11/01/2011

Directed by Felice Laudadio, the second edition of the Bif&st - Bari International Film & TV Festival (after a trial run in 2009) will be held from January 22-29. In the words of the president of the Apulia Region, Nichi Vendola, the event "unites the territory and cosmopolitism, to reconstruct our roots and go beyond the limits of what we know in various small territories".

The international premieres, to be shown in the Teatro Petruzzelli, are high-profile and the festival kicks off with Tom Hooper’s UK crowd-pleaser The King's Speech [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tom Hooper
film profile], featuring a performance by Colin Firth that is a likely Golden Globe (and perhaps Oscar) winner. Other titles include The Round Up [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (France), on release in Italy on January 27; Hungarian filmmaker András B. Vágvölgyi’s Kolorado Kid [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; Dutch titles Win/Win [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Jaap van Heusden and The Nobel Prize Winner by Timo Veltkamp; legendary German director Margarethe von Trotta’s Die Schwester (with more than a passing nod to the classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?); and Svetoslav Ovtcharov’s Voice Over (Bulgaria).

Italian cinema is represented by the world premiere of Pasquale Squitieri’s latest project, Father, set in the Italian-American community of Philadelphia.

As well as by BIF&ST’s sidebar ItaliaFilmFest, an offering of the best of Italian cinema of 2010 that is presided over by an international, Italian-speaking jury. The parallel event is divided into four competitive categories: 16 features this year, among them The First Beautiful Thing [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], released a year ago, and the still unreleased but much-lauded Venice title Sorelle Mai [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Marco Bellocchio; 11 debut films, including the world premiere of Michael Zampino’s L'erede; documentaries (17); and shorts (22).

(Translated from Italian)