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Black Souls CinemaltaliaUK’s mini film festival returns to the Riverside Studios in London for its fourth edition this month. The festival - titled Donne di Mafia - focuses on the role and presence of women in the Italian mafia, and their portrayal in Italian cinema and runs on the weekend of March 16 to 17.

Among the films screening this year is Francesco Munzi's Black Souls, based on a true story and featuring Aurora Quattrocchi as an elderly matriarch and Pippo Mezzapesa's Burning Hearts, which charts the love story of a man and a woman from rival clans.

Nevia, directed by Nunzia De Stefano, about a girl who joins a circus, is also in the line-up along with Francesco Rosi's 1958 debut The Challenge. The screenings will be followed by Q&As, with guests inlcuding Munzi and Virginia Apicella, who stars in Nevia.

The event is sponsored by the University of Bath,...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Clean (Paul Solet)

Hard-edged, old-fashioned, and anchored by a sturdy movie star performance from Adrien Brody, Clean plays well as a socially-tinged vigilante thriller. Directed by Paul Solet (from a script he co-wrote with Brody), the film moves fast and rises above certain genre tropes. Brody plays Clean, a garbage man seeped in the sins of his past. In the opening minutes, he goes about his day: driving his early morning route before retiring to his industrial dwelling wherein he retrieves abandoned machines from a junkyard and brings them back to life. The resurrected results he sells to local pawnbroker Kurtis. – Dan M. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

The Fallout (Megan Park)

Quite literally saved by her little sister Amelia, school...

Pietro Marcello, the critically acclaimed Italian filmmaker of the Venice prize-winning “Martin Eden,” has just started shooting “Scarlet” (“L’envol”), a French-language drama set in Northern Normandy. Orange Studio has acquired international sales rights to the film which will be distributed in France by Le Pacte.

Charles Gillibert, whose Paris-based outfit CG Cinema previously delivered award-winning films such as Deniz Erguven’s “Mustang” and Leos Carax’s “Annette,” is producing “Scarlet” with Avventurosa and Rai Cinema in Italy, in collaboration with Ilya Stewart (Hype Film) and Antonio Miyakawa (Wise Pictures).

Marcello penned the script with his regular screenwriting partner Maurizio Braucci (“Gomorra”), as well as Maud Ameline (“Amanda”), with the participation of the novelist Geneviève Brisac.

The film is set between the two world wars, a time of great inventions, and follows the journey of a young woman who was raised by her father, a widowed war veteran, and strives...

The Italian film industry, which did not pause during the pandemic, is clearly a top priority within the country’s post Covid-19 recovery plan. The plan sees Rome’s Cinecittà Studios set for a €300 million ($358 million) cash injection earmarked by the European Union’s post-pandemic recovery fund for a radical overhaul of the famed facilities.

In June European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Italian premier Mario Draghi jointly visited the Cinecittà lot and held a press conference in its vast Studio 5, known as the late, great Federico Fellini’s second home. Italian culture minister Dario Franceschini announced still undeveloped plans to upgrade and expand the iconic studios “in order to adequately meet the growing international demand” for studio space.

Meanwhile Cinema Italiano will be out in full force at Cannes. Veteran auteur Marco Bellocchio will present his personal doc “Marx Can Wait” out-of-competition and be feted with an...

Javier Krause, one of Argentina’s key sales agents and co-founder of Kaflims Argentina, has crossed the Atlantic and started Kafilms Suisse, a new Swiss production company where he is taking the reins to create new content for international audiences, including two new Italian co-productions which Krause has announced in exclusivity with Variety.

Joined by Maurizio and Manuel Tedesco of Italy’s Baires Produzioni, backers of Filmax-sold “Tomorrow’s a New Day” from Simone Spada and WWI drama “Il destino degli uomini,” Kafilms will co-produce “The Eye of the Rabbit” from debut feature filmmakers Valentina and Francesca Bertuzzi and “L’Arminuta,” – currently in production – written by Monica Zapelli in collaboration with the author of the eponymous novel on which the film is based, Donatella di Pietrantonio.

“The Eye of the Rabbit” turns on Liz, the eldest daughter of a middle-class Roman family who discovers a mysterious hole that, night after night,...

