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FESTIVALS France

Annecy hosts best of Italian cinema

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The 25th Annecy Italian Film Festival, which gets underway today and runs through October 2, will be paying homage to Pierre Todeschini, the festival’s emblematic director general who passed away this August.

Traditionally centred on new talent, the competition section will screen nine features this year. One of them is current Italian surprise box-office hit, Andrea Molaioli’s psychological thriller The Girl by the Lake [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(see article).

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It is accompanied by Davide Marengo’s Notturno Bus [+see also:
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film profile
]
(see news); Marco Simon Puccioni’s Shelter [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(a 2007 Berlinale Panorama entry, see article); Stefano Incerti’s L’uomo di vetro [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, the story of the Sicilian Mafia’s first “pentito” [someone who turns State’s evidence against organized crime] (see article); and Salvatore Maira’s Venice Days entry Valzer [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(see news).

Further titles in competition are Marco Cucurnia’s SoloMetro, Massimo Venier’s Mi fido di te, Mohsen Melliti’s Three on the Road and Roberto Cimpanelli’s Io l’altro.

Special events at the Savoy festival include the French sneak preview of Giuseppe Tornatore’s The Unknown [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(Best Italian Film 2007), Ermanno Olmi’s One Hundred Nails [+see also:
trailer
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]
, Ferzan Ozpetek’s Saturno Contro, Vittorio De Seta’s Letters from Sahara and The Roses of the Desert by Mario Monicelli, on whom a retrospective will also be held.

The annual Sergio Leone Award will be presented to Gianni Zanasi for his comedy Don’t Think About It [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, which attracted the attention of Venice audiences as well as a host of international buyers (see article).

Six feature length films complete the Panorama section: Daniele Luchetti’s My Brother Is an Only Child [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Daniele Luchetti
interview: Riccardo Tozzi
film profile
]
(see Focus), Enrico Pau’s Jimmy della collina, Fulvio Wetzl’s Mineurs, Eugenio Cappucio’s One out of Two [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, Federico Zampaglione’s Nero bifamiliare and Gianni Zanasi’s Nella mischia.

Nine documentaries also feature, including Daniele Vicari’s My Country and Davide Ferrario’s Primo Levi's Journey [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
.

This year’s festival will also be paying homage to Rome and the Lazio region, with the screening of a dozen films, as part of Cinecittà’s 70th anniversary celebrations. The traditional Film Masterclass will be held by Giuseppe Rotunno, who worked as DoP for Visconti and Fellini, among many others.

The conference for film industry professionals ("How to encourage European co-productions?") will be attended by representatives of the Baden-Wurtemberg, Catalonia, Rhône-Alpes, Paca (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur) and Piémont regional film funds.

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(Translated from French)

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