rome film festival Tagged Articles at Cinematical

A few international film festivals have announced their jury heads today, so here's a roundup, plus other fest circuit news:

• Chinese auteur Wong Kar-Wai (2046) will be replacing the late Anthony Minghella as the head of the jury at this month's Shanghai International Film Festival. Minghella, who died in March, will be honored by the fest, which runs June 14-22. Other jury members include filmmaker Bille August and Joan Chen, who once starred in a film co-written by Wong (1986's E nan).
• Actor Danny Huston (Children of Men) will head the Michael Powell jury at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, which runs June 18-29. He and others, including actress Joely Richardson and filmmaker Iain Softley, will be voting for the winner of the prestigious Michael Powell award. Last year's winner was Anton Corbijn's Control.
• Italian film critic Gian Luigi Rondi has been invited to be the new president of the three-year-old Rome Film Festival following a political shakeup that caused the resignation of former president Goffredo Bettini. Rondi was the artistic director of the Venice Film Festival between 1983 to 1986 and currently heads Italy's version of the Academy Awards, the David di Donatello Awards. He has so far declined that he will accept. The 2008 festival will run October 21-31.
• Jean-Luc Godard may be boycotting the Tel Aviv Student Film Festival, but other French filmmakers are set to attend another event, the Tel Aviv French Film Festival, which begins June 10. Those scheduled to appear include Alexandre Arcady, Diane Kurys and Laetitia Masson. Popular films set to screen include The Secret of the Grain and Love Songs, my review for which you can read here.

It's not much of a secret that Francis Ford Coppola did The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II in order to work on more personal films, particularly The Conversation. So, it isn't that surprising to find out neither those two nor The Godfather: Part III are among his personal favorites. According to Page Six, Coppola considers his five best films to be Apocalypse Now, Rumble Fish, The Rain People, his upcoming Youth Without Youth and, obviously, The Conversation, which also happens to be my favorite of his work. This shortlist comes from the next issue of Time magazine, which also includes a continuation of a lengthy two-part profile on the filmmaker. Within the article, Coppola suggests that it's his films that took awhile for critics to appreciate, like Apocalypse, or awhile for audiences to discover, like Rain People, that he prefers.

None of this should upset his fans; they still love The Godfather trilogy, and at least his other monument, Apocalypse, is included. It isn't like he selected Jack or Captain EO. Also in Time is Coppola's clarification of his alleged chiding of Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson, which apparently was taken out of context. He told reporters at the Rome Film Festival, where Youth premiered last month, that his comments in GQ weren't true, that he has "nothing but respect and admiration" for the three actors, who he considers the best in the world, as well as his friends. However, he wouldn't address the original comments specifically for Time's article. Other things that were discussed in the profile include Coppola's next film, Tetro, which will begin shooting in Argentina in February, despite the recent robbery. Youth Without Youth, which sounds a lot better to me since Coppola lumped it with my own favorites of his films, is set to hit U.S. theaters (NYC and L.A.) December 14.

News hit this morning that a laptop owned by Francis Ford Coppola had been stolen from an office in Buenos Aires, where Coppola's Zoetrope Argentina was set up to do pre-production work on the filmmaker's next project, Tetro. The robbery happened Wednesday night, involved the tying up of Zoetrope employees, one of whom was cut by a knife, and apparently also included the theft of other computer, cameras and valuables. On the specific laptop, though, was a real treasure for cinephiles: the screenplay for Tetro, which we previously learned is about Italian immigrants in Argentina. It wasn't the only copy, of course, but it was a shame. Still, the original story seemed not to be devastating for Coppola, who wasn't in the area, as he isn't expected to begin shooting until next year. As of this morning, it didn't even seem like he was going to issue a statement about the incident.

However, now Coppola has spoken to the press regarding the robbery. It turns out the computers did have some very significant items on them, including personal and family photographs, reportedly all those of his life, as well as all of his writings from the past 15 years. It would seem like an odd place to keep such personal belongings, but considering Tetro is partially autobiographical, it makes sense that the office would have access to items from Coppola's life. Of course, he probably should have only left copies of his life down in Argentina, but it's not fair to criticize his mistake at such a stressful moment. Coppola spoke on a local television station in Buenos Aires, mentioning that he would really, really like it if he could get his backup disk back. He claims it would save him years of work if he could have the lost files returned. He also stated that he would be moving the Zoetrope office out of its Palermo location and into another safer neighborhood. We'll have to wait and see if the incident has disrupted plans for Tetro's filming.

Next Wednesday, August 29, the Venice Film Festival gets under way. The fest serves as the starting point for the fall season of serious, award-worthy movies, with "secretive in advance but always well curated" Telluride starting two days later and giant monster fest Toronto (349 freakin' movies!) kicking off the following week. Kim Voynar wrote a lovely, detailed article on these major players, but, as reported by Variety in two different articles, other festivals are clamoring for attention too.

Located on the northern coast of Spain, San Sebastian hosts the 55th edition of their beloved festival, which takes place from September 20-29. Variety lists the 18 films in competition and highlights Nick Broomfield's Battle for Haditha, Wayne Wang's A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and Paulo Barzman's Emotional Arithmetic. The festival opens with David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises and closes with Michael Radford's Flawless.

The Rome Film Festival stormed onto the scene last year to the derision of Venice director Marco Müller , who reportedly snipped that Rome was screening "films that neither we nor Cannes wanted." For this year's edition, Rome scored a possible coup with the already-announced world premiere of Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth. According to the festival site, Coppola told a film magazine: "I think film festivals are a thing of the past, completely obsolete ... On the contrary, in Rome there seems to be a sincere desire to choose and screen films for the audience."

As Variety notes, several just-announced titles will be making their European debuts: Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Hector Babenco's The Past, Julio Medem's Caotica ana, Dario Argento's The Mother of Tears, Silvio Soldini's Days and Clouds and Steven Sebring's Patti Smith: A Dream of Life. Expect more news as the program is finalized; the festival runs from October 18-27.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but it sure didn't get help from New York City. So why does the Rome Film Festival, which kicks off its first edition next month (Oct. 13 - 21), need the assistance of NYC's Tribeca Film Festival? It probably doesn't, but nonetheless, as Martha reported last month, a partnership between the two was made. Today there was an official announcement of the union, as Mayor Bloomberg welcomed Rome's Mayor Walter Veltroni and RFF CEO Carlo Fuortes to his city. They joined with TFF founders Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff to reveal the films Rome has selected for their Tribeca-conjunction showcase. They are Akeelah and the Bee, The War Tapes, The Bridge, The Lew Rudin Way, The Mist in the Palm Trees (La Niebla en las Palmeras) and The Yacoubian Building. Additionally, a few other films that played at Tribeca this past Spring are already on Rome's slate of films, including Driving Lessons, I'm Reed Fish, Just Like the Son and Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project. Next year, Tribeca will likewise borrow some of this year's RFF titles for a similar showcase.

Rome will also be presenting its first "Steps and Stars Award" to the Tribeca Film Festival, in recognition of its significant contribution to the film industry. De Niro will accept the award on the TFF's behalf while at Rome previewing 20 minutes of his new film, The Good Shepherd.