Giuseppe Pedersoli’s Rome-based Smile Production has taken the leap into US production.

Here at the AFM, Pedersoli is representing the company’s first US project, Little Johnny, directed by Girogio Serafini. Co-funded by Smile and US-based West Arts, the film is
now in post-production. It’s the story of a mother who has lost her daughter and who has kidnapped another child. The cast is headlined by LaDon Drummond.

Another US film from Smile is also in the works. Eye Of The Hurricane, scripted and directed by Jesse Wolfe, has been shooting in St Marys, Georgia. The film, starring Campbell Scott and Melanie Lynskey, is set in a small Everglades community struggling to put their lives back together in the wake of a devastating hurricane. The story is told
through the eyes of a determined child, a troubled adolescent, a wounded parent and a loyal friend.

The producer is Susan Johnson. Smile is presenting footage of the film here in Santa Monica.

Meanwhile, Smile is hatching a third, even more ambitious US feature - serial killer movie The Hunt - Wild Bill. The film is about real-life American serial killer William Nathan Holbert.
Pedersoli bought the rights from American journalist Don Winner, who investigated the Holbert case and who is co-scripting the film.

Back in Italy, Smile Production is working on comedy See You Tomorrow, set in a very old community in Sicily. The director is Andrea Zaccariello.
Pedersoli comes from blue-blood Italian cinema stock. His grandfather is Giuseppe Amato, producer of The Dolce Vita, Umberto D and other classic Italian films. His father is
celebrated actor Bud Spencer.

Pedersoli continues to work with his father, who is now in his 80s. Most recently, Spencer starred in TV drama I Delitti del cuoco, directed by Alexander Capone and on which Smile
Production partnered with Mediaset.

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