27/10/2006

After its premiere at the RomeFilmFest, The Departed, the latest film by Martin Scorsese and already a box office sensation in the US, is hitting Italian screens today.

Going up against it are Babel, the third film by Alejandro González Iñárritu; the satirical Fascisti su Marte [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (lit. “Fascists on Mars”) by local comedian Corrado Guzzanti (distributed by Fandango); teenage comedy Those Happy Days [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Nos jours heureux) by French filmmakers Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache; and the political film Esma's Secret [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Barbara Albert
interview: Jasmila Zbanic
film profile] (Grbavica), this year’s Golden Bear winner at Berlin, on the mass rapes perpetrated during the war in the Balkans.

Both Fascisti su Marte ( see article) and the Those Happy Days (distributed by Filmauro) were screened at the RomeFest. The latter is a light and spontaneous comedy, brought to life by gifted actors such as Jean-Paul Rouve and Marie-Lou Berry, previously seen in Agnès Jaoui’s Look At Me [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Comme une image), and Joséphine de Meaux, who won the Best Actress prize at the 2006 Alpe d'Huez International Comedy Film Festival for her performance.

Backed by Amnesty International Italia and distributed by Istituto Luce, Esma’s Secret by Bosnian filmmaker Žbanić focuses on the story of one of the 20,000 victims of mass rape in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995 (according to UN data).

"I got the idea for the film in 2000, right when I gave birth to my first daughter", said debut director Žbanić, who came to Rome to present her film. "I thought that the only way to depict an atrocity like war rape was to find a balanced combination between hatred towards the rapist and a love of life. In the case of Esma, the film’s main character, this is expressed through her unconditional love for her daughter Sara, who is nevertheless the product of that violence".

(Translated from Italian)