The line-up assembled by Marco Müller for the 70th edition of the Taormina Film Festival - opening on Friday 12 July - is set to satisfy all kinds of audiences, from big fans of blockbusters to lovers of Italian romantic comedies.

The Gala is at the heart of the event, a line-up showcasing 7 titles at the Teatro Antico - including 4 world premieres - and placing particular focus on first and second works. It kicks off on 13 July with Mitzi Peirone’s American horror Saint Clare, followed by Lee Isaac Chung’s action film, Twisters, starring British actress Daisy Edgar-Jones, known for the miniseries Normal People. There’ll also be the psychological thriller The Surfer [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (Australia/Ireland - treated to a Midnight Screening in Cannes) by Irish director Lorcan Finnegan, starring Nicolas Cage; Il giudice e il boss by Pasquale Scimeca, in memory of the anti-mafia hero, judge and politician Cesare Terranova, and, last but not least, a rom-com trio consisting of the British-Icelandic work Touch, directed by multiple-award-winner Baltasar Kormákur (known for 101 Reykjavik and Everest [+lire aussi :
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fiche film], among others) and starring Japanese model and singer Kôki, and the two Italian movies L’invenzione di noi due by Corrado Ceron, starring Lino Guanciale, Silvia D’Amico and Paolo Rossi, and Finché notte non ci separi by Riccardo Antonaroli, starring Pilar Fogliati, Filippo Scicchitano and Valeria Bilello, which is scheduled to close the festival.

The Focus Mediterraneo, for its part, will host an international premiere of From Ground Zero, a collective film born out of a project which Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi launched after war broke out on the heels of the terrorist attacks on 7 October 2023: it tells “untold stories” of everyday life in Gaza, as penned by 22 young Palestinian filmmakers. The master of Israeli cinema Amos Gitai is returning to Taormina with Shikun [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (screened in this year’s Berlinale Special) and Danish-Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel will explore the world of illegal Arab immigrants in the European Union by way of To a Land Unknown [+lire aussi :
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interview : Mahdi Fleifel
fiche film] (selected in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight). Two films by French authors also feature in this section: an international premiere of the unabridged version of Who Knows? by Jacques Rivette, starring Sergio Castellitto (who’ll introduce the screening), and a world premiere of the English-language version of Filmlovers! [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] by Arnaud Desplechin (treated to a Special Screening in Cannes). There’ll also be Chilean-Swedish director Daniel Espinosa telling the story of a people trafficker in the Italian South in Madame Luna [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] (presented in the IFFR), and Thierry de Peretti will return to his birth-country, Corsica, by way of In His Own Image [+lire aussi :
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interview : Thierry de Peretti
fiche film] (selected for the Directors’ Fortnight), to tell the tale of the political tumult on the island at the end of the 1970s, as explored through the life of a young photographer.

Officina Sicilia, meanwhile, is a special showcase for TV series shot on the island – such as Valeria Golino’s series The Art of Joy – and for four first works and one second work, namely Quir by Nicola Bellucci, La bocca dell’anima by Giuseppe Carleo, Tre regole infallibili by Marco Gianfreda, Pietra madre by Daniele Greco and Mauro Maugeri, and Il ladro di stelle cadenti by Francisco Saia, not to mention Aurelio Grimaldi’s new movie La rieducazione, screening in a world premiere.