“In what has been a dramatic year for all of us, it might seem inappropriate to talk about a celebration. And yet, it is necessary to do so, in order to send out a signal of recovery and normality”. The show must go on for Antonio Monda, artistic director of Rome Film Fest which will this year be celebrating its 15^th edition with obligatory masks, social distancing and temperature checks for all, at this very delicate point in time where Coronavirus infections are rising once again.

And so, it was with “happiness and pride” that the director outlined the Film Fest programme in Rome this morning, an event unspooling 15 - 25 October and encompassing various venues in the city, over and above the usual Parco della Musica Auditorium. High culture and popular culture, entertainment and high-quality world film will all return to the city, intermingling in this celebration of cinema, as ever not involving a competition, which will be buoyed by 26 participating countries, 20 world premieres, numerous Italian debuts and tremendous guests hailing from all corners of the globe.

Screening in the Official Selection are twenty-four films and documentaries, including Another Round [+lire aussi :
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interview : Lucas Belvaux
fiche film] by Lucas Belvaux and the anthology feature film series Small Axe by Steve McQueen, as well as The Shift [+lire aussi :
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interview : Alessandro Tonda
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interview : Nicolangelo Gelormini
fiche film] by Nicolangelo Gelormini, Stardust [+lire aussi :
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interview : Clare Dunne
fiche film] by Phyllida Lloyd. The American animation film Soul by Pete Docter will be opening the event, while Francesco Bruni’s much-anticipated Everything’s Gonna Be Alright [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] has been allocated the closing slot (Special Events). On the subject of Special Events, films in the offing include Alex Infascelli’s documentary about the beloved football player and former Roma captain My Name is Francesco Totti [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] made by the same director. Among the five titles in the Everybody’s Talking About It section, meanwhile, we find Suzanne Lindon’s Spring Blossom [+lire aussi :
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interview : Suzanne Lindon
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The trademark offering of Rome Film Fest under Monda’s leadership, the fourteen Close Encounters (meetings with directors, actors and huge personalities from the world of culture) will involve the likes of Steve McQueen (who will also accept a lifetime achievement award), Fabio and Damiano D’Innocenzo, Gabriele Mainetti (who will present world previews of several scenes from his new work Freaks Out [+lire aussi :
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interview : Gabriele Mainetti
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The Italian titles in the selection are, for the most part, first works. Unmissable among these is The Eumenides [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] and Anita Ravaroli’s We Are the Thousand - L’incredibile storia di Rockin’1000. As for the titles selected for the Films Of Our Lives line-up (or rather the Selection Committee members’ favourite films), science-fiction will be the guiding theme this year.

Viewers will be able to follow part of the programme, on demand, via a new, virtual, limited-capacity auditorium: the Digital RFF15 platform, which will be active from Monday 12 October.