05/10/2020 - Presented in Rome and overseen for the sixth year by Antonio Monda, the festival programme boasts numerous Italian debuts and international guests

“In what has been a dramatic year for all of us, it might seem inappropriate to talk about a celebration. And yet, it is necessary to do so, in order to send out a signal of recovery and normality”. The show must go on for Antonio Monda, artistic director of Rome Film Fest which will this year be celebrating its 15^th edition with obligatory masks, social distancing and temperature checks for all, at this very delicate point in time where Coronavirus infections are rising once again.

And so, it was with “happiness and pride” that the director outlined the Film Fest programme in Rome this morning, an event unspooling 15 - 25 October and encompassing various venues in the city, over and above the usual Parco della Musica Auditorium. High culture and popular culture, entertainment and high-quality world film will all return to the city, intermingling in this celebration of cinema, as ever not involving a competition, which will be buoyed by 26 participating countries, 20 world premieres, numerous Italian debuts and tremendous guests hailing from all corners of the globe.

Screening in the Official Selection are twenty-four films and documentaries, including Another Round [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Thomas Vinterberg, Summer of 85 [+see also:
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film profile] by François Ozon, Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds by Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer, Home Front [+see also:
film review
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interview: Lucas Belvaux
film profile] by Lucas Belvaux and the anthology feature film series Small Axe by Steve McQueen, as well as The Shift [+see also:
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interview: Alessandro Tonda
film profile] by Alessandro Tonda, Fortuna [+see also:
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interview: Nicolangelo Gelormini
film profile] by Nicolangelo Gelormini, Stardust [+see also:
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trailer
film profile] by Gabriel Range and, in association with Alice nella Città (read the Alice line-up here), Herself [+see also:
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interview: Clare Dunne
film profile] by Phyllida Lloyd. The American animation film Soul by Pete Docter will be opening the event, while Francesco Bruni’s much-anticipated Everything’s Gonna Be Alright [+see also:
film review
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film profile] has been allocated the closing slot (Special Events). On the subject of Special Events, films in the offing include Alex Infascelli’s documentary about the beloved football player and former Roma captain My Name is Francesco Totti [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; the doc Fuori era primavera - Viaggio nell’Italia del lockdown [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Gabriele Salvatores, and the first two episodes of the TV series Romulus by Matteo Rovere, a spin-off of the film The First King [+see also:
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trailer
film profile] made by the same director. Among the five titles in the Everybody’s Talking About It section, meanwhile, we find Suzanne Lindon’s Spring Blossom [+see also:
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interview: Suzanne Lindon
film profile].

The trademark offering of Rome Film Fest under Monda’s leadership, the fourteen Close Encounters (meetings with directors, actors and huge personalities from the world of culture) will involve the likes of Steve McQueen (who will also accept a lifetime achievement award), Fabio and Damiano D’Innocenzo, Gabriele Mainetti (who will present world previews of several scenes from his new work Freaks Out [+see also:
film review
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interview: Gabriele Mainetti
film profile]), the Manetti Bros. (who will reveal previews of a few sequences from their film Diabolik), Gianfranco Rosi, François Ozon and Werner Herzog (with the latter taking part in the festival online).

The Italian titles in the selection are, for the most part, first works. Unmissable among these is The Eumenides [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Gipo Fasano, a film revolving around Aeschylus, made with a budget of nine thousand euros and set in the chic, Roman Parioli neighbourhood; Elisa Amoruso’s fiction debut Sirley [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Anita Ravaroli’s We Are the Thousand - L’incredibile storia di Rockin’1000. As for the titles selected for the Films Of Our Lives line-up (or rather the Selection Committee members’ favourite films), science-fiction will be the guiding theme this year.

Viewers will be able to follow part of the programme, on demand, via a new, virtual, limited-capacity auditorium: the Digital RFF15 platform, which will be active from Monday 12 October.

(Translated from Italian)