Italiano
At 7:30 pm, the Sala Sinopoli hosts the premiere of E noi come stronzi rimanemmo a guardare, the new film by Pierfrancesco Diliberto (alias PIF). Arturo, played by Fabio De Luigi, is an ambitious manager who, without suspecting it, introduces an algorithm into his company that makes his job superfluous. In a short time, he loses his job, his fiancée and his friends, and to keep a roof over his head, he decides to work as a rider for FUUBER, a multinational tech giant. His only consolation is Stella, a hologram created by a FUUBER app. But after his week-long free trial, during which time Arturo has become attached to Stella, he finds he can’t afford to renew his subscription.
Two screenings in Sala Petrassi tomorrow are Film Fest tributes. At 4 pm, Essere Giorgio Strehler by Simona Risi is a documentary dedicated to the one-hundredth anniversary of Giorgio Strehler’s birth: an unusual and intimate journey, reconstructed in previously unreleased or rarely heard interviews, with a poetic and personal touch. At 9:30 pm, Luigi Proietti detto Gigi by Edoardo Leo celebrates one of Italy’s most legendary entertainers through the eyes of those who knew him from the start. An exciting journey to discover who the late, great Luigi Proietti really was.
In between the two tributes, in Sala Petrassi at 7 pm, the Riflessi section treats the Fest to The Treasure Of His Youth: The Photographs Of Paolo Di Paolo by Bruce Weber, a documentary that explores the life of photojournalist Paolo Di Paolo through his early photographs, which were accidentally discovered decades later and are now an important archive that recaptures the Italy of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Admired by the country’s intellectuals and leading cultural figures in the fields of art, fashion and cinema, Paolo Di Paolo was the photographer of the generation that reemerged, in all its vitality, from the rubble and the poverty of post-war Italy.
At 3 pm in the Sala Sinopoli, there will be a screening of Grido per un nuovo Rinascimento by Elena Sofia Ricci, Elisa Barucchieri, and Stefano Mainetti, dedicated those working in entertainment. The film is based on an idea by a group of artists, technicians and film and stage crews, who took part in a stage performance of the same name on June 24th, 2020, to mobilize the art world to give more visibility to the problems of workers in the entertainment industry in the wake of the Covid-19 emergency. A cross-section of truth, commitment, effort and risk in the sector, aimed at making people understand the meticulous organization behind each entertainment professional, that event was turned into a documentary of the same name and rounded out with interviews with crew members and other workers shown in the places where they work.
Just before the above screening, the short Pietro il grande by Antonello Sarno will introduce the event. The short film pays homage to Pietro Coccia (1962-2018), one of the most talented Italian photoreporters and a true friend to all the leading lights of Italian film over his over-thirty-year-long career, which is reconstructed with roughly 400 shots and eight great soundtracks.
The new TV miniseries by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, Muhammad Ali, will be screening on Saturday at the MAXXI’s screening theater: episode 1 at 4 pm, while episode 2 kicks in at 6:30 pm. The boxing champion Muhammad Ali was a 20th-century icon, with three world heavyweight titles, a dazzling combination of speed and strength in the ring and charisma and bravado off the ring. At once a devote Muslim, at one point linked to the Nation of Islam, and a symbol for Black Americans, he was execrated and then revered for refusing to fight in Vietnam. After his boxing career ended and he was stricken with Parkinson’s disease, he became a symbol of freedom and courage for all.
Later at the MAXXI, at 9:30 pm, the film to catch is Fellini, Simenon – Con profonda simpatia e sincera gratitudine by Giovanna Ventura. The friendship between Federico Fellini and Georges Simenon, the dream world, the circus, and their work habits: all surface in their correspondence. It started in 1960, when Fellini’s La Dolce Vita won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, championed by jury president Georges Simenon. This was indeed the beginning of a beautiful friendship. The film reveals the history of therelationship between the two men, one with a pipe, one with a megaphone.
And on October 23rd, at 5 pm and 9 pm, it’s the last chance to see the last two screenings arranged in a joint collaboration with the Rome Opera House, with two new film versions of opera productions on the big screen in the Teatro dell’Opera itself: The Barber of Seville and La Traviata, directed by Mario Martone and conducted by Daniele Gatti. Filmed during the 2020-2021 season, the two works have become a symbol of a theater that did not surrender to its empty seats.
The Film Fest’s Arthur Penn retrospective, curated by Mario Sesti, wraps up on Saturday with an 8:30 pm screening of the second part of Mise en scène with Arthur Penn (a conversation). Prior to the screening itself, a round table at 6 pm will feature Mario Sesti, Giorgio Gosetti, Donatello Fumarola, and Francesco Calogero, with Enrico Ghezzi and Mario Marton joining online.
Rome’s independent bookshops offer another screening on Saturday, organized with Acilia Libri and held at the Teatro San Leonardo: the film Santa Maradona by Marco Ponti, at 5 pm.
Lastly, a plethora of repeat screenings tomorrow at the Film Fest. At 5 pm and 10 pm, at SCENA, the films are Inedita and Essere Giorgio Strehler; at 5:30 pm and 8:30 pm, in sala 2 of My Cityplex Savoy, Frank Miller – American Genius and Onde Radicali. In sala 1 of My Cityplex Savoy, at 6 pm and 9 pm, audiences can catch Passing and Red Rocket; in sala 3 at the same venue, at 6:30 pm and 9:30 pm, Scalfari. A Sentimental Journey and Sami. Last up on Saturday, at 10:30 pm the Sala Sinopoli hosts the repeat screening of the film C’mon C’mon.
