03/10/2006

With Shane Meadows’s This is England [+see also:
trailer
film profile] screening in official competition, the “Brit pack” is being represented by eight productions and co-productions at the Eternal City’s first RomeFilmFest (October 13-21).

This is England is the semi-autobiographical coming of age story of Shaun, a 12-year-old boy growing up without a father in the north of England. Set during the summer holidays of 1983, we chart his rites of passage from scruffy misfit grieving the loss of his father into a shaven-headed thug whose anger and pain are embraced by the local skinhead fraternity.

Meadows’ sixth feature film, which already screened at Toronto’s Special Presentations, was produced by Warp Film in association with Big Arty Production and Ingenious Film Partners for Film Four. The Works is handling world sales and Optimum Releasing domestic distribution.

Also competing for the €200,000 cash prize is Born and Bred [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Argentinean filmmaker Pablo Trapero, co-produced by Axiom Films in the UK, who will also release it domestically.

Rome’s Visions on Reality sidebar will introduce Sean Ellis’ much talked about feature debut Cashback [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the long version of his Oscar nominated short film, as well as How is Your Father Today by Chinese filmmaker Xiaolu Guo and Christian Volckman’s striking Renaissance [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aton Soumache
interview: Christian Volckman
film profile], ( see focus) two UK co-productions.

In the Extra Section, Documents, Mark and Nick Francis’s documentary film Black Gold, exploring the coffee trade, will screen alongside Louise Osmond and Jerry Rothwell’s Deep Water, the true story of Donald Crowhurst, a free-thinking electronics inventor who entered the first Sunday Times Golden Globe solo, non-stop, round-the-world yacht race.

Lastly, Driving Lessons [+see also:
trailer
film profile], UK writer Jeremy Brock’s feature debut starring Julie Walters and Rupert Grint, will be among the sixteen films competing in the Alice in the City section.