2 November | Vanessa Redgrave shines in a Close Encounter

With a glorious over-fifty-year-long career to her credit, Vanessa Redgrave is considered one of the world’s greatest actresses. The British icon of stage and screen takes the Rome Film Fest stage tomorrow, Thursday, November 2, for a Close Encounter. During the talk, to be held at 5:30 pm at the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, Vanessa Redgrave will look back on her extraordinary career in film, working for directors of the likes of Michelangelo Antonioni (whose Blow-Up first brought her to the world’s attention), Fred Zinnemann (whose Julia earned her an Oscar® for Best Supporting Actress), Sidney Lumet, James Ivory, Brian De Palma, and many more.
At 7:30 pm, the actress will be at the MAXXI to present Sea Sorrow, a documentary that marks Redgrave’s directorial debut, devoted to the migrants seeking asylum in Europe. Doing recon in Italy, Greece, Calais and London, Redgrave traces the steps of those who have left their native lands to escape war, tyranny and violence.
At 7:30 pm in the Sala Sinopoli, the American actor Michael Shannon – two-time Oscar®-winner for his star turns in Revolutionary Road by Sam Mendes and Nocturnal Animals by Tom Ford – will take part in a Q&A after the screening of Trouble No More. Shannon will discuss his film career and his role in the film by Jennifer Lebeau, a tribute to the art of Bob Dylan, particularly the music he made in his Christian “born again” phase in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. In this concert film, footage of live performances of Dylan and his band are interspliced with sermons written by author and critic Luc Sante and delivered by Michael Shannon.
There are two more screening of films in the Official Selection on tomorrow’s program.
At 8 pm, the Sala Petrassi will host Birds Without Names by Kazuya Shiraishi, based on the novel The Birds She Doesn’t Know the Names Of by Mahokaru Numata. “I was so struck by Towako and Jinji’s love story in the original novel that it was as if I had been hit by lightning,” the director explained. “I decided then to make it into a film because I wanted to show the quintessential love affair, one which no one could possibly experience as far as these two do. Ultimately, by playing their parts as intensely as they did for the film, both lead actors revealed an entirely new side of themselves, one I had never seen before.”
And at 9:30 pm, the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna hosts the screening of Life and Nothing More by Antonio Méndez Esparza. On the edge of adulthood, Andrew yearns to find his purpose as a young African-American in today’s America. With his mother longing to find more to her life than parenting, Andrew is forced to take on the mounting pressure of family responsibility. His search for connection with an absent father leads him to a dangerous crossroads. 
Tomorrow’s program also features two screenings in the “Everybody’s Talking About It” section.
At 10 pm in the Sala Sinopoli, Fest audiences will get a sneak peek at the first two episodes of the new TV series Babylon Berlin by Tom Tykwer, Achim von Borries and Henk Handloegten. Berlin in the Roaring Twenties: it is the ideal metropolis for those with talent and ambition, for those in a hurry. But beneath the glittering surface, the impoverished masses strive for a better life. It is a time of organized crime and political extremism. The old militaristic elites have not yet abdicated, while an even more dreadful monster starts flexing its muscles. Gereon, a Cologne police officer, is new to the vice squad at Berlin’s monumental police headquarters. The squad is headed by Bruno Wolter, whose hidden agenda becomes a serious threat. Caught between these two men is Charlotte, a bright and attractive young woman leading a double life. When a freight train from the young Soviet Union arrives, it draws attention from many corners.
At 10:30 pm, the Sala Petrassi will host a screening of A Prayer Before Dawn by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, based on the book A Prayer Before Dawn: A Nightmare in Thailand by Billy Moore. The film tells the remarkable true story of Billy Moore, a young English boxer incarcerated for three years in one of Thailand’s most notorious prisons. He is quickly thrown into a world of drugs and gang violence, but when the prison authorities allow him to take part in the Muay Thai boxing tournaments, Billy realizes that this is his only hope for survival.
At 9:30 pm at the MAXXI, Fest audiences can catch the screening of The Light and the Strength by Alejandra Islas, an ensemble documentary (Riflessi section) about 16,599 Mexican electric-energy workers who have been struggling to get their jobs back and to keep their legendary worker’s union alive after a presidential decree extinguished the public enterprise Luz y Fuerza from one day to the next. In a relentless battle against injustice, these workers created a resistance movement which led to an unexpected outcome.
