Italian Party Fair Film Festival in Rome

The Rome Film Festival October 13-21, 2006

More a street party than a traditional festival, as its organizers proudly repeated, or rather a cinema fair, with its film market (the first one after the deceased MIFED) on Via Veneto, its parade of international stars (from Nicole Kidman, to Leonardo di Caprio, from Richard Gere to Monica Bellucci, from Harrison Ford to Viggo Mortensen to Sean Connery) its many little restaurant offering interesting food inspired by this or that film, and its many many little and less little events all around the city (books, documentaries, fashion shows, special screenings in the most remote and to often forgotten outskirts of the eternal city) , the new born Film Festival of Rome (www.romacinemafest.it) proved the success that everybody hoped for.

With over half a million visitors, the event brought back to Rome the appellative of city of cinema.

Lots and lots of cinema buffs, tourists and your regular passer by strolled along the red carpet to catch a glimpse of their favorite artist, ask for an autograph, steal a picture with a mobile phone camera.

And the films: an incredible quantity of carefully selected pictures, like the winner, the Russian "Izobrajaya Zhertvy - Playing the Victim di Kirill Serebrennikov", by Kirill Serebrennikov, a kind of a modern Hamlet set against the contemporary urban Russian background. Or Giuseppe Tornatore's "La sconosciuta", winner of the Blockbuster prize for the best film premiered at the festival. A disturbing thriller with a strong social connotation, the film is different from all the other pictures made by the Sicilian director winner of the Oscar with "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso". Or the lovely "L'Aria salata", by Alessandro Angelini, which has brought his talented but not very known (yet!) actor, Giorgio Colangeli, the prize for the best male protagonist. And many many others:

162 in total, from 32 different countries, with 650 screenings.

Of excellent quality also the films aimed at the younger audience. 16,000 kids circa from 78 schools attended the screenings of the section "Alice nella Città" and voted two winners, "Liscio" di Claudio Antonini and "Just Like the son" di Morgan J. Freeman.

Everything worked perfectly well, including the shuttle bus that every three minutes brought people back and forth from the main locations (la Casa del Cinema in Villa Borghese, Via Veneto and the Auditorium). A major accomplishment for a city perennially paralyzed by traffic and by the lack of an efficient public transport system, and maybe an inspiration for improvements to make in the near future (we hope). But things have not been easy at all, both for the organizers who undertook a very heavy task and made an incredible effort to keep up with their promise, and for the city of Rome who was shocked by a terrible accident happened in the underground where a train run into another killing one and leaving about 200 wounded.

 For the day of mourning proclaimed by the mayor of Rome all the celebrations were suspended. Another death that occurred during the festival touched many hearts: Gillo Pontecorvo, the world wide appreciated director of many masterpieces like Capò and "La battaglia di Algeri", and twice Oscar nominee, left the cinema lovers orphan of one the last masters of the Neorealism. The memory of the Maestro was honored with the special prize "Festa del Cinema".

But, as he would have certainly wanted, after a moment of grief the show went on. The theatres were filled with people and everybody enjoyed this very beautiful gift that Rome gave to the Romans and not only the Romans.

To the next edition then, next October, even richer, we hope.

See images of the Rome film Festival

By Sandra Bordigoni