October 16: a Close Encounter with Jovanotti and the rock in “The Rolling Stones Olé Olé Olé!”

The first weekend of the 11^th Rome Film Fest continues with a rich programme for Sunday: tomorrow October 16^th at 5:30 pm in Sala Sinopoli, Lorenzo Jovanotti Cherubini, one of the most innovative Italian pop artists, will be the featured guest of a “Close Encounter” with the audience titled “Images, Music and Words”. Jovanotti will speak for the first time about his fifty-year journey through cinema, selecting and commenting on film sequences that are important to him. “My training was based more on images than on literature and even on music – he said–. I realize that I think in images, even when I am writing songs. I have such great love and respect for cinema that I consider it to be a true modern mythology”. Jovanotti’s music has often been featured in films, from “Muoviti, muoviti” in the soundtrack of the comedy Parenti Serpenti by Mario Monicelli to “Ragazzo fortunato” in Aprile by Nanni Moretti to “Una tribù che balla” in Analyze That by Harold Ramis and “Piove” in a famous episode of The Sopranos. His collaboration with Gabriele Muccino earned Jovanotti a David di Donatello for Best Original Song for “Baciami ancora”, written with Saturnino and Riccardo Onori, and it has just been renewed for the entire soundtrack of L’estate addosso, soon to be released.
At 7:30 pm, Sala Sinopoli will be the venue for the screening of The Rolling Stones Olé Olé Olé: A Trip Across Latin America by Paul Dugdale: the documentary follows the tour of the famous band through ten cities in Latin America in the early months of 2016, ending with a concert in Havana, where the band appeared for the first time ever. A road movie that celebrates the revolutionary power of rock.
At 10 pm in the same venue, the screening will feature La fille de Brest by Emmanuelle Bercot, a sort of “David against Goliath” story inspired directly by the life of Irène Frachon: in a hospital in Brest, a lung specialist establishes a direct link between a number of suspicious deaths and the use of Mediator, a drug that has been on the market for 30 years. From its confidential beginnings to the media frenzy surrounding the case, this story climaxes in a victory for truth.
The Eagle Huntress, scheduled at 6 pm in Sala Petrassi in the programme of the Official Selection, is also inspired by a true story. Against the setting of the Altai Mountains in northern Mongolia, the most remote part of the country, director Otto Bell tells the story of a thirteen-year old Mongolian girl who dreams of becoming the first woman eagle hunter, and competing in the annual Golden Eagle Festival. “I hope The Eagle Huntress will transport the viewer to a little-known world full of universal themes – explained Otto Bell. I hope you will come to realize – as I did – that there is room for female empowerment even at the arduous edge of the world”.
To follow, at 8 pm in the same venue, will be the film Tramps by Adam Leon who defines his latest film as a romantic adventure. “I made the movie for people to have fun at the movies – he explained.  And I think that’s a worthwhile thing. I believe a movie can be of artistic merit and also be a blast to watch and make your day better”. In the film, Danny is an aspiring chef. One day his brother asks him to complete a job for him. It all seems simple enough: meet a driver, Ellie, with a briefcase, proceed to a rendezvous spot and exchange one briefcase for another. But Danny swaps the wrong bag, sending him and Ellie through the boroughs and suburbs of New York City to get the missing briefcase back. They tell half-truths about themselves. And they are very attracted to one another.
The programme in Sala Petrassi ends at 10:30 pm with the screening of Into the Inferno by Werner Herzog, author of over sixty films including features and documentaries such as Aguirre the Wrath of God, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Fitzcarraldo, My Best Friend, Grizzly Man, Encounters at the End of the World and Cave of Forgotten Dreams. His latest film leads into the craters of some of the remaining active volcanoes around the world: one of the most extreme tours in the German director’s lengthy career.
At 9:30 pm, the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna will feature the screening of 7:19, the second film by Jorge Michel Grau, author of Que Hay, selected for the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs section of the Cannes Film Festival, winner of awards at the Festivals of Chicago, Montreal and Austin. The film tells the dramatic story of people trapped beneath the rubble of the terrible earthquake that struck Mexico City on September 19^th 1985. “It was 7:19. I was twelve years old. The greatest of tragedies struck a country that was not prepared to deal with it”, stated the director.