Production is set to start next week on pan-European TV series “Survivors,” the latest project commissioned by the partnership known as The Alliance between leading European public broadcasters to counter the growing power of Netflix and other streamers.

The plan is for cameras to start rolling in Genoa on Oct. 21 on the series revolving around a sailboat that gets destroyed in a fierce storm and disappears. After a year the wreck is recovered with seven survivors aboard, some of whom seem to be hiding a terrible secret. Each episode follows the complex events related to their return.

The start of principal photography on “Survivors” was announced on Friday during Rome’s Mia market.

Italy’s Rai Fiction, France Télévisions, and Germany’s Zdf are on board the show, which is produced by Fabienne Servan-Schreiber and Thomas Saignes at Paris-based Cinetevé and by Marco Poccioni and Marco Valsania at Italian shingle Rodeo Drive.

Feature roster launches on June 2 weekly selection of films that have not received Us theatrical release.

Streaming platform Filmatique has launched the second edition of its Talents online programme featuring prize winners from San Sebastian and Sarajevo.

Starting on June 2 and continuing with a new film each week for the rest of the month, the New York-based online platform will showcase a noteworthy first or second feature by an emerging global filmmaker that has not yet received a Us theatrical release.

Films screen alongside shorts from directors of all experience levels, and each release will be paired with an exclusive interview with the director.

The past is a home country in Corsica-born French director Thierry de Peretti’s second feature, A Violent Life. A crime saga chronicling Corsica’s gruesome 1990s nationalist feuds via the rise and fall of the lost generation who took part in them, it captures a topic seldom shown on the big screen, but a few scattered hints of old and recent mafia classics aside (from Coppola’s Godfather trilogy to Francesco Munzi’s 2014 Black Souls), the end result never quite feels like the gripping thriller it could have been.

The entry point in the island’s troubled decade is Stéphane (played here by newcomer Jean Michelangeli, in an assured debut). A bespectacled and tame-looking Paris-based Corsican, his cushy life in the capital takes a U-turn after an old time friend is murdered in the island by local thugs. Shaken but seemingly not surprised by the assassination, he ignores his...

The Us theatrical distributor, with creditors in the Us and Europe, will “pursue an orderly liquidation.”

Troubled Us theatrical distributor Alchemy has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy with estimated liabilities of between $50m and $100m and creditors in the Us and Europe.

In a statement on its web site Alchemy said it will “pursue an orderly liquidation” and has released its entire staff.

The company’s bankruptcy filing says Alchemy has estimated assets of between $10m and $50m and creditors including Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Wme Entertainment in the Us, Protagonist Pictures and The Works in the UK, Insomnia World Sales and Artedis in France and Adriana Chiesa Enterprises in Italy.

Alchemy has recently handled the Us distribution of films including Meet The Patels (pictured), with $1.7m the company’s highest grossing release, Gaspar Noe’s Love, Sophie Barthes’ Madame Bovary and Black Souls (Anime Nere).

At the 2015 Cannes festival Alchemy bought Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster (pictured...

World premiere of Nordic disaster movie The Wave to open festival in Haugesund.

Joachim Trier’s Louder Than Bombs, starring Jesse Eisenberg, has been named as the closing film of the 43rd Norwegian International Film Festival (Aug 16-21) in Haugesund.

The drama, about how a father and his two sons confront their feelings of their deceased wife and mother, was Norway’s first Palme d’Or contender at Cannes in 36 years and is set to play at Toronto next month.

As previously announced, Niff will open with the world premiere of Roar Uthaug’s disaster movie, The Wave (Bølgen), when the festival is launched by Norway’s Crown Prince Haakon on Aug 16.

It means Norwegian films will both open and close the festival.

Tonje Hardersen, who was named the new Niff festival director in March, said: “I am very happy to see that local cinema is so well represented, and in so many genres.”

Considering the wider...

'Everest' 2015, with Jake Gyllenhaal at the Venice Film Festival. What global warming? Venice Film Festival 2015 jury: Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón president The 2015 Venice Film Festival, to be held Sept. 2–12, has announced the members of its three main juries: Venezia 72, Horizons, and the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for Best Debut Film. In case you're wondering, “Why Venezia 72”? Well, the simple answer is that this is the 72nd edition of the festival. Looking at the lists below, you'll notice that, as usual, Europeans dominate the award juries. The only two countries from the Americas represented are the U.S. and Mexico, and here and there you'll find a sprinkling of Asian film talent. Golden Lion jury The Golden Lion – Venezia 72 Competition – jury is comprised by the following: Jury President Alfonso Cuarón, the first Mexican national to take home the Best Director Academy Award (for the Sandra Bullock-George Clooney...

