Catania, 13 November 2025 — The Family will be the executive production company that, selected through a public tender by the Academy of Fine Arts of Catania as part of the PNRR C-Fabit project (funded by the EU through the MUR — Ministry of University and Research), will shoot in Catania from January 2026 the pilot episode of “ Il Gorilla” , the TV series based on the saga of novels by crime writer Sandrone Dazieri, who has written the screenplay.
Milan-based and founded in 2002, The Family is one of Italy’ s most acclaimed production companies with significant international experience: among its credits, the TV series “ Made in Italy” , distributed worldwide by Amazon Prime; the feature film “ Volare” , directed by and starring Margherita Buy. More recently, The Family handled the executive production of the anticipated final film by Peter Greenaway, one of the greatest contemporary British filmmakers, shot entirely in Italy with Dustin Hoffman and Helen Hunt; the Netflix series “ Taskaree” by Neeraj Pandey; and the film “ Cocktail 2” by Homi Adajania.
The pilot episode of “ Il Gorilla” will be directed by Stefano Quaglia, director, writer, co-founder and executive producer of The Family. Together with producer Maura Beretta, Quaglia will be in Catania on 20 November as a guest of the Academy of Fine Arts, for a masterclass dedicated to Cinema Course students who will shortly be involved in the executive phase of the PNRR C-Fabit project, whose objective is to create a film production centre in Catania under the auspices of the state Academy.
While confidential negotiations are underway to finalise the cast, location scouting has begun in Catania and the surrounding area, with technical surveys for the various sets. The screenplay pages, meanwhile, are being studied and discussed by author and screenwriter Sandrone Dazieri and director Quaglia, and already hint at the broad strokes of the subject and narrative context of the Catanian “ Gorilla” . “ It will be a psychological noir,” suggests Stefano Quaglia, “ that leaves the fog of the Lombard metropolis behind to take refuge in the south, in a coastal city like Catania: a city of Mediterranean light and dark nights, dense with contrasts, tension and humanity.”
The project coordinator, Gianpiero Vincenzo, lecturer in Sociological Disciplines (Abact) and scientific director of the entire operation, announces that the institutional and operational premises have already been identified. They will soon be acquired with PNRR funds and will become part of the Academy of Fine Arts of Catania’ s property assets. The space will house offices, classrooms, a conference room, editing and post-production suites — with state-of-the-art cameras on the way — equipment storage and a vehicle depot.
The Academy of Fine Arts of Catania — led by Lina Scalisi (President) and Gianni Latino (Director) — is in ongoing discussions with the Municipality and the Metropolitan City of Catania to define a potential inter-institutional collaboration with the Abact production centre.
THE C-FABIT PROJECT
C-Fabit stands for Cinematic Futures: Bridging Art, Technology and Interdisciplinary Training. Drafted by the Academy of Fine Arts of Catania (lead institution), the project can count on funding of over 5.2 million euros (5,248,478.40 euros).
The project’ s objective is to make the Academy of Catania a hub for film production that is also useful to cinema professionals, providing logistical and strategic support for production companies that increasingly choose Sicily as a preferred location for films, TV series, historical and scientific documentaries, and commercials. From an educational standpoint, students have access to an extraordinary hands-on laboratory, developing on-set the professional skills connected to the world of cinema.
Project C-FABIT/PNRR | Press Release no. 4_2025
