International premiere at Series Mania for ‘Il Camorrista’, the new series by Giuseppe Tornatore
13 March 2024
The international premiere of The Camorrist, the new series by Academy Award winner Giuseppe Tornatore, will take place at Series Mania in Lille, the largest event dedicated to television series in Europe.
The festival, scheduled from March 15 to 22, offers exclusive world premieres of the biggest international series, providing up to 85,500 spectators with 8 days of discoveries, parties, and masterclasses with renowned industry figures.
The screening of Il camorrista is part of the Séances Spéciales, a selection of premieres presented out of competition. Guido Lombardo of Titanus will introduce the title.
The series, consisting of five unreleased episodes, restored under Tornatore’s supervision, two of which were premiered at the 18th edition of the Rome Film Festival. Filmed in 1985, alongside the making of the film of the same name, the series was never broadcast.
“The current reworking, which required significant artistic and professional commitment, was completed after almost a year of activity and was produced by Titanus Production and RTI – Mediaset and is distributed by Minerva Pictures,” explains Titanus President Guido Lombardo. With music by Oscar winner Nicola Piovani.
Giuseppe Tornatore explains: “The destiny of my first film, Il camorrista, was curious. In order to make it, Titanus producer Goffredo Lombardo proposed making a serialized version for television. It was a risk ahead of its time, in 1985, when the fever of seriality was still far away, but thanks to Lombardo’s foresight, we had the budget needed for the project. So, I shot both the film intended for traditional cinematic release and the five one-hour episodes for television simultaneously. Unfortunately, the film faced difficulties due to its controversial themes and disappeared from circulation shortly after its release in theaters. Discouraged, distributors never aired the television series, and the five episodes were lost in the warehouses of 35mm materials. Today, after about forty years, thanks to the productive revival of the glorious Titanus brand, those five hours have emerged from the shadows, and Guido Lombardo, along with the new executives, asked me to restore and reissue them. I gladly accepted the challenge, which involved a new 4k scan of the original material, innovative color correction, a miraculous remaking of mono sound converted to 5.1, and resizing to 16:9 from the original 1:33 format. Returning to work on a project created when I was barely more than a boy was a real emotion because I rediscovered all the commitment and enthusiasm that had drawn me to the cinema profession.”
Minerva Pictures handles italian distribution and international sales for the series.