In places where opportunities and hope are harder to obtain than a loaded gun, the glorification of a seemingly effortless and powerful criminal lifestyle is engraved deeply into the youth’s psyche like a poisonous spell. Irremediably, it becomes their most tangible aspiration. Kids there do not dream of becoming doctors, lawyers or teachers, but drug dealers, murderers, or gangsters who walk through life intoxicated by the fear of others disguised as respect. It’s just the same in a rough American neighborhood, a Mexican border town, a war torn African capital, or an isolated village in the Italian countryside.

Is in this last setting that director Francesco Munzi unfolds “Black Souls” (Anime Nere), an understated mafia tale that is brutally unflinching and sobering when distilling the built-in conventions of the genre and reapplying them in a powerfully stark manner. First, Munzi takes us on a short trip to the high-stakes world of international drug trafficking and the money laundering schemes that fueled it. Brothers Luigi (Marco Leonardi) and Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) manage the operation as a family business each with a distinct approach to getting things done. Luigi is the threatening brute that’s willing to get his hands dirty, while Rocco prefers to be as diplomatic as the drug underworld allows. But just as we are prompted to believe the film will follow on the footsteps of countless predecessors, the perspective shifts to a much more intimate, almost pastoral, look at the unbreakable ties and honor-driven feuds between opposite families within the same criminal microcosm: the Calabrian hills in southern Italy.

Making a humble living from farming and raising cattle, Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane), the eldest sibling in the dynasty, disapproves of his younger brothers lifestyle, which he left behind years ago. But in spite of his father’s evident disdain for his siblings’ violent ways, Luciano’s son Leo (Giuseppe Fumo), a teenage boy full of senseless bravado and thirst for retribution, admires his uncle Luigi ‘s status as an authority figure within the community. Projecting fearlessness and absolute dispassion to be part of the gang, Leo grows detached from his father and begins partaking in the increasingly dangerous disputes with their adversaries. With Luigi back in town, old grudges resurfacing, and Leo’s reckless ability to start trouble, tragedy permanently lurks over the entire clan.

This perpetual feeling of an imminent disaster approaching is what makes the film a restrained and potent statement. Intelligently, the filmmaker chooses unnerving tension over gruesome imagery. Of course, violence is unavoidable in a story like this, but those scenes are much more effective because of their importance in the layered emotional landscape presented. Pride is a boundless catalyst for hatred, and that’s what motivates the individuals here to die in the name of their lineage. Leo loses respect for his father because the promise of easy cash and overall badassery is exponentially more enticing than arduously working the land. Luciano is a coward in his son’s eyes for wanting to live a peaceful life, but the man can hardly experience that as he is caught up in between his brothers’ unfinished business and preventing Leo from following their path. It’s all the subtext that is embedded in every interaction that keeps “Black Souls” from becoming predictable, and instead asks us to ponder on the complex set of characters on screen.

Hauntingly somber, but all the more enthralling because of it, Vladan Radovic’s cinematography inconspicuously contributes to Munzi’s exploration of human darkness. A prime example of its gloomy appeal is a funeral sequence that centers both on a mother grieving her son, and the inevitably brutal consequences of the event. However, although a viscerally serious tone permeates the film, Munzi and Radovic were clever enough to capture beautiful moments of rural life that give “Black Souls” a timeless atmosphere: Luigi singing a traditional tune for the sheer joy of singing or Luciano walking among the ruins of an ancient church quietly denoting his religious devotion. Such glimpses of vulnerability create a mob film that is more concerned with the subtleties beneath the gunshots.

Indispensable for an ensemble piece like “Black Souls,” the entire cast, even those in minimal roles, is made up of a group of actors capable of refraining from ostentatious performances and focusing on the characters’ essential, nuanced qualities. Their conflicts are so profoundly intertwined that a weak link would have been problematic. Still, among these talented group, Fabrizio Ferracane as Luciano gives the most quietly compelling performance as a father, a brother, and a son who can’t recognize himself anymore or fit in among those around him. Ultimately, Ferracane steals the film in the riveting and shocking conclusion.

