premiere at Alice Tully Hall on Oct. 13. Michael Mann (“Heat,” “The Last of the Mohicans”) directed “Ferrari,” which is adapted from the 1991 biography “...

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WHAT’S LIFE without glamour?… Pretty boring. For some, glamour is winged eyeliner and a black plunging strapless dress, for others, glamour is an afternoon siesta on a striped sunbed, with Dean Martin crooning softly in your ear. For others, glamour transcends the physical form; it’s an attitude, a mindset, an energy that enters a room before you d...

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