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FESTIVALS Italy

Turin Film Festival opens with Dustin Hoffman’s British debut

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- The Hollywood star takes his first steps as a director at the age of 75, with Quartet, a melomaniac comedy set in the English countryside

Quartet [+see also:
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film profile
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by Dustin Hoffman is the film, that will, on November 23, in the Lingotto Auditorium, open the thirtieth edition of the Turin Film Festival. At the age of 75, the Hollywood star is taking his first steps as a director with a British comedy filled with humour and tenderness. The film mixes rap and Mozart, and shows the ways in which music can heal the fears and disasters that come with old age.

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Ronald Harwood (The Dresser, The Pianist, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
) wrote the screenplay based on his own play, Quartet. Filming took place in Buckinghamshire while production was taken on by English group Headline Pictures with BBC Films, Finola Dwyer and German DCM. The cast is made up of renowned British actors Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connelly, Pauline Collins and Michael Gambon.

Beecham House is a retirement home for singers and musicians hidden deep in the English countryside. Every year, a large performance is prepared in honour of Giuseppe Verdi’s birth. All artists residing in the house return to the stage to raise money to keep Beecham going. As preparations get under way, capricious performers are reborn. Some feel faint, some secretly have a drink and others refuse to sing altogether. Adding to the confusion, a new retiree penetrates the Beecham circle: lyrical diva Jean Horton, who is reunited with the other components of her legendary quartet Reggie, Wilf and Cissy. Reggie is her ex-husband, and the quartet disintegrated at the same time as their marriage.

Presented in Turin and London, the film has been met with critical acclaim. The film is set to come out in the United States and Great Britain in January 2013, while it will be opening in the rest of Europe in late January (Germany), February/March (Denmark and Switzerland) and May (France and the Netherlands). In Italy, Quartet will be distributed by Bim in 2013.

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(Translated from Italian)

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