27 October | Xavier Dolan takes the stage for a Close Encounter with the audience, four films on the Friday lineup for the Official Selection

Winner of the 2014 Grand Jury Prize at Cannes for Mommy and Cannes’ 2016 Grand Prix for It’s Only the End of the World, at just 28 years old Xavier Dolan is already considered one of the most original and charismatic of the new generation of filmmakers. On Friday, October 27 at 5:30 pm, in the Sala Sinopoli, the young Canadian auteur will be the protagonist of a Close Encounter. Dolan will talk about his versatile career as a director and screenwriter of six acclaimed feature films and two videoclips (including Adele’s “Hello”), as well as in front of the camera as a film and television actor. Xavier Dolan will hit the red carpet at 5 pm.
After opening with the film Hostiles by Scott Cooper, the 2017 Rome Film Fest features four films from its Official Selection on the programme for Friday night.
At 7:30 pm, the Sala Sinopoli at the Auditorium Parco della Musica will host the premiere of the new film by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, A Private Affair. The two Tuscan filmmakers – who have imprinted their own personal aesthetic on Italian and international cinema for fifty years now, in a blend of realism and lyricism, literature and the social and political issues of their time – have adapted for the big screen the masterful novel of the same name by Beppe Fenoglio, published after his death in 1963. The plot revolves around the young resistance fighter Milton: against the backdrop of Langhe region in wartime, in a romantic tale of dreams, mystery and obsession, Milton undertakes a desperate, heroic journey to learn the truth about his love affair with Fulvia. On the red carpet at 7 pm, the directors will be joined by the film’s stars: Luca Marinelli, Lorenzo Richelmy, and Valentina Bellè.
At 7:30 pm in the Sala Petrassi, the audiences can catch the premiere of Detroit, the hotly-awaited new film by Kathryn Bigelow. The director of Point Break and Strange Days – the first and only woman to win the Oscar® for Best Director, for The Hurt Locker – has stepped behind the camera five years after the release of her film Zero Dark Thirty and created an astonishingly intense film. Detroit re-evokes one of the bloodiest and most tragic events in American history: the riots that swept the city of Detroit exactly fifty years ago, on July 23-27, 1967.
Next up in the Sala Petrassi, at 10:30 pm, is the premiere of All That Divides Us by Thierry Klifa. In a city on the French coast, between Sète and Perpignan, a mother and daughter in a troubled relationship, grappling with disability and drug addiction, get mixed up in a story of blackmail by dangerous criminals. “After His Mother’s Eyes, I wanted to write for Catherine Deneuve again,” the director explains.  “It wasn’t long before I got the idea of a woman who would take up arms to protect her daughter, a warrior who would defend her territory at all costs. I started imagining her burning a car in the middle of the night, or picking up an old hunting rifle to ward off dangerous trespassers, a vision a bit like Gena Rowlands in Gloria, by John Cassavetes – strong-willed, powerful and courageous. Yet not quite as straightforward as she seems to be.”
Meanwhile, in the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna at 9:30 pm, Nobody’s Watching by Julia Solomonoff treats Rome Film Fest audiences to an intimate and moving portrait of a man trying to find his place in the world. “The film explores the pleasures of freedom and anonymity in modern urban migrations and its reverse side: the loneliness and isolation of rootlessness,” the director declares.  “Where do we belong and what belongs to us? What defines us? The more virtual we become, the more we seem to long for roots, for something to hold onto, something that transcends us, that precedes and continues us.”
At 10 pm, the Sala Sinopoli hosts the screening of The Party by Sally Potter, the first title on the “Everybody’s Talking About It” section, a showcase of films that come to the Rome Film Fest after their remarkable international debuts. Packed with witty dialogue and filmed using a superb black and white palette, The Party is a comedy that veers on tragedy, in which a festive gathering among friends goes violently wrong, almost from the start.
