#RomaFF14 | Rome Film Fest comes to the city’s public libraries: four Italian authors meet Fest audiences

As it does every year, Rome Film Fest reaches out to embrace the entire city of Rome, working with some of its most vital cultural institutions. Starting tomorrow, Friday, October 18^th, and running through Friday 25^th, one of Rome’s public libraries, Biblioteca Flaminia (Via Cesare Fracassini, 9) will be hosting four conversations with Italian authors who will present their books on the film and entertainment industry.
The talks are open to the public free of charge.
 
Friday, October 18th at 6:30 pm
Una visita al Bates Motel by Guido Vitiello (Adelphi)
This investigation springs from a series of odd clues: a revealing slip – Psyche instead of Psycho – in the first news item announcing Hitchcock’s new project. A statue of Cupid and Psyche by Canova that can be glimpsed in a scene from the film. A cryptic declaration by the filmmaker, who presented Psycho to the press as an “excursion into metaphysical sex”. The book goes on to make a survey of crime scenes long uninhabited: the Bates Motel and the sinister house on the hill, which Hitchcock wanted to turn into an art galery or Wunderkammer. And it turns into a guided tour that winds its way, with the customary shivers up one’s spine, through the knick-knacks scattered acrosss gloomy interiors, under the expressionless gaze of birds stuffed with straw. The author will be on hand for the talk.
Monday, October 21st at 7:30 pm
Fratelli d’arte. Storia familiare del cinema italiano by Silvia Toso and Evelina Nazzari (Edizioni Sabinae)
Cinema as seen through the eyes of 21 personalities born into famous film families, including Mara Blasetti, Caterina D’Amico, Massimo Dapporto, Emi De Sica, Paola Gassman, Evelina Nazzari, Silvia Toso, and Fabrizio Zampa. Preface by Goffredo Fofi. The authors and other guests will take the stage for the talk.
Wednesday, October 23rd at 6:30 pm
Steven Spielberg by Andrea Minuz (Marsilio)
From the New Hollywood, the hits of the 1980s, the invention of the modern blockbuster, and up to films that bring American history to life, or show the American perspective on history: Spielberg’s oeuvre ranges across different genres, forms and mythologies of Hollywood cinema, yet reveals an astonishing underlying unity. No other filmmaker in the last forty years has played such a decisive role in redefining production, organization and the strategies of Hollywood; he has laid down some of the rules that are the cornerstones of the vast eco-system of contemporary entertainment. The author will be on hand for the talk, together with Antonio Monda, Artistic Director of the Rome Film Fest.
Thursday, October 25th at 6:30 pm
Lilla Brignone. Una vita a teatro by Chiara Ricci (Edizioni Sabinae)
A detailed biography of the life of a legendary actress in Italian theatre. “She was the actress of whom I was most in awe, whom I respected above all others. She seemed a tough artist to me, ungenerous, skimping on all those affectations that would mar her trimmed-down performances that aimed at the gut and seemed to thunder in its depths. Her characters were brusque antagonists who could even play to the audience, but it wasn’t something you noticed right away. She won you over gradually and seduced you when you least expected it, with that brilliant smile that lit up her angular face without cheapening it with an ordinary femininity; she was aristocratic, sweet or aggressive by turns. In short, pigeonholing Lilla as an ordinary actress was out of the question: she was truly unique!” (From the preface by Giancarlo Sepe). The author will take the stage for the talk.