Director Greg Maya has rejoined bicoastal The Artists Company after a two-year absence. He comes over from Park Pictures, New York….Feature filmmaker Rob Cohen (XXX, Fast and The Furious) has joined the spot directorial roster of bicoastal Anonymous Content. His former stateside roost was bicoastal Original Film….Director Sash Andranikian has come aboard Bridge Street Films, New York, for U.S. representation, rounding out a directorial roster that also includes Chris Yurkow and Marilyn Agrelo. John Ficalora is the shop’s executive producer……Amy Kindred has joined creative design studio EyeballNYC as executive producer. She most recently held the same post at New York-based Pure. Also joining EyeballNYC is CFO/COO David Drucker….Designer Ders Hallgren has joined Headlight Design+VFX, New York, as creative director. Hallgren had been freelancing as an art director/director since 2001 at leading houses……New York-based motion graphics studio wildstyle has become Resident, bringing Scott Pryor on board as its managing director. Pryor has freelanced on both the post and agency sides of the industry. He was recently at post facility Brandname, a division of PS260, New York, preceded by a stay at Bates Worldwide….Venice, Calif.-based production house Roses Are Blue is changing its name to Caviar Los Angeles to correspond with the moniker of its Central European parent company, Caviar Belgium in Brussels. Michael Sagol and Tom Weissferdt are executive producers of Caviar Los Angeles, which has just added director Frank Devos to its roster….
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More