Along with the Official Selection, the Close Encounters, the Retrospectives, the 10^th Rome Film Fest pays tribute to a selection of key figures in the history of Italian and international Cinema with a series of previews, screenings, restored films, conversations, and events. These tributes celebrate Ettore Scola and the Taviani brothers, who have represented the excellence of Italian cinema around the world for over fifty years, Francesco Rosi, who passed away last January, Pier Paolo Pasolini, on the fortieth anniversary of his tragic death, and Ingrid Bergman, on the one hundredth anniversary of her birth. The Tributes examine Cinema from its roots to its achievements, from Luis Buñuel to Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, and celebrate the world of entertainment in a commemoration of Frank Sinatra.

ETTORE SCOLA

Screening – RIDENDO E SCHERZANDO by Paola Scola, Silvia Scola, Italy, 2015, 82’   Screening – THE TERRACE by Ettore Scola, Italy, France, 1980, 155’ Restored version by CSC – Cineteca Nazionale in collaboration with Dean Film

Ettore Scola is a brilliant screenwriter (Il sorpasso, I mostri, Io la conoscevo bene), but he is best known and loved for some of the finest comedies in Italian film, such as Jealousy, Italian Style, We All Loved Each Other So Much, Ugly, Dirty and Bad and The Family. The Rome Film Fest celebrates Ettore Scola with the premiere of the documentary Ridendo e scherzando, directed by his daughters Paola and Silvia. A biography of the great filmmaker and a portrait of the artist and the man, based on repertory material, film clips from his movies, old super-8 reels, backstage documents, photographs borrowed from the family albums, drawings, cartoons, and an interview with Pierfrancesco Diliberto, known as Pif. “The challenge was to tell the story of our father Ettore Scola, a director, screenwriter, illustrator, humourist, intellectual, and activist – explain the directors – using an approach that we believe is the key to his cinema: talking about serious issues with a touch of humour.” On this occasion, the Rome Film Fest will screen the restored version of one of Scola’s best-loved films, La terrazza (The Terrace), about the social life and private humiliations of five characters who represent Rome’s social elite. La terrazza screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival where it won the awards for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Carla Gravina. To celebrate the restoration of the film, Disaronno will be organizing a party-event at the Terrazza Caffarelli.

PAOLO E VITTORIO TAVIANI

Screening – LA PASSIONE E L’UTOPIA by Mario Canale, Italy, 2015, 93’   Screening – KAOS (Segment LA GIARA) by Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani, Italy, France, 1984, 41’

Since their very debut, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani have left their mark on international cinema with their unique and original style. They have presented their films at the major festivals, from their debut film I sovversivi (The Subversives), presented at the Venice International Film Festival, to Padre Padrone (Father and Master), winner of the Golden Palm at Cannes, to Cesare deve morire (Caesar must die), winner of the Golden Bear in Berlin. To celebrate the two directors and winners of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, the Rome Film Fest will be screening the documentary La passione e l’utopia dedicated by Mario Canale to the places and passions that have distinguished the Taviani brothers’ films: an on-the-road perspective that tells the story of this sixty-year love affair with Cinema. The tribute will end with the screening of the film Kaos, inspired by the book Novelle per un anno by Luigi Pirandello, which the Taviani brothers set in Sicily, a land of prostrated landscapes scorched by the sun. This extraordinary anthology film, awarded with the David di Donatello and the Silver Ribbon for Best Screenplay, features the Italian comedy duo Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia in their last extraordinary performance together on a film set.

REMEMBERING PASOLINI

Screening – LA VOCE DI PASOLINI by Matteo Cerami, Mario Sesti, Italy, 2005, 52’ Screening – PASOLINI. IL CORPO E LA VOCE by Maria Pia Ammirati, Arnaldo Colasanti, Paolo Marcellini, Italy, 2015, 60’ Onstage conversation – “QUARANT’ANNI DOPO: 10 DOMANDE SU PASOLINI”

