25/09/2008

With the special events (which include exhibits, tributes, retrospectives and names such as Al Pacino, David Cronenberg and Michael Cimino) already known, today the rest of the program was announced for L’Altro Cinema/Extra, the most experimental section of the Rome International Film Festival (October 22-31). The sidebar directed for the third consecutive year by Mario Sesti confirms its “mixed” bent.

There are six European features slated. The most highly anticipated include L’Heure d’été [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Olivier Assayas (who will also present the documentaries Eldorado - Choréographie and Eldorado Création and hold a discussion with audiences), JCVD [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Mabrouk El Mechri (a self-ironic outing from action movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme) and the new film by Thomas Vinterberg, When a Man Comes Home [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

The Italian title on the program (a co-production with France and Finland) is the world premiere of Anne Riitta Ciccone’s Il prossimo tuo, which follows three stories set in three different countries.

There are 16 documentaries that will be making their European or world premieres and are vying for the Cult (€20,000) and/or Enelcuore (€30,000) awards, as well as many titles that have already played other international festivals, and which Sesti has included in order to bolster their chances of finding Italian distribution.

Of particular note is Rembrandt’s J’accuse, a docu-noir in which Peter Greenaway, after Nightwatching [+see also:
trailer
film profile], takes another look at “Night Watch”, the mysterious masterpiece by the Dutch painter.

European titles include Italy’s Effedià - Sulla mia cattiva strada by Teresa Marchesi on Fabrizio De André (another film on the singer-songwriter from Genoa, Daniele Costantini’s Amore che vieni, amore che vai, will also screen the same day); Spanish title El ultimo truco by Sigfrid Monleón, dedicated to Emilio Ruiz del Rio, a special effects master for filmmakers such as Orson Welles and David Lynch; and Belgium’s Stolen Art by Simon Backés on the artist, forger and perhaps thief Pavel Novak.

New this year is Roma Doc, a programme of documentaries “on the city seen from the point of view of independent filmmakers”, alongside the established tradition of autonomous initiatives organised (in keeping with the sidebar’s openness towards new trends) by the city’s film clubs.

(Translated from Italian)