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ROME 2016

Rome Film Fest: Variety, quality, international spirit

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- The 11th edition of the event, directed by Antonio Monda, will be held from 13 to 23 October. Guests will include Roberto Benigni, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Ralph Fiennes, and Juliette Binoche

Rome Film Fest: Variety, quality, international spirit
Denial by Mick Jackson

45 films and documentaries in the Official Selection, 24 world premieres, 14 meetings along with special events, retrospectives and tributes. For his second year as artistic director, Antonio Monda confirms the ‘celebration’ dimension of the capital’s film festival, which doesn’t have a competition (just the audience award) or sponsors, and stakes everything on its ‘variety, quality and international spirit’. This year, 26 countries will be represented this year at the Rome Film Fest (the 11th edition of which will be held from 13 to 23 October) along with a range of genres, from comedy to melodrama, from westerns to horror, with recurring themes including diversity – starting with the opening film, Moonlight by Barry Jenkins, about a young black boy from a neighbourhood with a bad reputation in Miami who discovers he is homosexual – work, politics, and the Holocaust (the controversial Denial [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Mick Jackson).

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Changes to this year’s edition include the addition of the “Tutti ne parlano” section featuring some of the best films presented at other festivals that have yet to be distributed in Italy (including The Red Turtle [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Michael Dudok de Wit), a series of screenings in Rebibbia prison, and a new ‘theatre’, the Mazda Drive-in in the European quarter. The three pillars of the Festival remain unchanged though: films, retrospectives and meetings, because – as reminded by Monda – ‘this Festival is characterised by the fact that artists come here to talk about film and not just to strut the red carpet”. The many protagonists of the close-up meetings this year include Tom Hanks (who is set to receive the award for career achievement and will have a broad retrospective dedicated to him), Roberto Benigni, Bernardo Bertolucci, Andrzej Wajda, Meryl Streep, Viggo Mortensen and Oliver Stone. The other two retrospectives this year will be reserved for American politics, in view of the upcoming presidential elections, and the director of The Desert of the Tartars, Valerio Zurlini.

Meanwhile, four of the titles in the Official Selection are Italian: they centre around the theme of 7 minuti [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michele Placido
film profile
]
 by Michele Placido, Sole cuore amore [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Daniele Vicari and debut work Maria per Roma [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Karen Di Porto, a comedy that Monda describes as “smart, new and original: this year’s gamble”. The fourth Italian film is Napoli ’44 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Francesco Patierno
film profile
]
by Francesco Patierno, an interesting mix of documentary and fiction. The European films in the selection include Florence Foster Jenkins [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile
]
by Stephen Frears, Into the Inferno [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
 by Werner Herzog, Afterimage [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Zofia Wichlacz
film profile
]
by Andrzej Wajda, German co-production Snowden [+see also:
trailer
interview: Oliver Stone
film profile
]
by Oliver Stone,Fritz Lang by Gordian Maugg,The Secret Scripture [+see also:
trailer
interview: Jim Sheridan
film profile
]
by Jim Sheridan starring Vanessa Redgrave, Faultless [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Sébastien Marnier, The Rolling Stones Olé Olé Olé! by Paul Dugdale (on the legendary band’s concert in Cuba), the latest film by Alexandros Avranas, True Crimes [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
starring Jim Carrey, and the closing film, co-produced by the United Kingdom, Lion [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Garth Davis starring Nicole Kidman.

In guerra per amore by Pif will be presented before the opening on 12 October, as will La guerra dei cafoni by Davide Barletti and Lorenzo Conte (on 9 October), starring Claudio Santamaria. There will also be tributes to Michael Cimino, Luigi Comencini, Gregory Peck and Alberto Sordi, among many others. Special events will include the screening of and a reunion of the cast of The English Patient twenty years on, starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche and Kristin Scott Thomas. Last but not least, there’s the industry section with the MIA (the International Audiovisual Market) which will be held from 20 to 24 October, the detailed programme of which will be presented on 11 October. For the programme of autonomous and independent section Alice nella Città, click here.

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(Translated from Italian)

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