Italiano
Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 23rd, the Rome Film Fest holds a talk with one of the most important and original filmmakers working in Italian film today, Saverio Costanzo. At 4:30 pm in the Sala Sinopoli at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, the Roman director and screenwriter retraces the steps of his directorial debut with the film Private twenty years ago. Based on real-life events, Private tells the story of the military occupation of Palestine from the intimate and private perspective of a family forced to share their home with Israeli soldiers who have taken over the second floor. The film is not at all formulaic and has the rare ability to convey a universal meaning, for which it won the Golden Leopard at the Festival of Locarno.
There are two films from the Grand Public section being screened in the Sala Sinopoli. First up at 6:30 pm is We Live in Time by John Crowley, a romantic comedy for our times – starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield – that mixes drama with delectable everyday antics, tenderness, sorrow, pride, and awkwardness.
At 9:30, the same theater hosts the premiere of Mani nude by Mauro Mancini, who, after Non odiare, continues to make films about the roots of violence, probing, in original and complex ways, the wounds of human souls. Sandro Chessa’s cinematography gives the story a magnetic underwater feel, and a top-notch cast does the rest, from the up-and-coming Francesco Gheghi and Fotinì Peluso to veteran film stars like Alessandro Gassmann and Renato Carpentieri.
The Sala Petrassi hosts two titles from the Progressive Cinema competition.
At 4 pm, audiences can catch a screening of Greedy People, a grotesque noir directed by Potsy Ponciroli: an obvious tribute to the Coen brothers, and a back and forth between the greed and ineptitude of common people and crime bosses, built as a succession of flashbacks in which versions, characters, witnesses intertwine and contradict one another.
Following at 6:45 pm, the premiere of L’isola degli idealisti, based on a novel by Giorgio Scerbanenco that was written in 1942 then lost, only to be published in 2018. The director, Elisabetta Sgarbi, has made a nocturnal film, between land and water, immersed in the fogs of the Po valley from which – in continuity with the director’s earlier works – works of art, such as those of Adolfo Wildt, suddenly surface; and where a group of tight-knit actors gives voice to the irony and pessimism of an author now recognized as one of the great Italian twentieth-century writers.
Another Progressive Cinema competition title will be screened at the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna at 8:30 pm: La Nuit se traîne by Michiel Blanchart. His feature directorial debut is an urban nightmare reminiscent of Scorsese’s breathless nighttime odysseys, peopled with lowlifes and criminals, with a mysterious girl and an alarming crime boss (Romain Duris), through clubs, subways, train stations and streets where a Black Lives Matter protest is taking place. A handful of hours in a Brussels that looks like New York, in a stylised, compressed and beautifully edited thriller.
The Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna holds two more screenings on Wednesday.
The first, at 3:30 pm, is On Falling, the feature directorial debut of Laura Carreira, a young Portuguese filmmaker who developed the project with the support of Sixteen Films, founded by Ken Loach in 2002, and paints an incisive and sensitive portrait of modern-day loneliness while highlighting the importance of fighting it.
Next up, at 6 pm, audiences can catch Lumière, le cinéma! by Thierry Frémaux. The sequel to Lumière! The Adventure Begins gathers close to one hundred films by the Lumière brothers, all perfectly restored. Following the success of its predecessor, this new feature-length film confirms to audiences around the world that at the basis of the finest films in the history of cinema are its profoundly French, and at the same time international, origins.
At 9:15 pm in the Sala Petrassi, the screening of the Best of title Anora is a treat for Fest audiences: a bittersweet comedy, winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes – just one of the many portraits of fantastical, complicated lives turned out in recent years by Sean Baker – with vivid, realistic settings in New York, Brooklyn, and Las Vegas that are as perfect as ever. This contemporary take on the classic comedy is a revisitation by one of America’s most exuberant directors today.
The Film Fest has a jam-packed program of screenings at the MAXXI.
At 4 pm, Ghostlight, the new film written and directed by Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson, features a staging of Romeo and Juliet by a small neighbourhood theater company in Chicago which allows a sullen and surly, elderly construction worker to discover an unexpected side to himself.
At 6:30 pm, the paleontologist, naturalist, science popularizer and author Alberto Angela will be on hand for a talk and the presentation of the film Pompei in piano sequenza by Gabriele Cipollitti, which goes backstage on the hit TV program “Pompei, le nuove scoperte”, with one single long take lasting more than two hours through the ancient city of Pompeii. “This technique was experimental for us, and we took care not to overlook a single detail,” Alberto Angela declared. “This was one of the most exciting jobs in my career, a perfect mix between experimenting a technique that is unusual for television and the more common popularizing of science.”
At 9 pm, San Damiano by Gregorio Sassoli and Alejandro Cifuentes is a documentary about the story of an encounter: between the directors Sassoli and Cifuentes and Damiano, a man who marches to a different drummer, with violent instincts as well as a fragile soul (he bursts out crying at the most unexpected moments) as he seeks to come to terms with the mental disorders that torment him. The result is an intimate and honest portrait, in which the precarious conditions of those on the margins of existence are reflected in an urban landscape that is both fascinating and indifferent.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 23rd, the Teatro Olimpico hosts a 6 pm screening of Ago by Giangiacomo De Stefano. The film re-evokes the life and career of Giacomo Agostini, one of the greatest motorcycle racers in history, but also one of the symbols of Italy in the 1960s and 70s: that is, of a society that had made mechanical means an essential pillar of daily life, raising them to a symbol of progress and innovation.