Forty years after the death of Pier Paolo Pasolini, the Rome Film Fest pays tribute with a series of events to the most important, controversial and surprising intellectual, poet and director in post-war Italy. On October 18^th, at the Nuovo Cinema Aquila theatre, in collaboration with the Assessorato alla Cultura of Rome, there will be a screening of La voce di Pasolini by Matteo Cerami and Mario Sesti, “the most exciting of all the films about Pasolini”, wrote Ninetto Davoli. Following the screening of the film, there will be a public meeting entitled: Forty years later: 10 questions about Pasolini, with the participation of historian Guido Crainz, philosopher and political science scholar Diego Fusaro, and the scholar and heir to Pasolini’s work Graziella Chiarcossi. On October 23^rd and 24^th, at the MAXXI and at the Auditorium, the Rome Film Fest will present the world premiere preview of the documentary film produced by Teche Rai, Pasolini. Il corpo e la voce, by Maria Pia Ammirati, Arnaldo Colasanti and Paolo Marcellini, featuring Pasolini’s most famous and historic appearances on television.

FRANCESCO ROSI

Screening – IL CINEMATOGRAFO É UNA MALATTIA! CONVERSAZIONE TRA FRANCESCO ROSI E GIUSEPPE TORNATORE by Marta Pasqualini, Italy, 2012, 16’ Screening – MORE THAN A MIRACLE… by Francesco Rosi, Italy, France, 1967, 103’

Almost one year after his death on January 10^th 2015, the Rome Film Fest commemorates Francesco Rosi – awarded with the Golden Lion in Venice for Le mani sulla città (Hands over the City), the Golden Palm in Cannes for Il caso Mattei (The Mattei Affair), and considered the father of investigative cinema – with the documentary by Marta Pasqualini Il cinematografo è una malattia! Conversazione tra Francesco Rosi e Giuseppe Tornatore. A meeting between two great directors of Italian cinema, the documentary is a dialogue-interview with Francesco Rosi conducted by Giuseppe Tornatore in 2012, reconstructing this extraordinary artistic and human experience and above all, the great passion they shared for cinema. Rosi’s work, which courageously bears witness to the darkest moments in the Italian history, will
be celebrated with another film that reveals a different side of the Neapolitan director, C’era una volta. A “social fable” starring Sophia Loren and Omar Sharif, it was inspired by the seventeenth-century novellas of Giambattista Basile. The screening will be introduced by Matteo Garrone, who has worked on Basile’s texts fifty years after Rosi.

INGRID BERGMAN

Screening – SIAMO DONNE (Segment INGRID BERGMAN) by Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1953, 16’ – Restored version by CSC – Cineteca Nazionale, Ripley’s Film Srl, Viggo Srl in collaboration with Marzi Srl   Screening – ISABELLA ROSSELLINI’S GREEN PORNO LIVE by Jody Shapiro, 2015, USA, 2015, 66’

For the one-hundredth anniversary of her birth, in the presence of her daughter Isabella Rossellini, the Rome Film Fest will pay tribute to Ingrid Bergman, the icon of classic world cinema, who began her meteoric rise to Hollywood stardom with Casablanca, to become one of the actresses who won the greatest number of Academy Awards in the course of her career. The Rome Film Fest will screen a cinematic gem to rediscover, the segment directed by Rossellini for the anthology film Siamo donne (We, the Women), the story of a woman anxious over her adored garden, filled with trees, plants and flowers that she has tended with loving care, and which are threatened by the rooster kept by her co-tenant. Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno Live, by Jody Shapiro, is a film based on the backstage material from “Green Porno”, the hit television show in which Isabella Rossellini gives an ironic account of the sexual habits of animals, to express her own love for nature. 

LUIS BUÑUEL

Screening – NAZARIN by Luis Buñuel, Mexico, 1958, 94’   Screening – TRAS NAZARIN by Javier Espada, Spain, Mexico, 2015, 75’

Considered one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of Cinema, Luis Buñuel has been one of its essential points of reference since his first three films, the Surrealist manifesto Un chien andalou (1929), L’âge d’or (1930), and Las Hurdes (1932). The Rome Film Fest presents a double tribute to this artist, a native of Aragona. It begins with the screening of one of his masterpieces, Nazarin (1958) awarded at the Cannes Film Festival, made with the help of a number of the most famous Mexican cinema artists and technicians (it features, for example, the extraordinary photography of Gabriel Figueroa). The Tribute goes on to present the documentary Tras Nazarin, by Javier Espada: the director of the Centro Buñuel in Calanda completes a journey through the locations scouted by Buñuel during the shooting of Nazarin, almost sixty years later, with period material and interviews with people who participated in the shooting of the film.

