Festa del Cinema di Roma: the Italian sets

The 18^th Festa del Cinema di Roma will run from 18 to 29 October 2023. A day has been added to the schedule, compared to the past, matching the length of other famous international festivals such as the Cannes Film Festival.  Alice nella Città, the autonomous, parallel section of the Festa del Cinema, is scheduled for the same dates.

Progressive cinema – Visions for the world of tomorrow

The 2023 edition has confirmed the section entitled Progressive cinema – Visioni per il mondo di domani, an international competition open to films of fiction, animation and documentaries without distinction.

• C’è ancora domani, directorial debut from Paola Cortellesi, has a cast that includes the director herself and Valerio Mastandrea, Romana Maggiora Vergano, Emanuela Fanelli, Giorgio Colangeli, Vinicio Marchioni, Alessia Barela.  A Wildside, Vision Distribution production, it tells the story of a family living in Rome in the late 1940s, in a city caught between the boost of liberation and the misery of the war that has only just ended.
• Holiday directed by Edoardo Gabbriellini is a The Apartment, Frenesy, Vision Distribution production. Shot in various places around Liguria, it tells the story of Veronica who is declared innocent after a long trial and two years’ imprisonment for the murder of her mother and her mother’s lover.  At only 20, she has all her life ahead but it is hard to think about the future when everyone is still focussed on the tragic event.  Through her memories and those of her best friend Giada, the tape rewinds to tell a story that becomes increasingly ambiguous as it unfolds.
• Mi fanno male i capelli directed by Roberta Torre, produced by Stemal Entertainment and Rai Cinema, shot in Sperlonga, Lazio, and includes Alba Rohrwacher and Filippo Timi in the cast. Monica loses her memory and finds a way to give a sense to her life by identifying with film characters played by Monica Vitti. She begins to dress like her, imitate her and recreate scenes from her films.  Edoardo, who loves her deeply, lets this game become their new life…

Freestyle

The non-competitive section featuring all manner of formats and styles returns with several films and series made in Italy, which include the following:

• Accattaroma directed by Daniele Costantini, produced by Studio Cinema Production, is a journey across Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Rome through the stories told by Vittorio as he walks from Via del Mandrione to Rio della Grana.
• Gli immortali directed by Anne-Riitta Ciccone, produced by The film Club, Launchpad39A, Rai Cinema, and shot in Rome, is a dystopian, apocalyptic account of the essential, and equally, difficult father-son relationship.
• À la Recherche directed by Giulio Base, an Italian-French coproduction, produced by Agnus Dei Production, Rosebud Entertainment Pictures, Rai Cinema, is an homage to the literary and cinematic past, telling the story of a French noblewoman and Italian screenwriter who hole up for months in a countryside villa (the shoot took place at a historic villa in the countryside outside Rome) to write a screenplay based on Marcel Proust’s famous novel A’ la Recherche Du Temps Perdu intending to send it to the maestro, Luchino Visconti.
• Troppo azzurro, directorial debut of Filippo Barbagallo, produced by Elsinore Film, Wildside, Vision Distribution, tells the story of 25-year-old Dario who is still living like an adolescent:  at home with his parents, with exactly the same friends he had at high school.  During a torrid Roman August, he starts spending time first with Caterina, someone he met by chance, and then with Lara, the girl “out of his league” that he has always loved:  he will have to choose whether to remain in his comfort zone or finally let himself go.

In addition to films, the section comprises previews of some eagerly awaited series.

• I Leoni DI Sicilia directed by Paolo Genovese (8 episodes), produced by Compagnia Leone Cinematografica, Lotus Production, based on the best-selling novel by Stefania Auci about the Florio family.  The cast includes Michele Riondino, Miriam Leone, Donatella Finocchiaro, Vinicio Marchioni, Eduardo Scarpetta, Paolo Briguglia, Ester Pantano, Adele Cammarata.

Locations in I Leoni di Sicilia.

