30/05/2024 - The shoot has started for the film produced by Notorious Pictures and Tarantula dedicated to Nicola Calipari, the secret service director who sacrificed his own life to save journalist Giuliana Sgrena

Claudio Santamaria in Il Nibbio (© Riccardo Ghilardi)

Claudio Santamaria (David di Donatello winner for They Call Me Jeeg [+see also:
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interview: Gabriele Mainetti
film profile]) is the lead actor in Il Nibbio (working title), which has just started shooting and will continue being filmed in Rome and Morocco for seven weeks. Director Alessandro Tonda, who last year directed four episodes of the Netflix series Suburræterna (see the news), is at his second feature directing effort after his debut in 2020 with The Shift [+see also:
film review
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interview: Alessandro Tonda
film profile], in competition in the international section of the 15th Festa del Cinema in Rome.

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Produced by Notorious Pictures with Rai Cinema, in co-production with Belgian outfit Tarantula and in collaboration with Netflix and Alkon Communications, Il Nibbio is dedicated to Nicola Calipari, the senior director of the Italian secret services killed in Baghdad in 2005 after having freed journalist Giuliana Sgrena, kidnapped in Iraq by a terrorist cell. While Santamaria will play Calipari, Sonia Bergamasco (Grazie ragazzi [+see also:
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film profile]) will be Giuliana Sgrena and Anna Ferzetti (I peggiori giorni [+see also:
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The screenplay was entrusted to Sandro Petraglia, one of the most highly appreciated Italian authors, in particular for his sensibility and his ability to talk about society through stories aimed at a large audience (The Yes Man, The Stolen Children, The Best of Youth [+see also:
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interview: Stefano Sollima
film profile]). Il Nibbio will tell the story of the 28 days preceding the tragic events of 4 March 2005, when Niccola Calipari was killed at a US military checkpoint on Route Irish. Giuliana Sgrena had just been released by her kidnappers after long negotiations conducted by Calipari, who shielded the journalist with his body and died of a bullet to the head. The film will also reconstruct Calipari’s private life as a man, a husband, and a father. 

(Translated from Italian)