02/10/2002

The 20th Italian Film Festival of Annecy opens today, 2 October. Presided over by veteran Italian director, Ettore Scola, the festival will run until 8 October and screen the very best of this year’s Italian productions. The five-man jury of industry operators including Italian film director, Mario Martone, will decide which of the 8 features selected deserves to take home the Gran Prix. The titles include : Mari del sud by Marcello Cesena, Benzina by Monica Lisa Stambrini, Incantesimo napoletano by Paolo Genovese and Luca Miniero, La vita come viene by Stefano Incerti and Velocità massima by Daniele Vicari.
The Panorama section will showcase recent films like Gabriele Salvatores’ Amnesia, Alessandro D’Alatri’s Casomai and Luciano Ligabue’s Da Zero a Dieci. This year’s inaugural film is Emanuele Crialese’s Respiro while the Special Events section includes the screenings of the latest films by Marco Bellocchio and Pupi Avati, as well as Michele Placido’s box office topping Un viaggio chiamato amore and the restored version of Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
The Annecy programme also includes a good number of tributes and retrospectives including a selection of films by Gianni Amelio, Bernardo Bertolucci, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Francesco Rosi and Dino Risi. The winner of this year’s traditional Sergio Leone Award is Silvio Soldini, popular in Italy for films like Bread and Tulips and his latest Brucio nel Vento but little-known abroad.

(Translated from French)