email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

FESTIVALS / AWARDS Italy

The Noir in Festival as a journey through dark comedy and realism

by 

- From 6 to 12 December, the annual literature and cinema event will be returning to Como and Milan once more, offering up a tribute to Batman and a selection of recent genre films

The Noir in Festival as a journey through dark comedy and realism
4X4 by Mariano Cohn

The 29th edition of the Noir in Festival, scheduled to run from 6 to 12 December in Como and Milan under the stewardship of Giorgio Gosetti, Marina Fabbri and Gianni Canova (representative of the IULM – the University of Communications and Languages), will open with a trip down memory lane: the festival will be paying tribute to 80 years of Batman, the black knight who started life in graphic novel form and went on to become a huge cinematic icon.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

As regards the six films competing in the cinema line-up of the event - works which are set to be deliberated over by a jury composed of actress Lucia Mascino, director Patricia Mazuy and producer and festival manager Mira Staleva - we’ll find three works showcasing the “new wave” of South American cinema: the Chilean film Araña by Andrés Wood, the Brazilian title Bacurau [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juli…
film profile
]
by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, and the Argentine work 4X4 [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Mariano Cohn. Jostling alongside these are Dear Agnes by Daniel Alfredson, the last film in the Swedish Intrigo trilogy penned by Håkan Nesser (a guest of honour in the Festival’s literary line-up), the Korean film The Beast by Lee Jeong-ho (a remake of the class crime thriller 36 Quai des Orfèvres) and the Chinese title The Wild Goose Lake [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Diao Yinan
film profile
]
by Diao Yinan, the film-revelation of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Authors attending the Festival as literary guests of honour – in addition to Håkan Nesser  -include the likes of Giancarlo de Cataldo, Gianrico Carofiglio, Maurizio De Giovanni and Donato Carrisi, all of whom are long-established names in the literary universe who also enjoy close links with the world of film and TV series, as well as emerging talent such as Piernicola Silvis.

As per the literary line-up, the Italian cinema section will also see this season’s finalists duking it out, in this instance for the Caligari Award: six Italian films will be screened and judged by the People’s Choice Jury in the IULM Auditorium in Milan. This section, too, is dominated by variety and the notion of genre transformation, as demonstrated by Donato Carrisi’s Kafkaesque Into the Labyrinth [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and Guido Lombardi’s road movie Stolen Days [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
; by the realism of Renato De Maria’s Lo spietato [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and Claudio Giovannesi’s Piranhas [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Roberto Saviano
film profile
]
, and; by the dark comedy characterising Vincenzo Alfieri’s Gli uomini d’oro [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile
]
and Igort’s graphic novel turned film 5 Is The Perfect Number [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Igort
film profile
]
. Not to mention the tribute that will paid out of competition to The Traitor [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Marco Bellocchio
film profile
]
, highlighting the value of this work by Marco Bellocchio, who was awarded an Honorary Degree from the IULM just a few days ago.

Amongst the Special Events on the agenda, meanwhile, is a sneak peek at the new Swedish series Stockholm Requiem - based on the novels by Kristina Ohlsson - and a Career Acheivement award to be handed to a maestro who’s also a big name in the world of film noir, Bertrand Tavernier. The event will also host the eighth edition of the International Meeting for Independent Cinema (MICI), organised by the Italian General Association of Independent Film-Audiovisual Industries (AGICI) in association with the Festival (read our news).

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

(Translated from Italian)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy