After launching from last year’s Venice Film Festival, British director Joe Wright’s high-end TV drama “Mussolini: Son of the Century” is finally reaching audiences in the U.S. via Mubi, which dropped the first episode of the timely series last week.
Based on Italian author Antonio Scurati’s bestselling novel “M,” which traces the birth of Fascism in Italy, the eight-part series reconstructs Mussolini’s ascent with an innovative approach. Luca Marinelli (“The Eight Mountains,” “Martin Eden”) plays the despotic leader between 1919, when the fascist party in Italy was founded, and 1925, when — after gaining power with the 1922 March on Rome — Mussolini made an infamous speech declaring himself a dictator.
“I didn’t really know how to prepare for this role,” Marinelli says in an exclusive behind-the-scenes clip, titled “Becoming M,” which, just like the show, is punctuated by a techno score composed by Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers.
“I tried to distance myself from my own feelings on the subject,” Marinelli adds.
Wright, in an interview with Varietyahead of the drama’s Venice launch, called “Mussolini: Son of the Century” a “howl against the current rise of the far-right.”
“I was aware that we needed to convey the seductive qualities of Mussolini, but I never wanted the audience to be seduced by him,” he said. “We employ moments where we empathize with him, we humanize him. And then we kind of pull the rug from the audience’s feet and ask them to employ a certain level of critical distance.”
“Mussolini: Son of the Century,” which played positively on Sky in Italy and the U.K. prior to its U.S. bow, is produced by Sky Studios and Lorenzo Mieli for the Apartment Pictures, a Fremantle company. It was made in co-production with Pathé, in association with Small Forward Productions and in collaboration with Fremantle, Cinecittà S.p.A. and Sky.
At the 2025 Venice Film Festival, Jim Jarmusch spoke out against Mubi for their ties to the Israeli military. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he said he was “disappointed and quite disconcerted” that the company distributing his latest film accepted a $100 million investment from Sequoia Capital earlier this year. The venture capital firm is reportedly a key investor in Kela, an Israeli tech startup founded after October 7 that develops military AI. “I have spoken to Mubi about it,” Jarmusch said, noting that he’s worked well with Mubi’s chief content officer Jason Roppell in the past. “I was, of course, disappointed and quite disconcerted by this relationship.”
Jarmusch lamented that making any commercial art in the 21st century almost always involves taking what he called “dirty money.” “I’m not the spokesman. However, yes, I was concerned. I also have a distribution agreement with Mubi for certain territories, which I also had entered into before my knowledge of this,” he said. “But having said that, on a personal level, I have to say I’m an independent filmmaker, and I have taken money from various sources to to be able to realize my films. And I consider pretty much all corporate money dirty money. If you start analyzing each of these film companies and their financing structures, you’re going to find a lot of nasty dirt. It’s all there.”
Indya Moore, who stars in Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother continued that the work to divest art from the military industrial complex is ongoing. “Since the genocide of Palestinians began, there has been an incredible amount of creative warfare and resource warfare behind the scenes,” she said. “What people are trying to figure out is how do we work in a capacity that is ethical and is not enabling a systemic pipeline that funds these kinds of things to happen to people. The due diligence that people are learning how to do is a developing process.”
The Mubi question was raised amid ongoing protests outside the Venice International Film Festival. Hundreds gathered on the Lido August 30 to denounce “ongoing genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing across Palestine carried out by the Israeli government and army,” per Deadline. Other filmmakers who have decried Mubi’s partnership with Sequoia include Fresh Off the Boat creator Eddie Huang. “The beliefs of individual investors do not reflect the views of MUBI,” the company said in a statement to social media June 14. “We take the feedback from our community very seriously, and are steadfast in remaining an independent founder-led company.”
Panahi, a pivotal figure in the global arthouse scene, died on November 5, aged 67. In her decades in the business, as a producer, co-financier and sales agent, Panahi introduced the world to international auteurs from Iran (Jafar Panahi, Marjane Satrapi), Europe (Jacques Audiard, François Ozon, Gaspar Noé, Marco Bellocchio, Aleksandr Sokurov, the Dardenne brothers) and across Asia (Takeshi Kitano, Naomi Kawase, Jia Zanghke, Hirokazu Kore-eda).