Following at 9 pm in the Teatro Olimpico, the screening of Fantasmi a Roma by Antonio Pietrangeli, is part of the tribute to Marcello Mastroianni on the hundredth anniversary of his birth. Mario Martone will be introducing the film.
The Casa del Cinema hosts the titles in the Storia del Cinema section. At 5 pm, in the documentary Delon Melville, la solitude de deux samouraïs by Laurent Galinon, we follow Alain Delon who learns of the heart attack his maestro, Jean-Pierre Melville, has had, and drives all night through France to say goodbye to him in time. A journey into the mind of the great film star, which allows us to explore the relationship between him and the filmmaker who, at the end of his artistic path, found the ideal actor in Delon.
At 9pm, the cinematographer Luciano Tovoli will introduce the only film he directed himself, Il generale dell’armata morta: a film its two remarkable stars, Michel Piccoli and Marcello Mastroianni, were eager to see get made.
Earlier in the day, at 2 pm, there’s a repeat screening of Leonardo da Vinci, introduced by the filmmakers, Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon.
There are two conferences being held at the Casa del Cinema.
At 6:30 pm, SIAE and the Bixio Academy have organized “Bloody Notes”, a talk that celebrates soundtracks for scary movies, with several of some of the Italy’s leading and internationally renowned composers of soundtracks on hand. On the Casa del Cinema stage, Franco Bixio, president of the oldest Italian publisher connected to the production of soundtracks, will be joined by composers such as Claudio Simonetti, Fabio Frizzi, and Pivio, along with music critic Maurizio Becker, to have a conversation about the past, present, and future of soundtracks for “scary movies” and more. Pino Donaggio will also join in with a video greeting from Venice. The talk will be moderated by Renato Marengo.
“Bloody Notes” will kick off with a short film by Paolo Zefferi about the sixty-year-long relationship between horror films and the publisher Bixio. For the occasion, Marco Bixio will present the latest production by Cinevox: the print of the soundtrack by Goblin for the cult movie L’altro Inferno by Bruno Mattei, illustrated with artworks by Fernando Proietti, professor at Rome’s Scuola dei Fumetti. In closing, there will be a screening of a clip from the documentary Profondo Argento by Giancarlo Rolandi and Steve Della Casa, dedicated to the horrormeister Dario Argento, whose spirit infuses the entire event.
The morning conference at the Casa del Cinema, at 10 am, is “We Are Stories – Sogni, sfide e passioni delle professioniste di oggi e di domani”, the new campaign by FAPAV to safeguard intellectual property and support the audiovisual industries. During the event, attended by representatives of the government, associations and industry, there will be screenings of the commercials along with the presentation of the FAPAV 2024 Awards. We Are Stories is promoted by the Ministry of Culture, by the Ministry for Business and Made in Italy, and by AGCOM, in collaboration with ANEC, ANICA, APA, CRTV, MPA, NUOVO IMAIE, SIAE and UNIVIDEO, with the support of DG Biblioteche e Diritto d’Autore, DG Cinema e Audiovisivo, Cinecittà, Accademia del Cinema Italiano Premi David di Donatello, and ANICA Academy.
The Film Fest returns to Rebibbia Prison’s New Ward in 2024, with three different events. The first takes place tomorrow, Wednesday, October 23rd, at 4 pm in the new Meta theater, with the screening of a documentary called Ricordo di Enrico Maria Salerno 1994-2024.
As for the Fest’s program of repeat screenings, at 2 pm at the MAXXI, the film to catch is Aspettando Re Lear by Alessandro Preziosi, a documentary that revisits Shakespeare’s masterpiece.
And the Teatro Olimpico offers up a double-header, with Sharp Corner by Jason Buxton at 12 noon and Longlegs by Osgood Perkins at 3:30 pm.
At 8 pm, the Teatro Palladium hosts a presentation of Sugarcane, directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and the journalist and filmmaker Emily Kassie.
The Nuovo Cinema Aquila offers a 9 pm screening of Le cose in frantumi luccicano by Marta Basso, Sara Cecconi, Carlotta Cosmai, Alice Malingri, and Lilian Sassanelli.
And the repeat screenings continue tomorrow, Wednesday, October 23rd, at the Cinema Giulio Cesare. In Sala 1, the three titles are Under a Blue Sun by Daniel Mann (at 3:30 pm), Sabbath Queen by Sandi DuBowski (at 5:30 pm), and The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohammad Rasoulof (at 8 pm). In Sala 3, there are three screenings of films in the Progressive Cinema competition: Greedy People by Potsy Ponciroli (at 4:30), L’isola degli idealisti by Elisabetta Sgarbi (at 7 pm), and La Nuit se traîne by Michiel Blanchart (at 9:30 pm). Lastly, Sala 7 hosts a screening of Si dice di me by Isabella Mari at 4:30 pm.
