Clive Owen Ties New Film Plans to Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi at Taormina

clive owen said at the Taormina Film Festival on Thursday that he is going to work with Ukrainian director Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi. He also said he is talking about an Italian-directed film in Italy next year, keeping the business of his slate moving in two directions at once.

Taormina Film Festival

Owen made the remarks during a roundtable with journalists, where he kept the Slaboshpytskyi project broad but unmistakable. “I am probably not allowed to talk about it but just to say that I am going to be working with him,” he said. That puts an Oscar-nominated actor in line with the director of The Tribe, the 2014 Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize winner.

Slaboshpytskyi’s name carries weight because The Tribe remains the reference point in this story. Owen said he was impressed by the film, and that gives the pairing a clearer artistic shape than a casual festival meet-up. It is the sort of collaboration that signals a preference for filmmakers with a strong formal voice rather than a safe prestige assignment.

Italy next year

Owen also said he is in “very early days” on a separate Italian-directed project set for next year. “I can’t say who or what it is because we’re in very early days, but I’m talking about working with an Italian director in Italy next year,” he said. He added that the director is not Paolo Sorrentino, even though he had worked with him years ago on a Campari campaign.

That leaves Owen with a compact but active run of projects, and it is a decent sign for an actor who has spent years balancing commercial work with more director-led titles. The practical takeaway for viewers is simple: the festival news points to two separate films in motion, one with Slaboshpytskyi and another Italian project still at the talk stage, while Owen’s near-term screen work already includes Kristallnacht, Blasphemous and Scorpion.

Kristallnacht Roles

Owen will next be seen in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s historical thriller Kristallnacht, where he plays a policeman trying to do his job on a night when his superiors behave differently. He described the film as “about somebody who is going about trying to do their job, but witnessing horror after horror and not being able to do anything about it… there was something about that premise… it’s important story to be telling.”

He also said he has upcoming roles in Luke Piotrowski’s horror movie Blasphemous and Richard Hughes’s police action drama Scorpion. That schedule makes the Taormina comments more than festival chatter: Owen is not announcing one isolated part, but a run of projects that moves from historical thriller to horror to police drama, with a separate collaboration with Slaboshpytskyi now added to the list.