Rome and Venice agree on date
Launched this year (October 13-21), the RomeFilmFest will push its date slightly back, to the end of October. The Venice Film Festival will, however, remain in its regular slot, the beginning of September.
In a surprise meeting with the mayors of the both cities and the festivals’ artistic directors, Minister of Culture Francesco Rutelli assisted in the reaching of an agreement, thus ending the dispute between the two events.
The mayor of Turin was also present at the meeting, where it was announced that that city’s festival would be pushed back to the end of November (November 24-December 2) to avoid overlapping with Rome.
A common strategy must now be defined in determining the profiles of the three events. According to hearsay, an international promotional plan for all three festivals was discussed during the meeting; something along the lines of an "Autumn of Italian cinema".
Venice would maintain its historical identity, which favours official events and tradition, Roma will follow a broader, more "mainstream" course, while Turin would preserve its characteristic status of being a "workshop of the future", with particular attention paid to emerging film industries and young filmmakers. So strong is the latter’s role as such that Rome will most probably relinquish its section of first films.
(Translated from Italian)
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