Sorrentino, Bertolucci and Castellitto: in times of crisis, Medusa looks to Italy

by Vittoria Scarpa

21/06/2012 - A more compact and slender list; more Italian and less foreign films, more comedies but also dramas, auteur films and animations. For the 2012-2013 season, MedusaFilm is tightening its belt (the 20% budget cut announced by the CEO Giampaolo Letta particularly affects foreign films which will go down from the usual 8-10 to 4), but the Italian market’s leading production and distribution company categorically denies rumors of its closure or transfer from Rome to Milan. “The current crisis is strong, the film world is not yet fully aware of it, but its effects will be felt”, admits Letta while highlighting the state of Medusa, notwithstanding the general decline in entries: “In the first half of 2012, our market share was 28% and five of our films, three of which are Italian, were in the top 10.”

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In next season’s list appears the names of some of the big names of Italian auteur cinema: from Bernardo Bertolucci, which Medusa will distribute his latest work Io e te that was presented last May at the Cannes Film Festival (read theinterview), to Paolo Sorrentino’s next film La grande bellezza, which is set to start shooting in Rome in August with Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone and Sabrina Ferilli as its protagonists. Also, Sergio Castellitto’s new film Venuto al mondo a story of love and war with Penélope Cruz and Emile Hirsch, and ’s third Hollywood feature Playing the Field with Gerard Butler in the main role, an ex-athlete in search of redemption.

On the comedy front there is, among others, by Gianluca Ansanelli, a film about a reality TV show whose participants have nothing to lose; the return of the duo Francesco Mandelli and Fabrizio Biggio with I 2 soliti idiotic whose release is set for Christmas; Una famiglia perfetta by (Immaturi [trailer]), about a rich fifty year old who hires a company of actors to pretend to be his family, with Sergio Castellitto, Claudia Gerini and Micaela Ramazzotti; as well as Una donna per la vita the first feature of comedian Maurizio Casagrande, the next film with Checco Zalone directed by Gennaro Nunziante, the romantic comedy of Federico Moccia Universitari, amori in corso, and ’s next film expected for Christmas 2013.

Medusa will also distribute Gli equilibristi, a drama by Ivano De Matteo starring Valerio Mastandrea and Barbora Bobulova, On the Road [trailer] by Walter Salles ans Iginio Straffi’s animation film Gladiatori di Roma. This year the company has invested 90 million euros, of which 68 on Italian films.

(Translated from Italian)