“Black Souls” delivers a gutsy twist on the tiresome works that showcase villains as stars and their feats as heroic. Munzi offers authenticity and poignancy ignoring our expectations and portraying his characters as deeply misguided people for whom loyalty is a golden asset and death is a common outcome. His film is about unspoken rules and unforgivable transgressions that might appear irrational to the outsider, but unquestionable to those involved.

"Black Souls" is now playing in NYC and opens in Los Angeles on April 24th.

Director Francesco Munzi will be doing a Skype Q&A from Rome, Italy on Saturday 4/18 at both the Angelika Film Center in NYC (after the 7:30 pm show) & at the Angelika Film Center in Fairfax, Va (after the 8pm show).

For all the play dates and theaters across the U.S. visit Here...

In his review of Vitagraph Films’ Black Souls (Anime Nere), Travis Keune wrote the movie is, “a richly deep story about an unconventional “family business” that conjures up the essence of The Godfather but distances itself even further from the genre stereotypes than just about any film we’ve seen in recent years.”

Read the rest of the review here and check out the brand new clip.

Based on real events described in Gioacchino Criaco’s novel, Black Souls (Anime Nere) is a tale of violence begetting violence and complex morality inherited by each generation in rural, ancient Calabria, a reallife mafia (‘Ndrangheta) seat in Southern Italy.

The Carbone family consists of three brothers, Luigi (Marco Leonardi) and Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) who are engaged in the family business of international drug trade and Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane) who has remained in the ancestral town of Africo in the Aspromonte mountains on the Mediterranean coast – herding goats.

Like many genre films, the category of mafia films is often branded with certain expectations. Granted, not all of these films are created equal, but we generally expect to see lots of violence and/or lots of foul language and Hollywood stereotypes. Where Black Souls succeeds is in refusing such stereotypes and telling a richly deep story about an unconventional “family business” that conjures up the essence of The Godfather but distances itself even further from the genre stereotypes than just about any film we’ve seen in recent years.

Director Francesco Munzi’s Black Souls (“Anime nere” in Italian) maintains a nearly unprecedented level of dignity for its type. The film tells the story of three brothers closely connected to N’drangheta, a mafia-like criminal organization based out of Calabria. These three brothers, sons of a shepherd, have differing views on their relationships with N’drangheta, which plays a...

Italian director Francesco Munzi pulled off the difficult feat of being selected at both the Venice and Toronto film festivals - one of only a handful to do so this year - with his latest offering Black Souls (Anime Nere) and judging by the new theatrical trailer for this elegant gangster drama it's not at all hard to see how he did it. By being very good. Here's how Toronto pitched it:a former narcotics trafficker now living peaceably in the Calabrian hills is drawn back into his family's drug-trade dynasty by his impetuous teenage son, in this darkly elegant gangster drama. Six years after the Festival screened Francesco Munzi's Il resto della note, this talented Italian director returns with a Godfather-like tale that alternates between...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Update 12:20 Pm Pt: The Venice jury tonight gave its Golden Lion to a bird, but it wasn’t the particular bird many were expecting. Alejandro G Inarritu’s opening night hit Birdman was shut out of the awards. The Golden Lion instead went to Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence. The metaphysical film is the final leg of a trilogy about what it means to be a human being. It carries on from 2000’s Songs From The Second Floor and 2007’s You, The Living. Pigeon was well-received by critics here so it’s not a total surprise – and this was a movie folks had been waiting for since it didn’t turn up on the Cannes roster after Andersson’s previous two debuted there. Jury member Tim Roth said he liked Birdman and told the press corps of its omission amongst the prizes,...

After the huge international success of the film Gomorrah in 2008 followed by its acclaimed recent TV adaptation, Francesco Munzi’s Anime Nere has a tough act to follow. While there are no end of films depicting the mafia, and Gomorrah shows life in Naples’ camorra underworld, this time it’s the turn of the Calabrian ’ndrangheta.

The opening scene is a chilly and grey waterfront in Holland before travelling south to Milan, then all the way down to the tiny mountainside village of Aspromonte, yet as it reaches the Mediterranean the film never manages to shake off those downcast and icy tones. Outside, from north to south it’s dark, grey and gritty.

