Courmayeur Noir In Festival: "a spectacular programme"
- Scandinavian, Italian, Catalan films among others in the 23rd edition of the festival directed by Giorgio Gosetti and Marina Fabbri. Guests include Henning Mankell, who is being given the Raymond Chandler Award
From Scandinavian noir films to Italian horror films, and indie Catalan films, great filmmakers like Ridley Scott and a little bit of fantasy. The 23rd edition of the Courmayeur Noir In Festival is set to be particularly rich. The traditional appointment with noir cinema will take place on December 10-15 in the Alpine resort. “A spectacular programme,” Giorgio Gosetti, the director of the event together with Marina Fabbri defined it as being. “Towards one of the most surprising editions from the last decade, despite difficult circumstances.”
Among the ten films in competition, Scandinavia is notably present with Mikkel Nørgaard (The Keeper of Lost Causes [+see also:
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interview: Eugenio Mira
film profile]) and Søren Kragh-Jakobsen (The Hour of the Lynx [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), Italy is too with Neve by Stefano Incerti (selected in Venice in 2010 with Gorbaciof [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stefano Incerti
film profile]) and Vinodentro [+see also:
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film profile] by Ferdinando Vicentini Orgnani, with Giovanna Mezzogiorno (read the news story). Among the other European titles are Wakolda [+see also:
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trailer
film profile] by Lucia Puenzo (Argentina/France/Spain/Norway), British Dom Hemingway [+see also:
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making of
film profile] by Richard Shepard, with Jude Law, and Enemy by Denis Villenueve (Canada/Spain), starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
“A true 21st century noir film” will be playing out of competition: The Counselor [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile] by Ridley Scott, a British American coproduction with a stellar cast (Michael Fassbender, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt and Bruno Ganz), and the Italian La voce, a film debut by Augusto Zucchi, with Rocco Papaleo playing an impersonator exploited by secret services in order to produce the same voice as a dead minister. Among the special events, the screening of The Troubled Man by Agneta Fagerström-Olsson, the last investigation for Inspector Wallander, the most loved inspector in the whole of Europe born from Swedish writer Henning Mankell. The latter will be a guest of honour in Courmayeur where he will be collecting a Raymond Chandler Award, given out to the genre’s greatest masters.
A retrospective of 10 films will be dedicated to Catalan films made between the 1950s and the 1960s by artists such as Josep Maria Forn (which films ¿Pena de muerte? and Yo mate will be screened). New Italian horror cinema will be explored with Dario Argento, master of ceremony for the endeavour (in collaboration with the Luce Cinecittà institute), during which time Riccardo Paoletti’s horror film Neverlake will be screened. The fantasy genre will also have its moment in the limelight with a celebration of the return of The Hobbit, the Italian debut of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, the discovery of a new hero for children like the cat in Belgian film The House of Magic and the inclusion of Enzo D’Alò (Pinocchio [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) with his Flauto magico in honour of Vincenzo Cerami.
The NoirFest will as usual also be the place for literary encounters with writers in the genre: apart from Mankell, the French bestseller Jean-Christophe Grangé will also be a guest, as will Soth African Lauren Beukes and Israeli Assaf Gavron. Italians will include Roberto Cotroneo, a newcomer to the genre Enrico Vanzina, Carlo Bonini and Giancarlo De Cataldo.
Among this year’s new developments, a virtual movie theatre online on MyMoviesLive! where a number of films from this edition as well as past ones will be available for viewing through streaming, as well as a collaboration with Spotify, which will enable users and international guests to create their own noir playlists. The NoirFest will also be the first Italian festival to fully use 4K technology for every film selected.
(Translated from Italian)
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