‘THE HAND OF GOD’ IS SORRENTINO’S NEW PROJECT FOR NETFLIX

Netflix announced that Paolo Sorrentino will write and direct a new original movie for the streaming service. In 2014, the Italian director won the Academy Award for ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ with ‘The Great Beauty‘. He is internationally renowned for movies such as ‘The Consequences of Love’, ‘Il Divo’, and ‘Youth’. He also created, wrote, and directed the TV series ‘The Young Pope’ and ‘The New Pope’ for HBO. The title of his new feature film for Netflix will be ‘The Hand of God’. Sorrentino will co-produce it with Lorenzo Mieli, and his The Apartment Pictures, filming in the director’s hometown of Naples. “I’m excited at the idea of once again filming in Naples, exactly twenty years after my first film,” Sorrentino said, referencing his 2001 movie ‘One Man Up.’ “’The Hand of God’ represents an intimate and personal film, and it is the first time that this happens in my career. It is a novel of formation at once light-hearted and painful,” he added. “I’m delighted to partake in this adventure with producer Lorenzo Mieli, his company The Apartment and Netflix. The agreement with Teresa Moneo, David Kosse, and Scott Stuber from Netflix, about the meaning of this film, was immediate and dazzling. They made me feel at home, an ideal condition, because this is precisely what this film means to me: going back home.” Little is still known about the plot of ‘The Hand of God.’ In any event the location and the title seem to refer to a connection with Diego Armando Maradona. The Neapolitan director is so devoted to the former soccer-player that he mentioned him during his acceptance speech at the 2014 Academy Awards. Maradona got his nickname, ‘La mano de Dios’, after the historical goal he scored with his hand at the 1986 World Cup.