Italiano
On Saturday, October 16th, at 7 pm, the Sala Sinopoli at the Auditorium Parco della Musica hosts the premiere of a Rome Film Fest Official Selection title, Cyrano by Joe Wright, the musical version of one of the most famous and most unforgettable love triangles of all time. Cyrano de Bergerac, played by the multiple-award-winning actor Peter Dinklage, is a man decidedly ahead of his time. He enchants audiences with his brilliant word games in verbal challenges and his extraordinary skills as a swordsman in duels. Yet Cyrano simply can’t find the courage to declare his love for the beautiful Roxanne, convinced as he is that he is too ugly to be worthy of her. She has also fallen in love with another, Christian, and at first sight.
There are two more Official Selection titles on the program tomorrow.
At 7:30 pm (Sala Petrassi), Festgoers can catch the premiere of the animated film Charlotte by Éric Warin and Tahir Rana, which tells the true story of Charlotte Salomon, a young German-Jewish painter who comes of age in Berlin on the eve of World War II. Endowed with an unbridled imagination and enormous talent, she dreams of becoming an artist. Her first love only reinforces her determination. But the world around Charlotte is changing fast and dangerously, ruining her plans. When the anti-Semitic policies start whipping up the violence of the masses, Charlotte leaves Berlin for the safety of France, where she starts painting again and finds a new love. Once more, her artwork is interrupted, this time by a family tragedy that reveals a dark secret. Charlotte will find salvation in a monumental endeavor: painting the story of her own life.
At 10 pm, the Sala Sinopoli will be hosting the premiere of The Young Lovers by Carine Tardieu. Seventy-year-old Shauna, a sophisticated, free-spirited and independent woman and a retired architect, has shelved her love life altogether, but one day she accidently runs into Pierre, a forty-five-year-old happily married doctor and father, who had made a deep impression on her during a brief encounter fifteen years earlier. He still sees her as an attractive woman, but they are both wary of starting a relationship. While Pierre’s family life soon falls apart, Shauna fights against emotions and feelings that she thought were only in the past.
In the Sala Petrassi at 10:30 pm, there will be a screening of Benny Benassi – Equilibrio, by Matt Mitchener, Devin Chanda, Stefano Camurri, and Cesare Della Salda. A deeply intimate portrait of the well-known DJ, the documentary explores the legacy of dance music in Italy from 1970s Italo-disco to the present day, as well as every seismic shift in the genere globally that Benny bore witness to, in his improbable journey through the reshaping of popular music. It features interviews with iconic figures from this world, such as DJ Tiesto, Paul Oakenfold, David Guetta, Daniele Davoli, Steve Aoki, and many more. Benny Benassi will treat audiences to a live performance after the screening itself.
The MAXXI will be hosting two premieres from the Official Selection lineup, the first at 6:30 pm: A Thousand Hours by Carl Moberg. “Contrasts have been a key element to me,” the director declares. “The truly interesting moments often occur in contrast, in a juxtaposition. We try to laugh to suppress our pain or hide it from others. The most beautiful moments in film are often when tragedy meets beauty or joy. This is always where I am digging in A Thousand Hours – where contradictions and conflicting feelings meet.”
Next up at the MAXXI, at 9:30 pm, Farha by Darin J. Sallam tells the story of Farha, fourteen in 1948, who lives in a Palestinian village, where tradition has it that girls of her age should already be married or engaged, and that only boys can go to school, while Farha would like to study in the city with her friend Farida. When Farha seems to have convinced her father and is close to having her wish come true, violence erupts in the village. Farha and Farida are brutally separated. To protect his daughter, Farha’s father locks her up in a pantry near their home, promising to return soon. Farha, shut away in a dark narrow room, waits, and watches the outside world through cracks in the wall, becoming a witness to the events that will take her far away from her youth and her dreams.
And starting tomorrow, Saturday, October 16th, through Friday, October 22nd, the Teatro Palladium reprises its role as a Film Fest venue to host a number of 2021 Rome Film Fest offerings. The first screening, at 8 pm, of the film Con il mare negli occhi, will be introduced by writer-director Paolo Magris. It’s about a young Calabrian woman, back in Crotone from a trip to Gorizia in the north, who has discovered the poems and novels of philosopher Carlo Michelstaedter, a native of Gorizia who had died very young, at 23.
The Arthur Penn retrospective, offered by the 16th Film Fest and curated by Mario Sesti, continues with two more films by one of the best-loved and most representative filmmakers in the history of film. At 6 pm and 8:30 pm, the Casa del Cinema’s sala Kodak will host screenings of The Chase and Gangster Story. At 5 pm and again at 9 pm, at the venue Scena, Festgoers can catch a screening of Mise en scene with Arthur Penn (a conversation).
The independent bookshops’ programme also continues tomorrow, with a 5 pm screening at the Teatro San Leonardo, courtesy of Acilia Libri, of the film that marks author Susanna Tamaro’s directorial debut, Nel mio amore.
Repeat screenings abound on October 16. At the MAXXI, at 4 pm, the film to catch is Mediterráneo. The MyCityplex Savoy will host four screenings:
L’arminuta (6 pm, Sala 1), Dear Evan Hansen, a co-production with Alice nella città (5:30 pm, Sala 2), Mediterráneo (8:30 pm, Sala 2), and Passing (9 pm, Sala 1).