Luigi (Marco Leonardi) is in Holland to close a drugs deal, then it’s off to Milan for celebrations with his brother, the solid and steady Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta). But there’s another brother, Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane), ensconced down south,...

Francesco Munzi talks about the extensive research behind his Venice competition tilte Black Souls, about the Calabrian mafia.

Francesco Munzi’s Black Souls (Anime Nere), the Venice Competition title sold by Rai Com, is being billed by some as the ‘new Gomorrah’. The film, about a farmer’s three sons who all become involved in crime, offers a detailed insight into the inner workings of the Calabrian Mafia.

The film is based on the novel by Gioacchino Criaco. Although this is a fictional piece, Munzi says that the film is deeply rooted in fact.

It was shot in Calabria, which he notes “has the reputation of being the most Mafia infested place in the country,” with a cast of locals, found on the streets, working alongside professionals.

The director didn’t have direct contact with Mafia members. “Obviously, working there, I met all sorts of people with all sorts of pasts,” he recalls...

If you wanted a snapshot of worldly issues then Tiff’s Contemporary World Cinema programme would certainly serve as a whirlwind passport. Loaded in Cannes Film Festival preemed items receiving their North American Premiere debuts (Jessica Hausner’s Amour Fou, Mélanie Laurent’s Breathe , Bruno Dumont’s P’tit Quinquin and Pascale Ferran’s Bird People are are just the tip of the iceberg) Tiff programmers have landed world premiere items from the likes of Cristián Jiménez, Ole Christian Madsen, Alex Holdridge & Linnea Saasen (we pic above) and Baran bo Odar. Along with the Canadian items mentioned last week, Here is the largest section’s offerings for 2014.

“Aire Libre,” Anahí Berneri, Argentina / International Premiere

“Amour Fou,” Jessica Hausner, Austria/Luxembourg/Germany / North American Premiere

“Behavior” (“Conducta”), Ernesto Daranas, Cuba / Canadian Premiere

“Bird People,” Pascale Ferran, France / North American Premiere

“Black Souls” (“Anime Nere”), Francesco Munzi, Italy / International Premiere

“Breathe” (“Respire”), Mélanie Laurent,...

This morning the Toronto Film Festival added several more films to their lineup including the world premiere of Thomas McCarthy's The Cobbler which stars Adam Sandler as a New York City cobbler who, disenchanted with the grind of daily life, stumbles upon a magical heirloom that allows him to step into the lives of his customers and see the world in a new way. The film co-stars Method Man, Ellen Barkin, Melonie Diaz, Dan Stevens, Steve Buscemi and Dustin Hoffman. Additionally, Sundance standouts Infinity Polar Bear and Laggies starring Keira Knightley and Chloe Grace Moretz were added to the Gala selection. Joining The Cobbler as new additions to the Special Presentations field include Olivier Assayas' Clouds of Sils Maria starring Kristen Stewart and Juliette Binoche and Two Days, One Night from Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne and starring Marion Cotillard. Both films made a splash at Cannes earlier this year,...

Toronto film festival organisers have programmed features from 42 countries in the Contemporary World Cinema (Cwc) programme and unveiled eight South Korean selections in the City To City.

Cwc features latest work by Jessica Hausner, Rolf de Heer, Christian Zübert and Ryuichi Hiroki, among others.

For the third year, Tiff (Sept 4-14) has partnered with the University of Toronto’s Munk School Of Global Affairs on the Contemporary World Speakers series, pairing five films in selection with expert scholars.

The Contemporary World Speakers series is programmed in conjunction with the Tiff Adult Learning department.

Contemporary World Cinema

Wp = World premiere / Nap = North American premiere / IP = International premiere / Cp = Canadian premiere.

Aire Libre (Argentina), Anahí Berneri IP

Amour Fou (Austria-Luxembourg-Germany), Jessica Hausner Nap

Behavior (Conducta) (Cuba), Ernesto Daranas Cp

Bird People (France), Pascale Ferran Nap

Black Souls (Anime Nere) (Italy), Francesco Munzi IP

Breathe (Respire) (France), Mélanie Laurent Nap

Charlie’s Country (Australia), Rolf de Heer Nap

*John Stackhouse...