The theme of the future of the professions in the film and audiovisual industries will be the focus of the conference that will be held at 9:30 am in the Sala Petrassi at the Auditorium Parco della Musica. It has been organized by the Fondazione Cinema per Roma, as part of the Rome Film Fest, with the support of the MISE – Ministry for Economic Development and ICE – the Italian Trade Agency, which promotes Italian businesses abroad and their internationalization, and sees the participation of institutions, associations, professionals and leading figures in the field. Scheduled speakers include Francesco Rutelli (President of ANICA), Giancarlo Leone (President of APT), Roberto Cicutto (President of Istituto Luce-Cinecittà), Nicola Borrelli (General Director for Cinema, MiBACT), Piergiorgio Borgogelli (General Director of ICE), Stefania Ippoliti (President of the Italian Film Commission), and Fabio Benigni (President of A.S. For Cinema), as well as Oscar®-winning production designer Dante Ferretti, set decorator Francesca Lo Schiavo and Milena Canonero, all three key figures in the “Made in Italy” film tradition. The conference will be introduced by Piera Detassis, President of the Fondazione Cinema per Roma, and moderated by film critic and journalist Gianni Canova.
At 5 pm, the Sala Petrassi will be hosting, for the sixty-fifth anniversary of  the National Association of Italian Filmmakers (ANAC), a screening of 65 Times ANAC, the synthesis of an as yet unfinished four-part documentary film project. The bulk of the documentary consists of first-hand accounts and interviews featuring some of ANAC’s historic members and exponents, such as Carlo Lizzani, Ettore Scola, Citto Maselli and Ugo Gregoretti. The screening will be followed by a talk featuring Francesco Ranieri Martinotti, Giuliana Gamba, Alessandro Rossetti and Giacomo Scarpelli, along with historic ANAC members.
At 3 pm, the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna will be screening the documentary Romarcord: History and Memory of Roman Movie Theaters, made by the film students at the Università “La Sapienza” in Rome (Department of Art History and Performing Arts). Divided into neighbourhoods and zones of the city, Romarcord is an account of the history and memory of Roman movie theaters, in a social history of the movie theaters of times gone by, seen through the eyes of today’s young people. The event will feature Enrico Magrelli, Andrea Minuz, Marina Righetti, Damiano Garofalo, Felice Bagnato, and Roberta Picciallo.
At the MAXXI Museum at 3 pm, a talk will be held on “The Made in Italy Concept and its Importance”, devoted to Italy’s tradition of superb craftsmanship. Speakers will include Antonio Quirici, Paolo Borghini, Fulvia Bacchi, Caterina Murino, Luciano Tristano, Michele Pecchioli, Luca Nardini, and Mario Bemer. The occasion for the event is a screening of the short film Cinque, devoted to the ‘Made in Italy’ label. Based on an idea by Michele Pecchioli (Aria Adv), directed by the collective TO GUYS (alias Alessandro De Leo & Alex Avella) and produced by Cuoio di Toscana, it features actress Caterina Murino, musician Francesco Tristano and chef Simone Rugiati.
FENDI celebrates its long-standing close ties to the film industry with an innovative exhibition entitled “FENDI STUDIOS”, which explores the unique relationship between the historic Roman fashion house and the seventh art by way of immersive digital technologies. The exhibition will be held at the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, Fendi headquarters, from October 27 to March 25, 2018, from 10 am to 8 pm (free admission).
Repeat screenings on Friday include, at the 3 e Google Cinema Hall, Hostiles by Scott Cooper (at 5 pm), A Private Affair by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (at 8 pm) and The Party by Sally Potter (at 10:30 pm). The My Cityplex Europa will host the repeat screening of Hostiles (at 8 pm).
On the programme for Friday, in a collaboration with the independent sidebar Alice nella città, is a screening of The Breadwinner by Nora Twomey (at 11 am in the Sala Sinopoli).
Alice nella città will also be hosting school screenings of Dreams by the Sea by Sakaris Stórá (at 9:30 in the Sala Sinopoli, with a repeat screening at 2 pm at the 3 e Google Cinema Hall) and The Best of All Worlds by Adrian Goiginger (at 11:30 in the Sala Sinopoli, with a repeat screening at 6 pm at My Cityplex Europa). The Sala Sinopoli will host the repeat screening of Tomorrow and Thereafter by Noemie Lvovsky at 3 pm, while the Cinema Admiral will be screening Brigsby Bear by Dave McCary.