Italiano
La stranezza by Roberto Andò will be screened tomorrow, Thursday, October 20th, at the 17th edition of the Rome Film Fest, in the Grand Public section. The premiere will be held at 7pm in the Sala Sinopoli at the Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone. Andò directs a top-notch cast featuring actors beloved by audiences yet who have never worked together before: Toni Servillo in the role of Pirandello and Ficarra and Picone in those of Onofrio and Sebastiano.
At 10pm, the Sala Sinopoli hosts another Grand Public premiere, The Menu by Mark Mylod, who directs a culinary black comedy (verging on horror), with one nod to comedy and another to the thriller genre. A wealthy, chosen few are admitted to the molecular cuisine dining experiences of chef Slowik, played by a laconic, dapper, and yes, unsettling Ralph Fiennes, who welcomes, somewhat ambiguously, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, John Leguizamo, and the evening’s other paying guests. They don’t know what they’re in for.
The Progressive Cinema Competition features two premieres in the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna. At 6pm, SHTTL by Argentinian debut filmmaker Ady Walter uses the long take and black and white (even if the space-time continuum is interrupted by colour flashbacks) as tools to plunge the spectator into the reality of a Jewish world on the brink of tragedy, between philological reconstruction and allusions to the present. In The Padilla Affair (9pm), Cuban filmmaker Pavel Giroud uses material that resurfaced in a government archive after fifty years to tell the story of poet Heberto Padilla.
Four screenings from the Freestyle section are being held on Thursday.
At 4:30pm, the Sala Sinopoli hosts Souvenir d’Italie by Giorgio Verdelli, who, after his films about Ezio Bosso, Pino Daniele, and Paolo Conte, reconstructs the career of Lelio Luttazzi, one of the most elegant and versatile showmen ever to grace Italian screens.
Over at the MAXXI, at 5pm, the film to catch is Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot by William Kentridge. During the lockdown, the South African artist films himself as he draws and often chats with another Kentridge in the same frame, with all the straight-faced aplomb of an expert comedian. His life story and his career – his childhood in Johannesburg, the landscapes, apartheid and colonialism – become the focus of a nine-part series.
Following at the MAXXI, at 8:30pm, the screening of Bice Lazzari – Il ritmo e l’ossessione by Manfredi Lucibello is the portrait of a woman who rebelled against the morals and taboos of the time and established herself as an artist who is ripe for rediscovery today. The documentary will be preceded by the short film ABOrismi, ritratti e autoritratto by Nunzio Massimo Nifosì, a homage to the famous aphorisms of art critic Achille Bonito Oliva.
In the Special Screenings section, festgoers can see for free, at the Casa del Cinema, Good Morning Tel Aviv by Giovanna Gagliardo, which looks at a day in the life of the most secular and cosmopolitan city in the entire Middle East. The director interviews numerous figures, starting from the mayor of Tel Aviv, in office since 1998, and ranging to well-known economists, architects, businessmen and tradesmen, and philosophers, directors, artists and writers.
The same section features a 9:30pm screening, in Sala Petrassi, of Polanski, Horowitz. Hometown by Mateusz Kudła and Anna Kokoszka-Romer. The documentary focuses on Roman Polanski and Ryszard Horowitz: the filmmaker and photographer were childhood friends, separated by the Nazi persecution of the Jews. During a stroll through the streets of Krakow, their memories emerge in what is, above all, an uninterrupted dialogue punctuated by moments of laughter and surreality.
The Best of 2022 section features a screening of The Innocent by Louis Garrel (6:30pm in the Sala Petrassi). As in his three previous films, the actor/director draws on his own life story to tell that of Abel, who is opposed to his mother Sylvie’s marriage to a prison inmate. The film is a romp bursting with joie-de-vivre, vaunting a stellar cast, including Roschdy Zem, as the lovestruck prisoner, and Anouk Grinberg and Noémie Merlant.
Tomorrow, Thursday, October 20th, at 4:30pm in the Sala Petrassi, director, screenwriter and producer James Gray reminisces with Fest audiences about his directorial debut on the big screen in 1994, with Little Odessa, Special Prize for directing at the Venice Film Festival. Gray will be in Rome to present his new film as well: Armageddon Time, a Film Fest and Alice nella città co-production (screening at 9:30pm at the Auditorium Conciliazione).
At 9pm in the Casa del Cinema, Paolo Virzì, one of Italy’s most acclaimed and multiple-award-winning directors, will be introducing Living It Up (1994) together with Claudio Bigagli and Massimo Ghini. Thanks to this film, appearing at the Fest in a special “director’s cut” version after the restoration carried out by Motorino Amaranto and the Cineteca di Bologna, Virzì won the David di Donatello and the Silver Ribbon as best debut filmmaker.