• The Sea Beyond – Season 4 directed by Ivan Silvestrini returns to the stories of a group of adolescents imprisoned in the borstal of Naples.

Locations in Mare fuori.

• La storia directed by Francesca Archibugi, (8 episodes) produced by Picomedia and Thalie Images is based on the 1974 novel of the same title by Elsa Morante. Jasmine Trinca is Ida, a single mother who has to hide her Jewish origins during WWII in Rome.  The cast also includes Asia Argento, Elio Germano, Valerio Mastandrea and the young actor Lorenzo Zurzolo.
•  Suburræterna directed by Ciro D’Emilio is the new Netflix series from Cattleya – part of ITV Studios which expands on the universe that was created in the series Suburra. The cast includes Giacomo Ferrara as Spadino and Filippo Nigro as Amedeo Cinaglia, while Carlotta Antonelli and Federica Sabatini return as Angelica and Nadia. It is set in Rome in 2011: the government is about to fall; the Vatican is in crisis; and the city’s squares are literally on fire…

Grand Public

The non-competitive section for films for all targets.

• Cento domeniche directed by Antonio Albanese, produced by Palomar, Leo, Vision Distribution, tells the story of Antonio, a former employee at a shipbuilders, who lives a quiet, uneventful life until his daughter tells him that she is getting married.  Over the moon with joy, he heads to the bank where he has always had an account and where he has deposited the savings of a lifetime.  The film was shot in Lecco, Olginate, Garlate and the surrounding province.
• Dall’alto di una fredda torre, first film from Francesco Frangipane, tells the story of two siblings who have to decide which of their parents, both ill with rare diseases, should live, and which should die.  Produced by Lucky Red, Rai Cinema, the cast includes Edoardo Pesce, Vanessa Scalera, Anna Bonaiuto, Giorgio Colangeli, Elena Radonicich, Massimiliano Benvenuto.  The film shot in Gubbio (ext.) and Rome (int.).
• Diabolik chi sei? is the third and final episode in the Manetti Bros’s saga about the masked thief of the comics created by the Giussani sisters, produced by Mompracem and Rai Cinema, and shot in Bologna,Trieste and Calabria.
• I limoni d’inverno directed by Caterina Carone, Italian-Polish coproduction produced by Bartlebyfilm, Agresywna Banda, Vision Distribution, stars Christian De Sica, Teresa Saponangelo, Francesco Bruni among others.  It focusses on a conversation between two strangers with adjoining terraces.  It was shot in Rome and in studio.
• Nuovo Olimpo, directed by Ferzan Özpetek, is set in Rome and is the story of a love affair that starts in the late 1970s and is destined to last three decades. The focus is on the 25-year-olds (Damiano Gavino and Andrea Di Luigi) who meet by chance and fall madly in love, fated to lose and search for each other for the subsequent 30 years.  Produced by R&C Produzioni, Faros Film.
• Palazzina Laf, first film from Michele Riondino, an Italian-French coproduction, produced by Palomar, Bravo, BIM Produzione, Paprika Films, Rai Cinema, tells the story of Caterino, one of the many factory workers in the ILVA industrial complex in Taranto, finding no way out of that hell.
• Te l’avevo detto, directed by Ginevra Elkann, produced by The Apartment, Tenderstories, Small Forward Productions, Rai Cinema, with Marisa Borini, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Valeria Golino, Danny Huston, Sofia Panizzi, Alba Rohrwacher, Greta Scacchi, Riccardo Scamarcio, is set in Rome during a January weekend affected by a sudden heatwave.  The sun is pleasant at first, but the heat quickly reaches frightening heights resulting in a loss of control in both people and animals.
• Volare, first film from Margherita Buy, produced by Kavac, Maremosso, IBC Movie, Tenderstories, Rai Cinema, and shot in Rome, tells the story of the irrational and very human fear of flying that afflicts AnnaBì, a talented actress with international success on the horizon if she can only get on that damn plane for Korea.  Even her private life is dependent on a plane.  Can she defeat her fear?