Skip to main content

Italian Distributors Bridging Culture Between Europe and North America


Raoul Bova and Sarah Jessica Parker on the set of "All Roads Lead to Rome"
Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi are taking the distribution world by storm and bringing a whole new angle of Italian cinema to North America.

Iervolino who has been a producer since the age of 16, has produced, financed and distributed over 40 films. A partner and founder of a number different production companies, he is currently, the youngest and most highly regarded Italian entrepreneurs in the world of film-making.
With his Italian-Canadian origins (his mother is Canadian, his father Italian), after also having worked on different productions and co-productions with some of the country’s major film-makers and having shot no fewer than 8 films in 2011, in October of that same year he founded his own distribution company, Iervolino Entertainment S.p.A, which is now a part of the AMBI PICTURES Group, whose partners are Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi.
Andrea Iervolino has never left out his innate passion for films on powerful social issues and in this regard he is also president of the FCAI, an association that is committed to taking exposé and social commentary films into schools, something made possible thanks to the Cineschoolday initiative, for which Italian Life Senator Giulio Andreotti was a spokesperson in 2011-2012.
Iervolino’s latest ventures include “Italian Style Thriller”, which comprises three feature-length films in 3D and a series consisting of eight episodes that will have as their common denominator a genre that in the seventies led to Italy becoming a worldwide point of reference, namely Horror.
It is through this project that some young Italian directors have had the opportunity to once again bring this genre of movie, which had all but disappeared, back to life in Italy, creating them using present-day directing techniques with a view to venturing once again on the international scene.

AMBI Pictures and Distribution

Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi are partners in AMBI PICTURES, an investment company whose task is to provide financial backing for medium to high-budget international films featuring Hollywood names. Iervolino and Bacardi also founded AMBI Distribution. Based in Beverly Hills, it's a worldwide sales agency that  integrates finance, production and distribution for AMBI Pictures.
Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi
I had a conference call with the two distributors during Toronto's Italian Contemportary Film Festival. They talked about their recently produced films, which include eight just last year- the action-thriller 2047 Sights of Death starring Danny Glover, Daryl Hannah, Rutger Hauer, Stephen Baldwin and Michael Madsen; (My interview with “2047: Sights of Death” Screenwriter, Tommaso Agnese) the Barry Levinson directed drama, The Humbling, starring Al Pacino, Greta Gerwig, Kyra Sedgwick, Charles Grodin and Dianne Wiest; and the crime-thriller Hope Lost starring Danny Trejo, Mischa Barton and Michael Madsen.
Recently AMBI produced Andron – The Black Labyrinth, by Francesco Cinquemani starring Alec Baldwin, Danny Glover, Gale Morgan Harold III and the singer Skin. Andrea Iervolino and the director Marco Risi, in collaboration with Monika Bacardi produced Tre Tocchi, by Marco Risi. In collaboration with Paradox Studios, AMBI Pictures is also in production with the romantic comedy All Roads Lead To Rome starring Sarah Jessica Parker. Monika told me that the story brings together the Italian and American cultures.. and that she's really looking forward to releasing this film at the end of this year or in 2016, depending how production goes. We'll keep you posted.
AMBI Pictures is financing and producing with Franco’s Rabbit Bandini Productions and That’s Hollywood Pictures, a film directed by James Franco and based on Steinbeck’s gritty, realist style novel: In Dubious Battle. The film stars James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vincent D’Onofrio, Robert Duvall, Ed Harris, Bryan Cranston and Danny McBride.
The company has also recently ventured into the world of animation, with two animated features: Arctic Justice – Thunder Squad and East End. Iervolino and Bacardi, together with American Sniper Producer, Andrew lazar,are tackling Sci-Fi Thriller, Rupture, starring Noomi Rapace and directed by Steven Shainberg. The team is also in talks with the family of Federico Fellini to remake the iconic filmmaker's equally iconic film, La dolce vita. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Anthology Film Archives Presents: The Italian Connection: Poliziotteschi and Other Italo-Crime Films of the 1960s and '70's