At 11:30am in the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna, the annual event Cinedays gets underway. This year, the focus is on education, culture, the sciences, humanities, and communications. With the title “All Eyes on Youth: the Role of the Next Generation in the Development of the Creative Sector”, the spotlight is on young people as drivers of the creative sector and its economy. On the occasion of Cinedays, Rome City of Film and the Italian Association of Young People for UNESCO will present a short film titled Pètalos, made by filmmaker Alessandra Pescetta with the students of the Liceo Artistico Statale Caravaggio, a Roman high school, as part of the project “EDU – La mia scuola creativa”. The conference will be introduced by Gian Luca Farinelli (President, Fondazione Cinema per Roma), Cristina Priarone (General Director, Roma Lazio Film Commission), and Giorgio Gosetti (Director of the Casa del Cinema), and speakers include Alessandra Pescetta (filmmaker), Vittorio Salmoni (National Coordinator of Italian Creative Cities UNESCO), Susanna Clemente (the Italian Association for Youth, for UNESCO), and Maud Boissac (Director, MAIRIE DE CANNES – Direction de la culture Cannes City of Film UNESCO). The event will be moderated by Lucio Argano (Project Manager Rome City of Film). Joining the conference online will be Denise Bax (Secretary of the UNESCO Network of Creative Cities), Andrea Bortolamasi (Councillor for Culture, Youth Politics, and the University, City of Modena – Modena UNESCO Creative City for Media Arts), Bologna Creative City UNESCO for Music,* Daniele Vimini (Councillor for Beauty, City of Pesaro – Pesaro UNESCO Creative City for Music), and Anika Kim (Busan City of Film UNESCO).
For the series “Dialogues on the Future of Italian Cinema”, there will be a talk on the Streamers featuring speakers Tinny Andreatta (Netflix), Marco Azzani, joining online (Amazon Prime Video Italy), Daniel Frigo (The Walt Disney Company Italy), and Jaime Ondarza (Paramount Global).
The Casa del Cinema, in the Sala Kodak, will host the awards ceremony for the Gianandrea Mutti Award – Il cinema migrante, promoted by the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, the Associazione Amici di Giana, the Archivio delle Memorie Migranti (AMM), and the Fondazione Pianoterra Onlus, with the support of the Emilia-Romagna Region.
Two titles from the retrospective “Ms. Woodward & Mr. Newman”, curated by Mario Sesti, are are on the Thursday program: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid by George Roy Hill (11am) and Sometimes a Great Notion by Paul Newman (3:30pm). Both will be screened at the Casa del Cinema in the Sala Cinecittà.
In collaboration with the Fondazione Cinema per Roma, the Film Fest continues its screening program at Rebibbia Prison on Thursday, for the benefit of inmates and non-inmates alike, with The Prince of Rome by Edoardo Falcone (3:30pm).
Repeat screenings abound at the Cinema Giulio Cesare. In Sala 1, two films from the Progressive Cinema Competition: SHTTL by Ady Walter at 6:30pm and The Padilla Affair by Pavel Giroud at 9pm. In Sala 3, there’s a 5pm screening of Souvenir d’Italie bu Giorgio Verdelli, followed by La stranezza by Roberto Andò at 7:30pm and The Menu by Mark Mylod at 10:30pm. Over in Sala 5, the titles are Houria by Mounia Meddour, The Innocent by Louis Garrel, and Polanski, Horowitz. Hometown by Mateusz Kudła and Anna Kokoszka-Romer, screening at 4:30pm, 7pm, and 10pm respectively. The only screening in Sala 7 will be Roma isola aperta by Monkeys Videolab, at 4pm.
More repeat screenings are to be had at the Casa del Cinema, in sala Kodak. That’s Dopoguerra 1920, Amori di mezzo secolo by Mario Chiari, followed by Steno by Raffaele Rago (3pm), the fifth episode of The Last Movie Stars by Ethan Hawke (6:30pm), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid by George Roy Hill (at 8:45).
Across town at Scena, festgoers can catch Lola by Andrew Legge (6:30pm) and Jazz Set by Caterina Taricano and Steve Della Casa (9pm), the latter of which will be introduced by the female filmmaker.
Parallel Divergences: Rome and the Years of Lead will be screened at 5pm at the Teatro Rossellini. The documentary was made by teachers and students at the Istituto di Istruzione Superiore Statale Cine-Tv Roberto Rossellini, in collaboration with the MIUR, the Associazione Domenico Ricci in memory of the victims of Via Fani, and the Associazione Fratelli Mattei.
The Teatro Palladium hosts Ramona by Andrea Bagney, a title on the Progressive Cinema competiton lineup.
Over at the Nuovo Cinema Sacher, the films to catch are January, Alam, and The Hummingbird, at 4:15pm, 6:15pm, and 9pm, respectively.
The screening of La grande bouffe by Marco Ferreri will be held at 6pm at the independent bookstore Tra le righe.
On the program of the theaters AGIS and ANEC, the Cinema Tibur will be screening three Fest titles: Caravaggio’s Shadow (5:30pm), L’ultimo Mistero Buffo, presented by the director Gianluca Rame (7:45pm), and La California (9:30pm).