“She took films that were challenging, that were difficult to make, to sell, to promote, and she fought for them,” says Oscar-winning producer Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor) who knew and worked with Panahi for more than 30 years. “She was a unique part of the film ecosystem. She was really inspirational, with the films that she enabled to be made, and seen.”
Celluloid Dreams, which Panahi founded in 1985, was a pioneer in scouting and promoting international filmmakers, particularly from regions (Asia, the Middle East) that long been ignored by distributors in the West.
Jacques Audiard’s French prison drama A Prophet, Takeshi Kitano’s samurai action comedy The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi, Marjane Satrapi’s animated autobiography Persepolis, S. Craig Zahler’s violent Western Bone Tomahawk, Todd Haynes’ experimental Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There: There was little that united the Celluloid Dreams line-up, aside from Panahi’s esquisite taste.
“Panahi was ‘the’ sales agent par excellence and has, since the 1980s, pioneered a new way of understanding the exchange and promotion of arthouse films internationally,” says Giona Nazzaro, artistic director at the Locarno Film Festival. “But beyond even that, she is famed for her unparalleled eye in seeking out and supporting nascent projects as a producer. It is to this discerning vision that we owe the discovery and consecration of some of the greatest contemporary auteurs: from Jafar Panahi to Kitano Takeshi, from Jacques Audiard to Jia Zhangke…A new generation of professionals was formed under her close supervision and guidance. We now also count them among the brightest lights in our industry.”
Posting on X shortly after the news of her death, the Locarno festival called Panahi “fierce and an inexhaustible source of inspiration.”
Fierce and an inexhaustible source of inspiration, Hengameh Panahi played a crucial role in the history of cinema and a fundamental part, more than we can imagine, in shaping our own private histories as passionate cinephiles.@GionaNazzaro‘s tribute: https://t.co/OmdTsOnfrmpic.twitter.com/6GTRT6iDFS
The European Producers Club, posting on Thursday, called Panahi “a very important woman who enlightened our industry for decades with her passion and vision. We owe Hengameh Panahi masterpieces and many successes.”
Many highlighted Panahi’s role as a partner and mentor. Famously, after meeting two young, talented but broke animators on a trip to L.A. in the early 1980s, Panahi helped organise a trip for them to attend Brussels’ Anima animation festival. The duo? John Lasseter and Tim Burton.
Though Celluloid Dreams Panahi actively sought out partnerships with other independent producers and distributors to find new ways to finance and release hard-to-market movies.
“When I started MUBI 16 years ago, Hengameh was the first person in the film industry who believed in me,” says Efe Çakarel, who launched his arthouse streaming platform with Panahi’s help. “Her instincts were sharp as a knife. She invested in MUBI (then called “The Auteurs”), joined our board, licensed us her entire library, and mentored me. Her influence and ideas in those early days shaped what MUBI became today. I will miss her greatly.”
Martin Scorsese, Ete Cakarel and Hengameh Panahi at the 62nd Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 15, 2009
“Hengameh’s taste was unparalleled and she was an exceptional sales agent,” wrote indie production and sales group XYZ Films in an email to The Hollywood Reporter following Panahi’s death. In 2012, XYZ formed a foreign sales partnership with Celluloid Dreams in 2012, called Celluloid Nightmares, to produce and distribute arthouse horror movies. “She taught us a lot during the years of our Celluloid Nightmares partnership,” said XYZ. “Hengameh’s passing is a loss for filmmakers and cinema around the world and she will be missed.”
Jeremy Thomas notes that Panahi’s passing comes as the kind of cinema she celebrated and championed has become an endangered species.
“She was a driver of world cinema and for a time that was a very strong business, popular in the movie houses and on DVD but a lot has changed,” he says. “You go to the big festivals, like Toronto, and the screenings are full up, with audiences queuing to see these movies [but] fewer and fewer of them are getting theatrical releases. The marketplace has been greatly reduced [to] the couple of streamers who have taste.”
But, he adds, Panahi would be the last one to give up the fight for independent cinema.
“She was a lifetime fighter and did whatever was needed to stay in the game,” he says. “Above all it was her infectious enthusiasm, and optimism. Most people in the film business are glass half-empty types. Hengameh was always half-full or overflowing.”
