Pesaro: Comencini, Italian Americans and European docs
“After 42 years, the Pesaro Film Festival continues to be what it always was: an event that places all its stakes on culture,” reminded festival founder Bruno Torri during the press conference for its 43rd edition (June 24-July 2). This year will see fewer offerings, all of which are nevertheless of the highest quality, to allow for a more in-depth examination of the chosen themes.
The 2007 Special Event will be dedicated to complete retrospective on Luigi Comencini, organised by Adriano Aprà and accompanied by a conference (July 1) with academics, collaborators and family members of the great Italian director.
Another ample retrospective will be held on Italian American cinema. “Without Coppola, Abel Ferrara, De Palma, Scorsese or Tarantino,” said Artistic Director Giovanni Spagnoletti, “the most inventive contemporary US cinema would not exist”. Thus, the festival will showcase films from a vast production of independent titles from the latest generation of Italian American talent, including Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo ’66, John Turturro’s Mac and True Love by Nancy Savoca.
Eight films were selected for the competition section that is accompanied by the Lino Miccichè Award, five of which were directed by women (including Ana Katz’s Una novia errante, Yasmin Ahmad’s Anxiety, Operation Filmmaker and Nina Davenport). Europe is represented by Elvis Pelvis by UK director Kevin Aduaka and Anna M. [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by France’s Michel Spinosa.
The non-competition “SOS Europa.doc” section is dedicated to those non-fiction films aimed at exposing the “black holes” of information in Europe, such as Half Past Three by Thomas Hodan (Czech Republic) and The Seeds by Wojciech Kasperski (Poland).
The journey through Spanish-language cinema continues this year as well, with a retrospective on Basque director Ivan Zulueta that will offer an opportunity to see, for the film in Italy, not only his debut feature Un, dos, tres, al escondite ingles, but his vast number of short films as well.
(Translated from Italian)
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