Trailer: Sophia Loren returns to the Oscar conversation with ‘The Life Ahead’

60 years ago, Sophia Loren became the first actor to win an acting Academy Award for a non-English language performance. In 2020, she’s set to return to the Oscar conversation with The Life Ahead, directed by her son, Edoardo Ponti.

In the colorful Italian port city of Bari, the streetwise 12-year-old Senegalese orphan Momo (introducing Ibrahima Gueye) has ambitions to make his fortune in the underworld of the town’s shady alleyways. One day, he steals a bag of items from the elderly Madame Rosa (Sophia Loren), a Holocaust survivor who makes a meagre living raising the children of prostitutes with whom she once shared the streets. When Momo is forced to apologize to Rosa, she reluctantly agrees to take him in temporarily and the two lonely individuals find an unlikely family in each other through a deep and unconventional bond. The kindred spirits become connected to a common destiny that will change the course of their lives.

The Life Ahead is directed by Edoardo Ponti and adapted by Ponti, Ugo Chiti from Romain Gary’s novel “The Life Before Us.” The film also stars Renato Carpentieri, Iosif Diego Pirvu, Massimiliano Rossi, Abril Zamora and Babak Karimi. Featuring an original song written by 11-time Oscar nominee Diane Warren and sung by Laura Pausini.

In select theaters this November and on Netflix November 13.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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