June 19 – June 29 Influenced both by 1960s political cinema and Italian crime novels, as well as by French noir and American cop movies like "Dirty Harry" and "The French Connection," many Italian filmmakers in the late-60s and early-70s gradually moved away from the spaghetti western genre, trading lone cowboys for ‘bad’ cops and the rough frontier of the American west for the mean streets of modern Italy. Just as they had with their westerns, they reinvented the borrowed genre with their inimitable eye for style and filled their stories with the kidnappings, heists, vigilante justice, and brutal violence that suffused this turbulent moment in post-boom 1970s Italy. The undercurrent of fatalism and cynicism in these uncompromising movies is eerily reminiscent of the state of discontent in Italy today. ‘The Italian Connection’ showcases the diversity and innovation found in the genre, from the gangster noir of Fernando Di Leo’s "Caliber 9" ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ornella Muti: Five decades of Acting and Still Going Strong

Ornella Muti was born Francesca Romana Rivelli in Rome in 1955 to a Neapolitan father and an Estonian mother. She began her career as a model during her teenage years and made her film debut in 1970 with “La Moglie più bella” (The Most Beautiful Wife).  Her follow-up role was in the 1971 film, “Sole nella pelle” (Sun on the Skin), in which she played the daughter of wealthy parents who runs off with a hippie they don’t approve of. The film offers a telling journey through Italian society in the seventies, with its political climate, breathtaking seaside, and the styles and cars of that time.  Much of the film is set amid the sunny Italian seaside and captures the innocence and beauty of first love.   Muti made her American film debut in 1980 with "Flash Gordon." She played the role of Princess Aura. She’s appeared in two other American films, including “Oscar,” directed by John Landis and starring Don Ameche, Chazz Palminteri, and Sylvester Stallone. In 1992, she w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Federico Fellini: A Look into the Life and Career of an Icon

A Fellini family portrait  “The term became a common word to describe something on the surface you can say is bizarre or strange, but actually is really like a painter working on a film,” said Martin Scorsese when asked to define “Felliniesque,” an adjective inspired by one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. The oldest of three children, Federico Fellini was born in the seaside town of Rimini in 1920. His father was a traveling salesman, so his mother was left to do the bulk of raising the children. One can argue that Fellini was born for his destiny. “You could tell that even as a child, he was different and unique. He was very intelligent, well above average. He was always the one to organize things, direct the others, make up games. He could control the other kids with just a look, said Fellini’s sister, Maddalena, in an interview with journalist Gideon Bachmann.  Not only was Fellini directing the children, but he was also putting on shows and charging ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Timeless Vision of Pier Paolo Pasolini

Pondering his films and poetry, I wonder if the uniqueness of Pier Paolo Pasolini's films was rooted in his unconventional childhood. Born in Bologna in 1922, Pasolini's father was a lieutenant in the army, and his family was always moving. He grew up in various small towns in Northern Italy. After his parents separated, he spent most of his time in his mother's hometown of Casarsa, in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. There, he grew to respect the area's peasant culture and began to write poetry in the region's dialect. He studied literature and art history at the University of Bologna and was drafted into the army during World War II. The war proved to be especially tragic for his family as his younger brother was executed by Communist partisans. Following the war, he returned to Casarsa where he worked as a teacher and ironically became a leading member of the Communist party there. Pasolini was later expelled from the party due to allegations of homo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Alessandro Gassmann: Born to Act

Alessandro Gassmannin his directorial debut "Razzabastarda" Alessandro Gassmann is the son of the iconic Italian actor/director Vittorio Gassman and French actress Juliette Mayniel. He was born in 1965 and grew up around cinema royalty.  He made his cinema debut in 1982 at the age of 17 in his father's autobiographical film, "Di padre in figlio." He went on to study his craft under his father's direction at the Theatre Workshop of Florence.  Vittorio Gassman was very active in theater and seemed just as comfortable on stage as he did in front of the camera. Known for his powerful interpretations of Dante's "Inferno" and "Paradiso," it is no surprise that he nurtured his son's acting aspirations on stage before he launched his career in television and film. One of Gassmann's strong qualities, which he undoubtedly inherited from his father is his incredible range and ease in going from genre to genre. He can play ...
Post a Comment
Read more