For the retrospective dedicated to Tom Hanks, the screenings at Studio 3 will feature Apollo 13 by Ron Howard (at 6 pm) and Saving Private Ryan by Steven Spielberg (at 9 pm).
The MAXXI – the National Museum of XXI Century Arts will host two of the films from the Riflessi section of the programme. At 7:30 pm, Volfango De Biasi will present his film Crazy for Football, about the first Italian national fussball team that participated in this year’s World Cup for psychiatric patients in Osaka. Haiku on a Plum Tree (at 9:30 pm) will bring to the screen the story of a prison term in Nagoya in 1943, when director Mujah Maraini Melehi was incarcerated with her parents, the anthropologist Fosco Maraini and the painter Topazia Alliat.
At the Casa del Cinema, the tribute to Citto Maselli continues (at 3 pm); at 4:30 pm the screening will feature Seven Men From Now by Budd Boetticher, followed at 6:30 pm by Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid by Sam Peckinpah (both part of the programme of “The Films of Our Lives”). At 9 pm, for the American Politics retrospective, audiences will enjoy The Great McGinty by Preston Sturges.
At the Cinema Trevi movie theatre, the Valerio Zurlini retrospective, curated by Domenico Monetti and Mario Sesti in collaboration with the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca, opens its programme. At 5 pm, the screening will feature the short films Racconto del quartiere, Pugilatori, I blues della domenica, Il mercato delle facce, Serenata da un soldo, La stazione, Soldati in città, and at 6:30 pm, the showing of the feature-length film The Girls of San Frediano, at 8:30 pm Violent Summer.
Tomorrow, Sunday October 16^th, the Rome Film Fest inaugurates the Mazda MX-5 Drive-in: in the square in front the Palazzo dei Congressi, in the EUR district (over a surface of 4,600 square metres), the passengers of sixty automobiles are invited to enjoy the films of the Fest on a giant screen measuring 13 x 5.5 metres. At 9 pm, the screening will feature Bridge of Spies by Steven Spielberg, a film from the Tom Hanks Retrospective, while on October 17^th, at the same time, the film will be Sole cuore amore by Daniele Vicari, one of the Italian films from the Official Selection. Thanks to Mazda, partner of the Fest and the Fondazione Cinema per Roma for the fourth year in a row, the Mazda MX-5 Drive-in will project spectators into the atmosphere of “Happy Days” and “American Graffiti”, continuing to perpetuate the magic of cinema. Reservations are required to participate in the events, and may be made while seats last by sending an e-mail to drivein@romacinemafest.org, starting 48 hours before the screening one wishes to attend.
For the independent parallel sidebar Alice nella città, the screening will feature Storks by Nicholas Stoller and Doug Sweetland (at 12 noon in Sala Sinopoli). It will continue in Studio 3, at 4 pm, with the tribute to Abbas Kiarostami: Where Is My Friend’s Home will be preceded by the short film Bread and Alley.
 There will be a rich programme of repeat screenings all over the city. The Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna will screen two films in collaboration with the independent parallel sidebar Alice nella città: Louise en hiver at 3 pm and Sing Street at 5 pm. The Mazda Cinema Hall, at the Cinema Village, will present The Birth of a Nation (5:30 pm), The Rolling Stones Olé Olé Olé!: A Trip Across Latin America (8 pm), La fille de Brest (10:30 pm), while in the early afternoon the repeat screenings will feature the films from the Alice nella città sidebar Kicks (at 12:30 pm) and The Heaven Will Wait (at 2:30 pm). The MAXXI will screen two films from the Official Selection: The Last Laugh (at 2 pm) and Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny (at 5 pm). The Farnese Persol will present the repeat screenings of Moonlight (at 6 pm), The Birth of a Nation (at 8 pm), and Sole cuore amore (at 10:30 pm). At the Cinema Admiral movie theatre, there will be a series of films from Alice nella città: Max Steel (at 4:30 pm), Mariottide (at 6:30 pm), 2Night (at 8:30 pm), and London Town (at 10:30 pm).