Italiano
Tomorrow, October 22nd at 9 pm, in the Sala Petrassi at the Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone, the Rome Film Fest presents the competition title L’albero by Sara Petraglia: the film, which marks the directorial and screenwriting debut of Sara Petraglia, is an exemplary portrait of today’s twenty-year-olds, in search of the hope and utopias that were not allowed them, their thirst for life and love, and their terrible unhappiness. A contemporary, poetic and scathing work.
The Progressive Cinema competition features another title tomorrow, at 6:46 pm in the Sala Petrassi: Spirit World by Eric Khoo, the most famous of the auteurs in Singapore (12 Stories, My Magic, Tatsumi). Catherine Deneuve offers an intense and melancholy performance as the legendary singer Claire, who has flown to Japan for one last sold-out concert. When the show ends, so does Claire’s life on earth. But an unexpected new life in the spirit world, where she will be guided by Yuzo, one of her biggest fans, awaits.
Two films from the Grand Public section will be screened in the Sala Sinopoli.
At 6:30 pm, first up is Sharp Corner, a psychological thriller by Jason Buxton, based on a short story by the journalist Russell Wangersky. Josh, a devoted family man with a heart of gold, would like to save all the victims of car accidents at the sharp corner near his home, but his altruism gradually turns into an obsession. He starts to neglect his wife Rachel and six-year-old son Max, ignoring their needs and problems, but the man risks losing everything he has accomplished in his life, up to now.
Next up, at 9:15 pm, Longlegs, written and directed by Osgood Perkins, an actor and acclaimed horror movie director, is a film that manages to pack in investigations, cold cases, satanic dolls, serial killers, uncrackable codes, family secrets, madness, and the supernatural without derailing or overdoing it; staying linear and incisive.
At 4:30 pm, the Sala Petrassi hosts a screening of the documentary Le cose in frantumi luccicano. Occupied in 1976 by the Women’s Liberation Movement, the building in Via del Governo Vecchio was the beating heart of the demands and victories of the Italian feminist movement, the first place in the city self-managed only by and for women: the first “women’s house”. Five young women directors – Marta Basso, Sara Cecconi, Carlotta Cosmai, Alice Malingri, and Lilian Sassanelli – review the history of those years through material from the archives and personal accounts.
Three screenings will be held in the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna tomorrow.
At 3:30 pm, Grand Theft Hamlet by Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane is a film that takes place in January 2021: the UK is in its third lockdown and all entertainment venues remain closed. For stage actors Sam and Mark, the future looks bleak. Mark, single and childless, is increasingly socially isolated, while Sam panics about how he is going to support his young family. They kill time in the online world of Grand Theft Auto, where they stumble across a theater and get an idea: why not stage a production Hamlet within the GTA world?
At 6 pm, audiences can catch The Seed of the Sacred Fig, written and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof. The filmmaker, who fled Iran after being sentenced to eight years in prison, has crafted a high-stakes political thriller involving a family, one in which the disappearance of a gun unleashes panic, and personal ties, trust, and understanding all dissolve under the obsessive-compulsive control of the regime.
And at 9:30 pm, Sabbath Queen by Sandi DuBowski, the author of Trembling before G-d and producer of A Jihad for Love, is a documentary made over a span of twenty-one years. One step at a time, it follows Amichai Lau-Lavie’s journey from radical drag queen to the synagogue, in the role of rabbi and cultural agitator: a destiny of sorts, between tradition and counter-tradition, art and pacifism.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, October 22nd, the MAXXI hosts three screenings.
First up at 3 pm is the screening of Sugarcane, directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat with the journalist and filmmaker Emily Kassie: the two filmmakers tell the story of years of abuse and cover-ups at the expense of the Native students of a Catholic residential school in British Columbia, creating a documentary that is a veritable paen to the resilience of Native peoples.
A 5:30 pm, Fest audiences can catch the first episode of Leonardo da Vinci by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, which explores the complex path traversed by Leonardo (1452-1519) in the most thorough documentary made about him yet, by means of Leonardo’s writings and codices, supported by interviews with scholars, experts, and directors such as Guillermo del Toro, along with reconstructions and rarely seen material.
And at 9 pm, last up is Giulia mia cara! Giorgio by Maria Mauti. The title recalls the way Giorgio Strehler started and ended the letters he wrote to actress Giulia Lazzarini, his muse and collaborator. The starting point for the film is this elective dialogue between two artists who gave rise to one of the most fruitful partnerships in 20th-century theater; then it then enters into the world of one of the most extraordinary actresses on the Italian stage, by listening to her reflections and revealing her emotions.
