Italian Cinema Today

Flavio Bucci has passed away. Bucci was a masterful character actor who rose to fame in the late 1970s with roles in Dario Argento’s Suspiria and the successful television series Ligabue and Martin Eden . He worked steadily through the decades dividing his time between the stage, film and television.  In 2008, he played the role of Franco Evangelisti in Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo and in 2016, starred in Antonio Andrisani and Pascal Zullino’s satire shot in Matera, Il vangelo secondo Mattei . I met him in 2015 while he was shooting that film. We met at a cafe with the crew and he seemed so happy with his aperitivo being adored by these young filmmakers who were so honored to have this maestro in their film.  In 2018, those filmmakers along with Marco Caldoro and Riccardo Zinna, made a documentary film about Bucci’s life that premiered at the 2018 Rome Film Festival. The film, Flavioh , is a labor of love by a group of filmmakers paying homage to one of their id...

Toni Servillo in a scene from "La Grande Bellezza" Italy's Oscar entry has made the short list. Paolo Sorrentino's "La Grande Bellezza" (The Great Beauty) which stars the director's top actor, Toni Servillo, was a huge hit in Italy and is gaining momentum for a coveted nomination in the category for Best Foreign Film.   The film's A-list cast which also features Rome natives, Carlo Verdone and Sabrina Ferilli, tells the story of the Roman club underworld. Toni Servillo takes the lead role of Jep Gambardella, an uninspired writer who recounts his days as a young spectator who became seduced and intoxicated with power, finding himself caught in a web of superficiality, disillusionment and corruption. Sorrentino described "La Grande Bellezza" as "a film which probes the contradictions, the beauties, the scenes I have witnessed and the people I’ve met in Rome; a wonderful city, soothing yet at the same time full of hidden dangers....