Laura Chiatti Movies

Roguish Hollywood star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) finds his debauched life of excess unexpectedly interrupted when his 11-year-old daughter (Elle Fanning) shows up at the Chateau Marmont Hotel for an unscheduled visit. Later, as father and daughter reconnect, Johnny begins to reassess his sordid lifestyle. Writer/director Sofia Coppola teams with brother Roman to produce a film executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola, and released by Focus Features. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

As the title suggests, this film finds Italian helmer (Volfango de Biasi) giving Shakespeare's classic tragedy Othello a slightly unique spin, with a heightened emphasis on Iago; it also reverses the roles by turning Othello into the manipulative monster and Iago into the wronged party. The action unfurls in the early 21st century at the University of Venice, where student Iago (Nicolas Vaporidis) has risen above his financially limited origins and shows enormous promise in his chosen field of architecture. Othello (Aurelien Gaya), an aristocratic architect's son, stabs Iago in the back by manipulatively damaging his academic stature and usurping his place as the designer of a project on the Biennale. Othello also steals Iago's love, chancellor's daughter Desdemona (Laura Chiatti), with whom he himself has been smitten for ages. Iago responds by creating a series of elaborate deceptions, designed to pay Othello back for his thoughtless Machiavellian acts. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Master director Roberto Faenza (Sostiene Pereira) returns to the screen with this adaptation of Michal Viewegh's novel Pripad Neverne Klary. The tale opens in early 21st century Prague, Czech Republic, where a gifted young musician grows plagued by feelings of jealousy and possessiveness, and the neurosis that his gorgeous girlfriend Klara is cheating on him. He hires a private detective to spy on Klara, but this accidentally triggers a string of misunderstandings, bizarre accidents and calamities that will permanently change the lives of both partners. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

In writer/director Paolo Sorrentino's second feature, The Family Friend (L'Amico di Famiglia), Giacomo Rizzo stars as Geremia de Geremei, a sixtysomething tailor who lives with his mother in a disgusting and decrepit flat. Though wealthy from the money that he has culled via loan-sharking, Geremia is a thoroughly miserable wretch, driven into the throes of destruction by his own incredible selfishness and his obsessive infatuation with a beautiful local girl, Rosalba (Laura Chiatta), whom he meets when asked to assist with her wedding. Geremia agrees, but takes the bride off alone and pressures her into sex, little realizing that he's sowing the seeds of his own downfall. Meanwhile, a bidet supplier attempts to goad Geremia into giving him a massive loan -- an amount that Geremia could never possibly fork over. Throughout the film, Sorrentino packs in numerous surrealistic touches, from the sight of a nun buried up to her neck in sand (accompanied by an aural assault on the soundtrack) to a grotesque glimpse of Rizzo with a potato poultice around his head to the jarring sight of Geremia's village, built by Mussolini on an Italian swampland. In the process, Sorrentino manages to create his own distinct world and thoroughly unforgettable characters. He also pulls off an incredibly difficult feat, by enabling the audience to care about a markedly unpleasant central figure. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi