Taormina to kick off without a sponsor
The €500,000-sponsoring Banca Nazionale del Lavoro is abandoning the Taormina Film Fest for another event, and Taormina Director Felice Laudadio feel betrayed.
At the press conference for the 52nd edition of the festival, to be held from June 20-25, Laudadio did not hide his anger: "The bank abandoned us in January, once we’d closed our budget, in favour of the Rome Film Festival. We felt cheated, all the more so because for years this festival was called Taormina-BNL. If they had told us in time, we could have found a new sponsor".
The historical Sicilian festival was forced to eliminate its international competition and cancel invitations to the increasingly more expensive stars. Laudadio (who was briefly Director of the Venice Film Festival in the past) bitterly criticised "an irresponsible cultural policy that forced many such events to close their doors” and Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, who wanted the festival in Rome “at all cost”.
Among its foreign titles Taormina will presentUnited 93 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by UK director Paul Greengrass. There will also a good amount of space given to Italian cinema, with a jury of foreign critics evaluating 14 titles, including Nanni Moretti’s The Caiman [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean Labadie
interview: Nanni Moretti
film profile]. There will also be a documentaries programme selected by Maurizio Di Rienzo, which will include In un altro paese (lit. “In Another Country”) by Marco Turco.
(Translated from Italian)
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.
