01/09/2003

“In Italy there are talented directors and extremely competent technicians, but why does our cinema cling to the past glories of Fellini and Antonioni when it needs to have the highest possible entrepreneurial freedom to establish itself on the global market”. Dino De Laurentis repeated his opinion about Italian cinema more than once during his press conference on the Lido, and he also promised to mention it again tonight when he’ll be given the Lifetime Achievement Golden Lion in the Sala Grande, handed over to the producer by Bernardo Bertolucci.

De Laurentis isn’t a man to pull his punches and he launched accusations against the politicians: "Why should I as a producer ask permission from the State to make a co-production? Why do I have to ask for an exception to be made for me to be able to shoot in English? With this new law, which is a descendent of the previous law, our cinema is once again destined to be provincial.
But in spite of his tirade of criticisms, he didn’t forget to talk about his next film, Alexander the Great , directed by Baz Luhrmann, which he will be producing together with the Americans, Dreamworks and Universal, which has a total budget of $150m. De Laurentiis also expressed a wish to work with Bertolucci in the near future. And he explained that his plans for a film with Sabrina Ferilli still haven’t got off the ground yet: “She’s very good, she could become an international star, but her English...”