12/06/2008

Gian Luigi Rondi officially took over as the new president of the Fondazione Cinema per Roma, the association of the RomeFilmFest. The board of founders nominated him yesterday to replace Goffredo Bettini, creator of the festival that in October will have its third edition.

Bettini cited his new position as coordinator of Walter Veltroni’s Democratic Party as the reason for his resignation. "[Staying on] seemed to me a lack of style and an imposition on the changed political framework,” he said. “The RomeFilmFest must remain out of politics. We did good work, leaving a credit balance of which 60% came from private funding."

Rondi (87) – a film critic and historian who since 1981 has been president of the David di Donatello Awards – announced his initial programming plans, although he says he feels like a "passenger on a ship that has already set sail.”

Rondi intends to make more room for Italian cinema, involving producers, distributors and filmmakers associations; reinforce the market (currently called Business Street though Rondi wants a more Italian name); and select more commercial films that receive broad public acclaim.

For Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno, Rondi was "a technical choice, based on his undisputed authority and not politics. With Rondi, we want to send a message of centrality of cinema and the Italian industry."

Alemanno admitted that he was convinced him to continue the RomeFilmFest because of “an interview by Venice Mayor Massimo Cacciari, in which he advised me to give it up". A proud citizen who wants to re-ignite the competition between the Rome and Venice festivals, Alemanno stated that "changes [at the RomeFilmFest] would have been made anyway,” and that he will ask the Minister of Culture to organize a General State of Italian cinema during year’s Fest (October 22-31).

(Translated from Italian)