Just a few days after her birthday, (she was born the same day, month and year of italian soccer superstar Alessandro Del Piero), there are two announcements about films starring Giovanna.

The first, coming November 28th, is The Palermo Shooting, that has been completely reedited by director Wim Wenders, cutting off about 20 minutes, after the not too critically acclaimed presentation at the previous Cannes Film Festival. The film presents some recurring themes of the german director vision as the presence of supernatural beings (as in Der Himmel über Berlin) and some metaphysical concepts.

The second film is being presented at the Courmayeur Film Festival and is titled "Sono Viva" (I'm Alive), by Dino and Filippo Gentile.

Giovanna met her fans yesterday evening in Bobbio, during the Film Festival. Marco Bellocchio, who just finished shooting "Vincere" and Stefano Chiantini, that was presenting his film "L'amore non basta", were with her on the stage.

The italian actress introduced the film to the audience, and said that it was a corageous story and a character that she liked very much and that she was very proud of her role. Giovanna said: "Choices are important, critical in an actor career. When I read carefully scripts submitted to me most of the times I drop them. It's essential to establish an empathy with the director.".

Full articles here: Libertà 1 Libertà 2 Cronaca


photo from this article

First photos of Giovanna as Ida Dalser, the woman who became the first wife of Benito Mussolini, and who died with his child in an asylum where the "Duce" constrained her until 1942.

Giovanna says: "It has been very difficult to obtain the role from Marco Bellocchio, but I made it. This set is so tough I know that I will have to give my best".


From this article

Giovanna and the rest of the cast of "the Palermo Shooting" have presented the film today at the Cannes Film Festival.

Cannes official photocall
Cannes press conference
Croisette

Giovanna is on the cover of Luxury files magazine, available also online as downloadable PDF. For the interview with the beautiful italian acress go to pages 44-53.


From Giovanna's Press Agent, Saverio Ferragina

"L'amore non Basta" by Stefano Chiantini. "…mi sembra che ormai esistano solo storie che restano in sospeso e si perdono per strada" (it seems that there are only unfinished stories that get lost in their way) is a phrase by italian writer Italo Calvino. This is the essence of this film, stories that are left hanging on, unaccomplished, unsolved. It's pessimistic from the title itself. It's the tale of people crossing, meeting, loving, but they don't understand each other. This feeling that makes it impossible to be two, but only one plus one, leads to a hunger that mirrors a umbalance of the characters, blurred, bouncing in the frame, , unhappy, undone.


From l'eco del cinema

"L'amore non Basta" by Stefano Chiantini will be premiered at the MIFF (Milano Internazionale Film Festival). Giovanna plays the role of a beautiful, active young woman named Martina with a lot of interests and passions that works as a hostess. After a flight she finds the forgotten diary of a passenger. She decides to return to his owner, Angelo, and she finds out reading it that the man's personality is closed, introverted and complex, but also sensitive and sweet. He has a friend named Nicola who pushes him toward important goals in life and the two are always together. After some time Martina meets Angelo and ...

watch the trailer (italian)


From MIFF site

Age: 33. Provenance: Rome (birth) and Paris (much of childhood). Hit the smoldering-Latin jackpot by … landing the female lead in Mike Newell's Love in the Time of Cholera (based on the novel by Nobelist Gabriel García Márquez), in which her husband is played by Benjamin Bratt and her yearning would-be lover by Javier Bardem. "The producers have been great, because it was not easy for them to choose an Italian actress that nobody knows in the United States," Mezzogiorno says. "I mean, I was just happy that I met Mike Newell." But don't call her an ingénue: Mezzogiorno has already walked down the red carpet at the Academy Awards—after the Italian psycho-thriller in which she starred in 2005, Don't Tell (original title: La Bestia nel Cuore, or "The Beast in the Heart"), was nominated for best foreign-language film. "It was an amazing night even though we didn't get the Oscar," she says. "It's such a great moment of cinema, really. In Europe we're not used to that kind of big, big machine. We have another mentality. We very much believe in minimalist things." On Love in the Time of Cholera's flash-forward septuagenarian sex scene: "Everybody prefers to see young people making love, but you know what? It's not as if you make love from 20 to 50, and then it's over. I hope that people can see how brave Mike Newell was to do that. We freaked out [filming the scene]. We were all very tense, because you have to have sweetness, it has to be believable, but at the same time, it has to be ironic. Because García Márquez is never one thing or another."


From Vanity Fair: vanities

Giovanna finished shooting between Roma and Tivoli her next film: "Sono Viva" (I'm Alive), produced by Laura Cafiero for Meta Film. She will be a barwoman in the upcoming psychological thriller by screenwriters Dino and Filippo Gentili with Massimo De Santis as the main character, a man who must guard a mysterious house where the corpse of a woman is found.


From this article

Wim Wenders revealed that Giovanna Mezzogiorno was chosen as the main character for "The Palermo Shooting" because of her resemblance with a painting and her spiritual, almost hieratic presence.
The painting (reproduced above on the left) is named: "Annunciata", by Antonello da Messina, a XV century sicilian artist.

on the right photo © by Eddy Briere

"The Palermo Shooting" by Wim Wenders has been presented in a press conference held in the Sicilian city some days ago. The cast, the director and the producer talked about the upcoming film. "It's the story of a photographer, played by Campino, whose life shatters to pieces so he decides to quit everything and move to Palermo, where he will start a new life and will have an electrifying love story with Flavia, a restorer played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno".

About the italian actress Wim Wenders added: "She was enlightening to me. It wasn't a random choice. During the script writing I had an image of the "Annunciazione" like the one from Abatelli's Palace hanging. That painting, so spiritual, circled with an azure veil, convinced me that the main character should have had the same soul. Giovanna is perfect, she has the same spirituality."


From this article by Giovanna Romano

Giovanna interviewed from italian Vanity Fair magazine. From the most difficult period of her adolescence she now has a sister that she loves, and from past loves she has learnt to have the strenght to grow.


[via VF]

Some articles from the web press about yesterday premiere event for the film, opening next week in USA:

alternative film guide
AOL news
Starpulse
Il Messaggero (italian)
la Stampa (italian)
Movable buffet



photo from La Stampa

It's her birthday today: "Auguri Giovanna !".

The "best italian actress", as stated some days ago by Luca Barbareschi, is celebrated by some news sites that speak about the upcoming international film based on the book by Gabriel García Márquez: "Love in the time of Cholera", which actually scores 6.8 on imdb and may be a serious candidate for the 2008 Academy Awards.




from this article and this article

"German director Wim Wenders is currently preparing his new film The Palermo Shooting, which is set for a September 17 start in the director's native Düsseldorf before moving to Sicily. His first feature-length project since 2005's Don't Come Knocking is about a Düsseldorf photographer who, after going through a crisis and leaving everything he owns behind, finally finds the beauty of life and love in Palermo on Sicily. The photographer will be played by one of Düsseldorf's most famous sons: Campino, the singer of Die Toten Hosen. Giovanna Mezzogiorno is in the cast.

The film should be ready for a release in Germany in 2008.
from this article