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by Wali Warsame
Section Editor
The following story was written by a student on the staff of The Jaguar Times as part of Hilliard Bradley High School’s Journalism Course.
Italy is the birthplace of film festivals, the first beginning in Venice in 1932. Since then, several film festivals have sprouted around the world, including the Festa del Cinema di Roma - the Rome Film Festival.
This year, Rome presents the 18th edition of their event. The festival, occurring from the 18th of October to the 29th, was organized by Fondazione Cinema Per Roma with Paola Malanga as the Artistic Director. Organizers and directors of the event made changes to how films were presented this year.
The Rome Film Festival has made efforts to showcase films outside of their conventional festival date, extending the film festival to showings occurring year round. With around 270 screenings held throughout the city, the festival drew in more than 63,000 admissions according to Variety.
Over the summer, arenas were set up around the South of Rome in places unconventional for a film festival to take place, such as the Tor Bella Monaca housing complex, Corriale housing projects, and other neighborhoods with higher crime rates. Screenings have also taken place in the Santa Maria della Pietà church, which was formerly a mental asylum.
The festival opened with the film There’s Still Tomorrow directed by the Italian actress, Paola Cortellesi, which received the “Audience Award,” an award voted on by the audience using the Rome Film Festival app or website. The black-and-white period dramedy is set in post-World War II Rome during the institutional referendum that dives into the development of women's right to vote in Italy.
Paola Cortellesi shares her reasoning for choosing black-and-white for her film with Deadline, taking inspiration from neorealismo rosa (pink neorealism):
“When my relatives told me stories about that period, I always kind of imagined them in black and white… I also wanted to connect with a school of cinema I love known as neorealismo rosa, which is different from the neorealismo of Rome, Open City or Bicycle Thieves, in that the characters and settings are realistic, but the story has elements of romance or comedy.”
A series of awards were granted on the 28th of October during the ceremony held in Sala Petrassi in the Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone. The awards were presented under the Progressive Cinema Competition with a Jury chaired by the actor, director, and producer Gael Garcia, with Pedagio (tall) by Carolina Markowicz winning Best Film, Urotcile Na Blaga (Blaga’s Lesson) by Stephen Komandarev winning the Grand Jury prize, and several other awards.
A list of the awards given at the Rome Film Festival can be found on their website.
The red carpet gives actors, directors, and other industry professionals the opportunity to greet the press, re-introduce themselves, and most importantly express their sense of style. On one of the largest red carpets in the world, in a country considered a fashion capital, pioneers of Italian cinema bring the Italian fashion houses to the carpet with brands like Ferragamo, Armani Privé, Prada, as well as Dolce & Gabbana.
The American filmmaker, Tim Burton, and the Italian actress, Monica Bellucci, stole the spotlight as they made their red carpet debut as a couple on the second day of the film festival for the screening of Diabolik Chi Sei directed by Marco and Antonio Manetti.
Earlier this year, she confirmed her relationship with the director during an interview with Elle France:
"It's one of those encounters that rarely happens in life…I know the man, I love him, and now I'm going to meet the director, another adventure begins."
The couple are currently working on Beetlejuice 2 together, directed by Tim Burton with Monica Bellucci as the wife of Beetlejuice.
As 2023 comes to an end, look out for film festivals closing out the year such as the French Film Festival, Denver Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, and more.
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