29 october | Jake Gyllenhaal takes the stage for a Close Encounter at the Rome Film Fest

Following the presentation of Stronger, Jake Gyllenhaal will take the stage again at the 12^th Rome Film Fest: on Sunday October 29^th at 5:30 pm, the American actor will meet the audience in the Sala Sinopoli of the Auditorium Parco della Musica. Gyllenhaal will talk about his career performing complex and deeply divergent roles in films such as Donnie Darko, Brokeback Mountain, End of Watch, Prisoners, Nightcrawler and Nocturnal Animals.
Six films in the Official Selection are on the schedule.
At 7:30 pm, Sala Sinopoli will hold the screening of Prendre la large by Gael Morel, the director of Les chemins de l’oued (2002), winner of the FIPRESCI award at the Toronto Film Festival, and Après lui, in competition in Cannes in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs section. In his new film, Morel tells the story of Edith, a worker in a textile factory, whose life changes radically when the company she has always worked for decides to relocate in Morocco. Faced with the prospect of unemployment, estranged from her son with no other ties, Edith decides to accept the move to Tangiers.
At 10 pm, in the same venue, the screening will feature Cuernavaca, the first feature-length film by Alejandro Andrade Pease, about what happens to Andy after his mother has an accident; there is no one to take care of him and he is forced to move to Cuernavaca, to live with his paternal grandmother. At the same time, he resolves to go in search of his father.
In Sala Petrassi at 5:30 pm, there will be a screening of Love Means Zero by Jason Kohn, a documentary about Nick Bollettieri, the famous tennis coach who has raised generations of champions including Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Monica Seles and many others. No other coach has achieved his success, his influence or his fame. Such greatness, though, came at a price. Eight marriages, financial upheaval and a dramatic break with his surrogate son and cherished student, Andre Agassi. “Everything changed when Agassi refused to sit down for an interview, explained the director. In that moment of apparent defeat, I realized that this wasn’t solely a historical film –  it also had a strong present tense storyline. Although it had been more than two decades since they parted ways, both Agassi and Bollettieri were still hurt, and the sports documentary began to evolve into a family drama”.
Immediately following, in the same venue, will be the film I, Tonya by Craig Gillespie that brings to the big screen the true story of world-famous ice skater Tonya Harding. Known for her fiery disposition, Tonya was the protagonist of an exceptional career and one of the biggest scandals in the history of the United States.
The programme in Sala Petrassi ends at 10:30 pm with Ferrari: Race to Immortality by Daryl Goodrich who tells the story of the loves and the losses, the triumphs and tragedies of the most courageous Ferrari drivers in an era in which all week long it was La Dolce Vita, but over the weekend it was a coin toss whether they lived or died.
At 9.30 pm in the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna, the Official Selection will feature In Blue by Jaap van Heusden:  in a taxi on her way to the airport in Bucharest, the car in which Lin, a flight attendant for a Dutch airline, is travelling hits a 15-year old boy, Nicu. Lin takes him to the hospital, and misses her flight for the first time since she began working twenty years ago. Nicu tries to attract Lin to him by telling jokes and playing with her, and offers to serve as a tour guide. Lin is intrigued by the boy, and accepts. A relationship blossoms between the two of them that is far more than a simple friendship.
At 5 pm, the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna will screen Insyriated by Philippe Van Leeuw: “In December 2012, a friend from Damascus told me that his father had been stuck in his apartment in Aleppo for three weeks with no telephone or other means of communication, because of the bombs and the war that were devastating the city – explained the director. I imagined this man alone, a prisoner in his own home, and I thought of the many people like him who were trying to survive one day at a time. This is the story of a family trapped at home by the war”.
The programme of the MAXXI will feature three screenings from the Riflessi section of the programme. At 5 pm, there will be a screening of Sara directed by Stefano Pistolini and Massimo Salvucci, which reconstructs the facts behind the murder of Sara Di Pietrantonio, the Roman girl killed by her ex-boyfriend in the early hours of May 29^th, 2016, the most recent link in the long chain of femicides that are imprisoning our society. The screening will be preceded by the short film Muro di bambole. At 6:30 pm, it will be time for Il mondo in scena. Spoleto, 60 anni di festival by Benoit Jacquot and Gérald Caillat, about the famous festival now in its sixtieth year, describing its unparalleled cosmopolitan and multidisciplinary spirit. At 9:30, the screening will feature Bitter Flowers by Olivier Meys: the heroine of the film is the Chinese girl Lina, a young mother and devoted wife, filled with dreams who leaves her family and flies to Paris for a season of harsh work. But in the streets of Belleville, her dreams do not shine as brightly as she expected, and Lina may have to make sacrifices in a way she has never dreamed of.
At the Casa del Cinema, in the Riflessi section, the screening will feature Dieci storie proprio così by Emanuela Giordano and Giulia Minoli (at 6:30 pm), about a country that is overrun with corruption and illegal business but is equally capable of surprises, a journey through a changing Italy. Also at the Casa del Cinema, for The Films of our Lives section, there will be a screening of 42nd Street by Lloyd Bacon (at 4 pm) and Hair by Milos Forman (9 pm).
The programme of repeat screenings around the city includes: The Breadwinner by Nora Twomey (Sala Petrassi, at 3:30 pm), Abracadabra by Pablo Berger (Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna, at 3 pm). At the 3 and Google Cinema Hall there will be a screening of Last Flag Flying by Richard Linklater (at 5 pm), Prendre le large by Richard Linklater (at 5 pm), Prendre le large Gael Morel (at 8 pm), Cuernavaca by Alejandro Andrade (at 10:30 pm). The MAXXI will host the repeat screening of Cabros de mierda by Gonzalo Justiniano (at 2:30 pm). My Cityplex Europa has four films on the schedule: Stronger by David Gordon Green (at 3 pm), Last Flag Flying by Rirchard Linklater (at 5:30 pm), Detroit by Kathryn Bigelow (at 8 pm) and Mon garçon by Christian Carion (at 10:30 pm).
Alice nella città, the independent and parallel sidebar to the Rome Film Fest, will present, in Sala Sinopoli, Beyond the Sun by Graciela Rodriguez Gilio and Charlie Mainardi (at 12 noon), Pipì, Pupù e Rosmarina in Il mistero delle note rapite by Enzo D’Alò (at 2 pm) and Frozen – Le Avventure di Olaf by Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers-Skelton (at 4 pm). At the 3 and Google Cinema Hall the screenings will feature My Friend Dahmer by Marc Meyer (at 11 am), and The Changeover by Miranda Harcourt and Stuart McKenzie (ore 15). Three events at the Cinema Admiral: Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat by Sara Driver (at 5 pm), Finché c’è prosecco c’è speranza by Antonio Padovan, preceded by the short film Jululu by Michele Cinque (at 6:30 pm), and Guarda in alto by Fulvio Risuleo, preceded by the short film Sweetheart by Marco Spagnoli (at 8:30 pm).