14/05/2007

For its 25th anniversary (from June 1-5 in Bellaria Igea Marina) the Bellaria Film Festival is offering an edition teeming with quality films and highly anticipated premieres, such as the June 3 screening of In memoriam: Aleksander Litvinenko by Kos De Putter, an exclusive interview with the secret agent poisoned by polonium.

For the past 24 years, the festival has been a showcase of independent Italian and international cinema. According to Artistic Director Fabrizio Grosoli at the press conference, although the event “has so far been a wonderful launching pad, we do not want films’ lives to end with the festival. Our goal is to bring them to the big screen”.

The absolute star of the event is the documentary. There are three competition sections: Anteprimadoc, for new Italian documentaries (such as Paolo Muran’s La vita come viaggio aziendale, Ombre lucenti by Nino Bizzarri and Frediana Fornari’s Urgon); Casarossa Doc, dedicated to the best documentaries of the previous season (of 230 works, 10 were chosen, including The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio by Agostino Ferrente, Daniele Vicari’s Il mio paese and Vincenzo Marra’s L’udienza è aperta) and 150 secondi a tema fisso (reserved for works made with videophones; this year’s theme will be the “investigation”).

The international section has also grown: alongside Diary and Family Movies (a selection of recent, autobiographical films such as Miss Universe 1929 by Peter Forgacs, Common life by Anna Faroqhi and Fred Poulet’s Substitute), this year will also feature Rock Around the Doc, a showcase devoted a to rock icons (Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man by Lian Lunson and Made in Jamaica by Jerome Laperrousaz).

Besides the competitions, there will be tributes to three great Italian directors (Marco Ferreri, Ugo Gregoretti and Raffaele Andreassi) as well as to Roberto Faenza on the thirtieth anniversary of his Forza Italia, a film that divided critics and the political world alike.

(Translated from Italian)