Domenico Procacci: Celebs Rumors

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Rome’s MIA market dedicated to international TV series, animation, feature films, and documentaries is set to feature a panoply of 62 projects from 36 countries for its upcoming 9th edition. Though European content remains the core of the curated pre-Mipcom event that will run Oct.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent France’s UFO Distribution has acquired French rights to Venice Horizons entry “An Endless Sunday” by first-time Italian director Alain Parroni from Fandango Sales. The film will segue from Venice to Toronto where it screens in the fest’s Discovery section.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian director Susanna Nicchiarelli, whose trilogy of female biopics, “Nico, 1988,” “Miss Marx,” and “Chiara” all launched from the Venice Film Festival, is set to direct the TV series “Fireworks” depicting the struggle of Italy’s partisans against Nazis and Fascists through the point of view of a twelve-year-old girl named Marta. Shooting is set to start on May 8 in the Piedmontese Alps on “Fireworks,” which is being produced by Domenico Procacci’s Fandango and Rome shingle Matrioska. Fandango, who is the show’s lead producer, is in advanced talks with Italian state broadcaster RAI to come on board. Fandango is also talking up the six-episode limited series at the Series Mania confab in Lille, France, where they are seeking prospective international partners.

The Son and The Father director Florian Zeller will direct, write and co-produce the upcoming big-budget TV adaptation of Tony Award-winning play The Lehman Trilogy, his debut TV project.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Florian Zeller, the French filmmaker behind the Oscar-winning “The Father” and “The Son,” is set to make his TV debut with the adaptation of Stefano Massini’s play “The Lehman Trilogy.” Zeller will write, direct and co-produce the series under his newly formed Blue Morning. Lorenzo Mieli at The Apartment Pictures, a Fremantle company, and Domenico Procacci at Fandango are executive producing the series. The pair previously teamed on the acclaimed series “My Brilliant Friend” based on the Elena Ferrante novels. Massini’s epic drama charts the history of one of the global financial institutions that helped spark the 2008 recession. The original production inspired Sam Mendes to stage an English-language version of Massini’s five-hour play. Adapted by Ben Power, the production won five Tony Awards earlier this year, including prizes for Sam Mendes’ direction and for the lead performance of Simon Russell Beale.

festival debut of his new film “The Son,” Florian Zeller has signed on to write, direct and co-produce a television adaptation of the Tony-winning play “The Lehman Trilogy.”The series will mark the first project under the Oscar-winner’s newly formed Blue Morning Pictures banner alongside Mediawan and Federica Sainte-Rose. Lorenzo Mieli will produce for The Apartment Pictures, a Fremantle company, while Domenico Procacci will produce for Fandango.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian playwright Stefano Massini’s “The Lehman Trilogy,” which just won five Tony Awards including the prize for best play, is set to become a high-end TV series to be produced by Italy’s Fandango and The Apartment, the outfits behind HBO’s Elena Ferrante adaptation “My Brilliant Friend.”The TV project, originated by Italian producer Domenico Procacci’s Fandango, to adapt into a series the epic drama written by Massini that charts the history of one of the financial institutions that helped spark the 2008 recession, has now been boarded by producer Lorenzo Mieli’s shingle The Apartment, the Fremantle-owned company behind Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-nominated “The Hand of God” and his “The Young Pope” and “The New Pope” shows. Fandango and Mieli previously collaborated on “My Brilliant Friend” for HBO and Italy’s RAI.Having Fremantle’s The Apartment on board gives “The Lehman Trilogy” TV series adaptation considerably more heft, though a commissioning broadcaster or streamer remains to be found.Mieli in a statement called “Lehman Trilogy” – which besides best play won Tony Awards for Sam Mendes’ direction and for the lead performance of Simon Russell Beale, among other prizes – “a marvelous and contemporary text” on the “intrinsic failures of a certain form of capitalism.”The chief of the Fremantle-owned company also noted that it’s rare for an Italian play to be celebrated outside national borders.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentParis-based company Kinology has secured international sales to “Il Sol Dell’Avvenire,” from Italian auteur and Cannes regular Nanni Moretti. Pic is currently shooting in Rome.The deal between Kinology and Domenico Procacci’s Fandango, which is producing in tandem with Moretti’s Sacher shingle and RAI Cinema, marks the first time Kinology has handled a Moretti pic.

Wilson Chapman editor“My Brilliant Friend” is set to close the book on Elena and Lila’s journey. The Italian- and Neapolitan-language television series has been renewed for a fourth and final season by co-producers HBO and RAI.Based on the acclaimed “Neapolitan Novels” four-book series by Italian writer Elena Ferrante, “My Brilliant Friend” follows the coming-of-age of two best friends, Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo, who grow up in a poor Naples neighborhood in the 1950s.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian playwright Stefano Massini’s sweeping saga of family and finance “The Lehman Trilogy,” which is a hot ticket on Broadway in a Sam Mendes-directed adaptation, is being developed as a TV series for the international market by Italy’s Fandango, the prominent shingle behind Elena Ferrante skein “The Lying Life of Adults” for Netflix.Fandango chief Domenico Procacci said he has acquired an option for TV rights to Massini’s “Lehman Trilogy,” which follows the three Lehman brothers, from their arrival from Germany in New York in 1844 to the 2008 bankruptcy of the global financial services company they founded.Procacci, who is known to have a sharp eye for Italian IP that can travel –– having

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian producer Domenico Procacci, after shepherding more than 100 movies and several TV series, including Netflix’s upcoming Elena Ferrante adaptation “The Lying Life of Adults,” via his Fandango shingle, is debuting as a director with six-part documentary series “The Team.” Variety speaks to Procacci exclusively about what prompted him to go behind the camera for what he says is just a one-off experience as a director, and debuts the English-language subtitled version of the trailer, above.The project is a deeply researched reconstruction of the complex – and sometimes comical – dynamics behind the Italian tennis team that won the 1976 Davis Cup and reached the finals for this trophy three other

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentOscar-nominated French actor Bérénice Bejo (“The Artist”) has joined Pierfrancesco Favino (“The Traitor”), Nanni Moretti, and the Italian cast of romantic drama “Il Colibrì,” which has started shooting in Rome.Fandango Sales is launching sales at the virtual Cannes market on this high-profile drama directed by Francesca Archibugi (“A Question of the Heart”) based on the eponymous novel by Sandro Veronesi, winner of Italy’s top literary prize, the Premio Strega 2020.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterNatalie Portman has signed on to lead the cast of the upcoming HBO Films production “The Days of Abandonment.”The movie, which is currently in pre-production, is based on the Elena Ferrante novel of the same name. In the film, when Tess (Portman), a woman who abandoned her own dreams for a stable home life, is in turn abandoned by her husband, her world is thrown off its axis.Maggie Betts will write, direct, and executive produce the adaptation.

Also Read: Natalie Portman Signs First-Look TV Deal With AppleThe film is being produced in association with Medusa.Portman and Sophie Mas are executive producing on behalf of their MountainA, which just signed a first look TV deal with Apple TV+.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian producer Domenico Procacci, whose Fandango shingle is developing Elena Ferrante’s “The Lying Life of Adults” for Netflix, has several new films in the pipeline, including chiller “Pantafa” toplining Kasia Smutniak (“Devils”) as a strong-willed mother trying to protect her haunted young daughter.“Pantafa,” which takes its cue from an ancient Italian legend involving an evil spirit that stifles women in their sleep, has just ended principal photography.

By Peter White