12/12/2005

The new film by Gabriele Salvatores will be entitled La scala di Dioniso, and will be an adaptation of the eponymous thriller by Luca Di Fulvio, the rights to which were bought by Colorado Film. A guest at the Noir in Festival in Courmayeur, the Oscar-winning director, along with producer Maurizio Totti, explained that, "the film will not go into production for another two years because it’s a very ambitious project that comes about from a visionary novel. We know it will be shot in English, but we still haven’t decided whether to set it in Paris, London or in some imaginary metropolis like Batman’s Gotham City. In any case, we will have to reconstruct an entire city. We are furthermore speaking of a science fiction story set in the past." The production plan is very solid, assures Totti, and the names of possible leading actors include Edward Norton, Anthony Hopkins and Gary Oldman. "We will try and involve foreign partners and the film’s production structure should take on its definitive form by the upcoming Berlin Festival."

Colorado is also developing another project with a significant budget: "An adventure and love story set aboard merchant ships,” said Salvatores, “ that will be about people who live at the margins of the global market, presenting them as heroes." The working title is Mare aperto and the story comes from an original idea by Salvatores and Umberto Contarello. This film will also be shot in English, and definitely outside of Italy, beginning next August.

Young video and shorts director Laura Chiassone will helm Un gioco da ragazze, written by Andrea Cotti, which should go into production next spring. "It is a story about teenagers, and for the lead we’ve been considering Åmål’s, Rebecka Liljeberg." Un gioco da ragazze is part of an agreement that Colorado has with 01 Distribution to produce one low budget debut film per year.

(Translated from Italian)