STANLEY KUBRICK

Screening – S IS FOR STANLEY by Alex Infascelli, Italy, 2015, 58’

It has been sixteen years since the death of Stanley Kubrick: director and philosopher, a tireless and eclectic experimenter who turned his back on Hollywood in the name of creative freedom, to be able to control every single aspect of his films’ production. Throughout his fifty-year career, he has delved into the contradictions of Western culture’s, without ever compromising on the spectacular impact of his mise-en-scène, and trying his hand at every conceivable film genre: from his debut noirs, Killer’s Kiss and The Killing to the sword-and-sandals epic Spartacus; from war films such as Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket to the fierce social and political satire of Doctor Strangelove; from science-fiction, in 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange, to the horror film Shining up to the psychological-erotic drama of his film-testament, Eyes Wide Shut.

The Rome Film Fest pays tribute to Kubrick with the documentary by Alex Infascelli entitled S is for Stanley, which reveals a previously unknown aspect of Kubrick’s life: his odd friendship with Emilio D’Alessandro, a farmer and car racer from the outskirts of Rome who became his personal chauffeur and factotum. This is an interesting and original eyewitness account not to be missed. 

HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT

Screening – HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT by Kent Jones, France, 2015, 80’

An extraordinary tribute to cinema as such. Starting with the original recordings of François Truffaut’s interviews with Alfred Hitchcock, which were the basis for one of the most important books dedicated to the seventh art, “Hitchock by Truffaut: A Definitive Study of Alfred Hitchcock”, the critic and documentary filmmaker Kent Jones offers an in-depth look at the work and legacy of the London-born director, through the films and first-hand accounts of some of the world’s greatest film directors: Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, James Gray, David Fincher, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Olivier Assayas, Richard Linklater, Arnaud Desplechin, Peter Bogdanovich, Paul Schrader.

FRANK SINATRA

Screening – SINATRA: ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL by Alex Gibney, USA, 2015, two segments – 244’

On the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, Frank Sinatra remains one of the most charismatic figures of all time in the entertainment industry. Alex Gibney, the director of Taxi to the Dark Side (presented in Rome and winner of an Academy Award in 2008) and author of many award-winning documentaries, offers an intimate and personal portrait of the life and career of this legendary artist. The film features interviews from the archives, accounts by friends and relatives, heretofore unseen film clips, little-known recordings of his famous “farewell” concert in Los Angeles in 1971. The story unfurls through the songs that Sinatra selected for that concert, which guide us through his life story.

ODISSEA NUDA DI FRANCO ROSSI

Screening – ODISSEA NUDA by Franco Rossi, Italy, France, 1961, 120’ Restored version by CSC – Cineteca Nazionale, Istituto Luce Cinecittà, Euro Immobil Film

Fifteen years after his death, the Rome Film Fest pays tribute to the cinema of Franco Rossi, with a screening of Odissea nuda. The Florence-born filmmaker trained during the years of Neo-realism and rose to fame for films such as Il seduttore with Alberto Sordi, Amici per la pelle (Nastro d’Argento for Best Film), and the television productions Odissea and Eneide. In Odissea nuda, a film that deserves to be rediscovered, Rossi tells the story of an intellectual (played by Enrico Maria Salerno), who travels to Tahi
ti to film a documentary. But his work soon begins to take second place to his primordial instincts and his desire to flee from civilization. However, the news of a death will suddenly interrupt this idyll. 

A TRIBUTE TO SERGIO CORBUCCI

Screening – SERGIO CORBUCCI – L’UOMO CHE RIDE by Gioia Magrini, Roberto Meddi, Italy, 2015, 54’

Sergio Corbucci was one of Italy’s most prolific and eclectic filmmakers: in the course of his forty-year career, he made over seventy films with forays into every possible genre, from “sword-and-sandals” to horror, from comedy to detective stories, from musicals to westerns – with the utmost consideration for his audiences who always rewarded him with record box office earnings. Borrowing from the director’s unpublished autobiography, the documentary tells the story of the man and the filmmaker, using repertory materials from the Istituto Luce and private amateur photographs and videos, and relying on the accounts of friends and collaborators and in particular of his wife Nori, whom he met in 1959, and with whom he shared 31 years of life together.