AFM: Italy’s True Colours Boards ‘Amazing Leonardo’ (EXCLUSIVE)
By Nick Vivarelli
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Italian sales company True Colours has taken world sales on high-end biopic “Amazing Leonardo,” directed by Mexican helmer Jesus Garces Lambert and produced by Comcast-owned paybox Sky for play on both TV and theatrical in 2019, which will mark the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death.
The “Leonardo” biopic, toplining Italian A-lister Luca Argentero (“Eat Pray Love”) as the artist, scientist and inventor is being touted as going beyond the common stereotypes about the life of the quintessential Renaissance man who painted the Mona Lisa.
Art historian Pietro C. Marano, a member of Italy’s national panel of da Vinci experts, is in charge of the research, while Cosetta Lagani, who is in charge of ’s theatrical productions of the arts, is supervising the visuals.
Shooting on the biopic started in September in locations that include da Vinci’s native Tuscan town of Vinci and the region’s countryside, Florence, Milan, Rome, and several sites in France. will be showing footage at AFM.
The “Leonardo” director previously shot Sky Italia’s “Caravaggio — The Soul and the Blood,” also produced by Sky as part of their ongoing series of ambitious high-definition art docs that have been widely distributed globally as event releases. The first title of this series, “Vatican Museums 3D” (2014) was beamed to 2,000 screens across 60 countries.
The most recent title in the Sky Italia art series, “Michelangelo — Endless,” scored more than 100,000 admissions in Italy in early October during a six-day event release via Lucky Red before playing on Sky. will be releasing “Leonardo” in Italian cinemas next year as part of a slew of tributes to the Tuscan genius who died in 1519.
True Colours, which is headed by Catia Rossi, was launched in 2016 by Indigo Film and Lucky Red to boost the Italian film and TV industries and put the country back on the global content market map. Recent additions to their lineup include Rome Film Festival audience award winner “The Vice of Hope,” by Edoardo De Angelis; Venice Horizons title “If Life Gives You Lemons,” by first-timer Ciro D’Emilio; and upcoming release “The Legend of the Christmas Witch,” by Michele Soavi, which will hit Italian cinemas in late December.
