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FESTIVALS Italy

European cinema abounds at Taormina

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According to Artistic Director Deborah Young, the programme of the 56th Taormina Film Fest (June 12-18) is tight and lean “out of necessity [because] we have only two indoor theatres.” She adds, however that this year, her fourth at the helm, “is the best since I’ve been here.” And the line-up would seem to prove her right.

Beginning with the European premiere of Toy Story 3. The pioneer screening – the first 3D screening in an open-air cinema, the Teatro Antico, that is moreover 2,000 years old, at which Pixar technicians are already hard at work – will cost €90,000 but promises to place the Sicilian festival in the international spotlight. The Teatro Antico will host another six films, including the world premiere of Italian title L’imbroglio nel lenzuolo with international ambitions, directed by Mexico’s Alfonso Arau and produced by and starring local diva Maria Grazia Cucinotta.

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There are many Europeans in the Beyond the Mediterranean sidebar, which includes Per Fly’s latest, The Woman Who Dreamed of a Man). And above all in competition section Mediterranea, whose European titles vying for the Golden Tauro include Gianfrancesco Lazotti’s Dalla Vita in Poi [+see also:
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; French films Chicas [+see also:
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by Yasmina Reza and Nous Trois [+see also:
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(with Stefano Accorsi and Emmanuelle Béart); Spanish title 18 Meals, starring Luis Tosar (Cell 211 [+see also:
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) as a street guitarist; and the portmanteau film Some Other Stories, directed by five young women – Ivona Juka, Ana Maria Rossi, Ines Tanovic, Marija Dzidzeva, Hanna Slack – from five different republics of the former Yugoslavia (Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia).

This edition’s guests of honour are Brazil – rightfully so, given the highly anticipated June 18 signing of a new co-production incentive agreement between Brazil and Italy – and Spain. The latter focus will offer six films from the past six years and a round table that will include directors (such as Isabel Coixet, also in this year’s jury) and actors (Tosar, Victoria Abril and Lola Dueñas).

For those unable to resist the temptations of the World Cup, the Football in Cinema sidebar features five titles, including The Rimet Trophy. Through interviews and archive material, the documentary reconstructs the adventurous epic behind the theft in Brazil of the “Holy Grail” of football.

As always, there will numerous prestigious guests on hand to receive the Taormina Arte Award, including Marco Bellocchio, Robert De Niro, Colin Firth, Jafar Panahi and 90-year-old Francesco Alliata di Villafranca, the historic Sicilian producer of Panaria Film, behind, among many other films, Jean Renoir’s The Golden Coach. Last but certainly not least, young viewers of Campus Taormina – one thousand university students of Film and Communications – will be able to meet and learn from some of Italy’s top film stars, including duo Ficarra and Picone, Diane Fleri, Ambra Angioini and Giorgio Pasotti.

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(Translated from Italian)

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