ROME FILM FEST SET TO OPEN
ROME FILM FEST SET TO OPEN
(ANSA) - Rome, October 14 - The Coen brothers' darkly comic take on the financial crisis, Stefania Sandrelli's directing debut and the late Heath Ledger's first steps behind the camera are among the treats in store at the Rome Film Festival, opening here Thursday.
Ledger was taking a course in directing shortly before he died in January last year and his unseen first efforts will be on show alongside snippets of the Terry Gilliam film he was working on when he died, Parnassus.
Joel and Ethan Coen's tragicomedy A Serious Man is one of the 14 films in competition, which also include Danis Tanovic's Mideast vet drama Triage, Jason Reitman's Up In The Air with George Clooney as a corporate headhunter, and German veteran Margarethe von Trotta's Vision, the tale of pioneering Benedictine nun Hildegard von Bingen.
The festival opens with Italian star Margherita Buy kicking off a gala evening including a homage to the late Nino Rota, composer of the music for Federico Fellini's best-known worka and Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather films.
Triage, the much-awaited film from 'No Man's Land' Bosnian director Tanovic, starring Colin Farrell and Paz Vega, is the first flick on show.
The fest will close a week later with the Italian premiere of Nora Ephron's tale of culinary legend Julia Childs and a modern-day admirer, Julie & Julia.
Streep will also pick up a career gong from the Roman fest, which is now in its fourth edition.
In between, Italian cinema icon Sandrelli shows Christine Cristina, her take on a 14th-century Italian-born noblewoman in France, Cristina di Pizzano, credited with being the first 'professional' female poet.
''It's a woman's festival, if you will, framed by Buy, Sandrelli and Streep,'' artistic director Piera Detassis, a film critic in her first year in the job, said in presenting the event.
''But there's also a lot about the financial crisis, life problems, the rich and the poor and relations between fathers and sons,'' she added.
Coming of age under a father's guidance is the theme of Alessandro Angelini's in-competition Alza La Testa (Keep Your Head Up), where Sergio Castellito plays a man trying to teach his son life lessons through boxing.
The other two Italian features in competition are Giorgio Diritti's L'Uomo Che Verra' (The Man Who Will Come), the story of Italy's worst SS atrocity; and Donatella Maiorca's Viola Di Mare (Sea Violet), the story of a woman who binds her breasts and clips her hair to please her lesbian lover, in which Maria Grazia Cucinotta makes a cameo. EIGHT WORLD PREMIERES.
All told, there are eight world premieres in competition including James Ivory's The City Of Your Final Destination, his first effort since the death in 2005 of long-time collaborator Ismail Merchant; Michael Hoffman's The Last Station with Mirren and Christopher PLummer about Lev Tolstoy's struggle to cope with fame; Nicolo Donato's tale of a love affair between two closet gays in a homophobic neo-Nazi group, Brotherhood; and 'Train de Vie' Romanian director Radu Mihaileanu's comedy Le Concert, about a former Bolshoi conductor working as a cleaner.
Other much-anticipated offerings will be the directorial debut of Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho, entitled Paulo Coehlo's Experimental Witch; and two documentaries by Martin Scorsese, shot at an interval of 20 years, about his friend, the actor, writer and raconteur Steven Prince.
The October 15-23 fest will also get a peek at the first 20 minutes of the second part of the Twilight saga, New Moon.
As well as Clooney, Streep and Farrell, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren and Sir Christopher Lee will be bringing star wattage to Rome with their latest films while Richard Gere will star in the out-of-competition Hachiko: A Dog's Story and host a talk on environmental issues.
Italian stars will include Monica Bellucci, Andrea Bocelli, Valeria Solarino, Sergio Castellitto and Michele Placido.
There'll also be tributes to Sergio Leone and Luigi Zampa.
All in all, Detassis said, ''it'll be a mixture of the celebrity dazzle of the Red Carpet and the most austere competition''.
A jury chaired by Milos Forman will announce the winners on October 23, after taking into account audience views.
The event looks like being even more of a success this year, organisers said Friday, with bookings significantly up''.