At 6pm, the Teatro Olimpico hosts a screening of Il Re di Napoli. Storia e leggenda di Mario Merola by Massimo Ferrari, which delves into the world of the Neapolitan artist and his career, from song to cinema and from theater to the sceneggiata napolitana genre.
Following at 9 pm in the Teatro Olimpico, in Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band by Thom Zimny, the documentarian builds his film around the world tour (which started in February 2023 and is still going on) of Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band, filming the artists during rehearsals, backstage, and performing in front of fans all over the world.
As for the Storia del Cinema section, tomorrow, Tuesday, October 22nd, at 5 pm, the Casa del Cinema hosts Le Scénario de ma vie, François Truffaut by David Teboul, written by Serge Toubiana. A few months before he died, the auteur had begun to share the story of his youth with his old friend Claude de Givray; time was running out, however, and he never finished the autobiographical work. This film reveals this last narration, enriched with a treasure trove of previously unseen correspondence, archival materials. Introduced by David Tebout and the critic Serge Toubiana.
At 7:30 pm, audiences can catch a real treat: Vivement dimanche!, restored by MK2 with the support of CNC. The great François Truffaut’s final film is a fun and affectionate homage to the characters, themes, settings and atmospheres of the noirs and comedies of 1940s Hollywood, as well as the mastery of Alfred Hitchcock.
The program at the Casa del Cinema wraps up at 9:45 with Blood and Black Lace by Mario Bava. The film comes to Fest audiences in the version restored by the Centro Sperimentale on the sixtieth anniversary of its release. Steve Della Casa, Lamberto Bava, and Ernesto Gastaldi take the stage to discuss the film.
This year, as every year, the Fest gets the entire city involved. Starting tomorrow, Tuesday the 22nd, and through Sunday, October 27th, repeat screenings will be held at the Nuovo Cinema Aquila of several titles from the Freestyle, Special Screenings and Progressive Cinema sections. At 9 pm, Natale fuori orario: in a mix of comedy and melancholy, fiction and documentary, director Gianfranco Firriolo and singer-songwriter Vinicio Capossela reunite to collaborate on a very unusual and very original hybrid between a road movie and a concert film.
For the eighth year in a row, in a collaboration between the Film Fest, MediCinema Italia ETS, and Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS, two screenings from the Fest lineup will take place at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital. The first is tomorrow, Tuesday, October 22nd: The Great Ambition by Andrea Segre, preceded by a video message by the film’s star, Elio Germano, and greetings from Francesca Via, General Director of the Fondazione Cinema per Roma.
NABA, the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, and the Fondazione Cinema per Roma are promoting thefourth annual Z-PITCH Contest, the competition dedicated to students and recent graduates of filmand media design schools in Italy. The contest, which will be presented at 5:30 pm at the “Lazio, Terra di Cinema” Space of the Lazio Region, welcomes audiovisual storytelling projects (in either feature-length film or TV series format) that are original and unproduced.
In 2024, thanks to Aeroporti di Roma, a company in the Mundys Group, the Film Fest gets all the way to the Leonardo da Vinci airport, where Febbre da cavallo by Steno will be screened at 8 pm in Terminal 5 (free admission).
To honor Pink October, Novartis presents Distances. La vita va avanti, più lontano, a docuseries about six women dealing with breast cancer, highlighting not only the impact of the disease but also the emotional and psychological hurdles the women encounter on their road to health. The event, held at 11 am in the Sala Studio 2 at the Auditorium Parco della Musica is curated by the communications agency Golin Italy. Distances is part of the È tempo di vita (It’s time to live) campaign, a Novartis initiative providing information and emotional and practical support to breast cancer patients, as a way to improve their overall health.
The program of repeat screenings of films at the 19th annual Film Fest continues at the Cinema Giulio Cesare. In Sala 1, at 3 pm Sunlight by Nina Conti will be screened, followed by Grand Theft Hamlet by Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane at 5 pm, and Nasty by Tudor Giurgiu, Tudor D. Popescu, and Cristian Pascariu at 9 pm. In Sala 3, the screenings of the day are Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard (at 4:30 pm), Spirit World by Eric Khoo (at 7:30 pm), and L’albero by Sara Petraglia (at 9:30 pm). Sala 7 will host a 4:30 pm screening of the documentary Duse, the Greatest by Sonia Bergamasco.
At the Teatro Olimpico, Fest audiences can catch the first two episodes of Miss Fallaci by Luca Ribuoli, Giacomo Martelli, and Alessandra Gonnella (at 12 noon) and Blitz by Steve McQueen (at 3:30 pm).
Lastly, at 8 pm at the Teatro Palladium, there will be a screening of a competitive title from the Special Screenings section, Blanket Wearer by Park Jeong-mi, who is making his directorial debut.
