CUT TO BLACK FOR GREAT ACTOR JAMES GANDOLFINI.....

James Gandolfini, died suddenly, en route to Taormina Film Festival in Sicily, Italy, to receive the Taormina City Prize and teach a masterclass. The beloved around-the-globe Gandolfini will be forever remembered for his portrayal of anti-hero Tony Soprano, the  protagonist and patriarch of HBO's "THE SOPRANOS", the iconic and  plethoric New Jersey mob monster we all loved to watch, publicly despise, and secretly identify with. 

The show was recently voted as No 1 TV series, since television's inception, from Writers Guild of America."THE SOPRANOS" were created by screenwriter-director David Chase.

During "THE SOPRANOS" 6-year run, he also won three straight Screen Actors Guild Award besides Emmys for lead drama actor.

Sicily's Taormina Film Festival organizes a tribute to the actor.

AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR-SCREENWRITER PAVLOS TASIOS DEAD AT 69....

Award-winning screenwiter-director Pavlos Tasios died today from cancer. Pavlos was a very dear friend and a top director of his generation. Actually in the top-3 along with Nikos Nikolaidis, and twice-nominated for Best Foreign Picture Oscar Vassilis Georgiadis.

 

....Pavlos wrote and directed many hits including "PARANGELIA" ("REQUEST FOR A SONG", 1980), about a night club slaughterfest-made it look and feel chilling like a Greek tragedy, that grossed 5 million euros in its first month of release (gross adjusted for inflation), starring his ex-wife poet-actress Kaerina Gogou, "VARY PEPONI" ("ΗEAVY MELON", 1977), "STIGMA" (1982) about a single mother with an autistic child and countless others. 

He wrote, produce and directed close to twenty feature films and countless TV series.

He was married twice. Survived by three children (one daughter and two boys) and his second wife Kaiti.

ANTHONY MINGHELLA DEAD AT 54

Πέθανε στα 54 ο βραβευμένος με Οσκαρ σκηνοθέτης-σεναριογράφος Αντονι Μινγκέλα ("Ο ΑΓΓΛΟΣ ΑΣΘΕΝΗΣ"). Η αιτία άγνωστη.
Quoted from ROBERT J. ELISBERG'S interview with Anthony Minghella from
www.huffingtonpost.com (first published at www.wga.org website)below is a small part of the interview the Oscar-winning director gave.

WGA: What sort of stories and characters interest you?
AM: I'm interested in stories which insist on a dog fails-to-eat-dog kind of world. I hate misanthropy, want to believe that there's a possibility that we might all be redeemed, that hope deferred makes the soul sick, that our humanity is fragile, funny, common, crazy, full of the longing for love, the failure of love. I want to tell stories which require something of an audience, by way of thought, argument, emotion, because I'm more often in an audience than I am a maker of films, and that's the kind of movie I want to see.