Earlier in the day, at 4 pm at the Casa del Cinema, day 2 of the ongoing event curated by Mario Sesti, “Politeama: A reading, to music” gets underway. A reading of the entire debut novel Politeama by Gianni Amelio, one of Italy’s greatest contemporary filmmakers, a fascinating ad hoc troupe of actors, actresses, directors, intellectuals and fellow travelers will be bringing to life a biography as touching, tragic and stirring as a movie. Readers include: Luca Argentero, Paolo Briguglia, Francesco Bruni, Pino Calabrese, Renato Carpentieri, Roberto Citran, Serena Dandini, Roberto De Francesco, Giuliana De Sio, Piera Degli Esposti, Fabrizio Falco, Iaia Forte, Stefano Fresi, Elio Germano, Monica Guerritore, Raffaella Lebboroni, Enrico Lo Verso, Valentina Lodovini, Marco Messeri, Micaela Ramazzotti, Lina Sastri, Giulio Scarpati, Massimo Venturiello, and Nora Venturini. Musical accompaniment courtesy of Tosca (soloist), Massimo de Lorenzi (guitar), Ermanno Dodaro (double bass), and Giovanni Famulari (cello). 
The Rome Film Fest programme at Rebibbia Prison will also be continuing tomorrow. At 4 pm, there will be a screening of Borotalco by Carlo Verdone: the version newly restored by Infinity for the 35^th anniversary of the film’s original release. Actress Eleonora Giorgi will be on hand for the screening. Admission to all events is free but reservations are required, while seats last (information and reservations at www.enricomariasalerno.it).
There are two films on the Thursday lineup for the “Italian School” Retrospective curated by Mario Sesti, produced jointly with the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – National Film Library in collaboration with Istituto Luce Cinecittà. At 6:30 pm the cinema Trevi will host a screening of The Gospel According to St. Matthew by Pier Paolo Pasolini, followed by The Flowers of St. Francis by Roberto Rossellini at 9 pm, for the section of the retrospective “The non-professionals, the inexhaustible landscape of bodies, the world of the sacred.”
The 12^th Rome Film Fest brings its slate to the Teatro Palladium in the Garbatella neighborhood, thanks to an all-important collaboration with Roma Tre University. The program for November 2 kicks off at 8:30 with Tracce di bene by Giuseppe Sansonna (Riflessi section): a lost confession by Carmelo Bene reemerges from oblivion, as the actor’s voice, with its confidential tone, summons up memories at once intimate and universal: fragments of life and film, in a stream of consciousness that reveals a region, the Salento, flown over by saints in ecstasy.
Next up, at 10 pm at Teatro Palladium: The Italian Jobs: Paramount Pictures e l’Italia by Marco Spagnoli. The documentary, one of the pre-opening events, analyzes the ties between films, Paramount productions and Italy itself, exploring the story of international film as well and the reasons why certain pictures were made in Italy and not elsewhere. 
The independent sidebar Alice nella città has a packed programme for Thursday. The 3 and Google Cinema Hall will be screening Porcupine Lake by Ingrid Veninger (at 9:30 am), while the Amaldi High School will be showing Toto and His Sisters by Alexander Nanau (at 9 am) and Son of Saul by Lázló Nemes (at 11 am). Wrapping up Alice’s Thursday lineup, at the Cinema dei Piccoli: Pipì, Pupù e Rosmarina in Il segreto delle note rapite by Enzo D’Alò (at 6 pm).
Repeat screenings are being held across the city on Thursday. The Sala Sinopoli is showing Tomorrow and Thereafter by Noémie Lvovsky (at 11 am) and Logan Lucky by Steven Soderbergh (at 5 pm), while the Sala Petrassi hosts The Movie of My Life by Selton Mello (at 5:30 pm). Fest audiences can catch Hostages by Rezo Gigineishvili at the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna (at 3 pm), while the 3 and Google Cinema Hall is holding five repeat screenings: The Changeover by Miranda Harcourt and Stuart McKenzie (at 11:30 am), Junior by Zoe Cassavetes (at 3 pm), I,Tonya by Craig Gillespie (at 5 pm), Trouble No More by Jennifer Lebeau (at 8 pm) and Babylon Berlin byTom Tykwer (at 10:30 pm). 
Repeat screening at the MAXXI include: One of These Days by Nadim Tabet (at 11:30 am), Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood by Matt Tyrnauer (at 2:30 pm) and Little Crusader by Václav Kadrnka (at 5 pm). There are four repeat screenings at My Cityplex Europa: One of These Days by Nadim Tabet (at 3:30 pm), Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood by Matt Tyrnauer (at 5:30 pm), Hostages by Rezo Gigineishvili (at 7:30 pm) and Little Crusader by Václav Kadrnka (at 10 pm). Last but not least, the cinema Admiral uptown will be showing Addio fottuti musi verdi by Francesco Ebbasta (at 6:30 pm) and Freak Show by Trudie Styler, preceded by the short Immaginare by Simone Saraceno (at 8:30 pm).