Amazon Studios has unveiled a new high-concept Italian original movie featuring pop star Laura Pausini, who recently collaborated with Diane Warren to perform the Oscar-nominated theme song “Io Sì” (Seen) for Sophia Loren-starrer “The Life Ahead.”
The still untitled film, which has begun shooting, is being helmed by Ivan Cotroneo, who is among Italy’s most innovative writer-directors, known for several hit RAI TV series such as “Crazy About Love,” which featured Bollywood-style musical numbers, as well as some indie feature films. Endemol Shine Italy is producing. The pic will drop exclusively on Prime Video in over 240 territories in 2022.
Pausini, who performs mainly in Italian and Spanish, is a 2006 Grammy Award winner for “Escucha” in the best Latin pop album category, one of 13 studio albums she has released, scoring more than 70 million album sales around the world.
She regularly tours internationally and has performed with the likes of Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, Michael Bublé, and Madonna, who penned the track “Mi abbandono a te”/”Me abandono a ti,” featured on one of her albums.
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The film, which is based on an original idea by Pausini, is written by Cotroneo and his frequent co-writer Monica Rametta. Story details are still a bit sketchy besides the fact that in putting Italy’s pop music queen in front of the camera for the first time, they will use an innovative narrative device involving Pausini’s love for cinema while providing glimpses of her private and professional life. Gherardo Gossi (“Diaz,” “The Macaluso Sisters”) is serving as cinematographer.
“I had been receiving offers for film projects for some time, but I couldn’t find anything that was special enough to devote my time and energy to,” Pausini said in a statement. “Then in February 2020, I met Amazon Studios and during one of our meetings I realized there was a story I had never told that was important to me and that I now wanted to share,” she added.
“We are honored to welcome Laura into the Amazon Studios family; an extraordinary artist who is loved and celebrated around the world,” said Georgia Brown, head of European Amazon Originals at Amazon Studios.
“This project perfectly embodies our ambitions at Amazon Studios in Italy: to bring to life stories in an innovative way to surprise and delight audiences,” added Nicole Morganti, head of Amazon Originals for Italy, who noted that the pic “will experiment like never before with perspective and storytelling.”
Leonardo Pasquinelli, CEO of Endemol Shine Italy, pointed out that with this project they are “experimenting with a completely new narrative style in order bring to life the never-before-seen intimate and authentic story of Laura Pausini.”
Amazon is stepping up production in Italy where they’ve been pursuing a multi-pronged approach combining scripted, unscripted and sports content while also forging close rapports with top local talents of various types. They have an overall deal in place with Italian pop star Achille Lauro that involves his participation in the Italian version of unscripted show “Celebrity Hunted” as well as a film and TV series.
