Baricco to debut in Locarno
The 61st Locarno Film Festival will host the directorial debut of Italian author Alessandro Baricco, Lezione 21 (“Lesson 21”), an examination of Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony”, from the work’s genesis to its reception at the time.
The film by the writer who is no stranger to cinema (his novel Silk was adapted into a film by Francois Girard, starring Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley, while in 1994 Giuseppe Tornatore directed The Legend of 1900 from his novel Novecento: Pianist) is co-produced by Fandango and Potboiler Productions (in collaboration with RAI Cinema) and will be released in Italy by 01.
The international cast stars John Hurt, Noah Taylor and Leonor Watling. The production design and costumes were inspired by sketches by Tanino Liberatore.
The 2008 edition of Locarno (to be held August 6-16), unveiled yesterday at the Swiss embassy in Rome, is dedicating a complete retrospective to Nanni Moretti, after Youssef Chahine, Abbas Kiarostami, Marco Bellocchio, Joe Dante and, more recently, Aki Kaurismaki.
Festival audiences will be able to enjoy the director’s feature films – from I Am Self Sufficient (1976) to The Caiman [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean Labadie
interview: Nanni Moretti
film profile] (2006) – shorts, medium-length films and documentaries. The tribute will be rounded out, as is tradition, by a book published in collaboration with Cahiers du Cinema, which includes previously unpublished interviews and documents.
(Translated from Italian)
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