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Al Pacino to help kick off Rome's third film festival
2008-10-21
ROME (AFP) - US Oscar winner Al Pacino will help kick off the Rome film festival on Wednesday as he picks up an achievement award on behalf of the Actors Studio, springboard for many of Hollywood's best and brightest. The nod to Hollywood will however be one of few at this year's third edition of the festival, which instead will shine the spotlight on European talent. Only one American feature will be among the 20 films in competition this year, Gavin O'Connor's "Pride and Glory" starring Edward Norton. Lending star power to the festival out of competition will be the premier of British director Saul Dibb's "The Duchess" with Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes. A UN-backed project involving several big cinema names such as Jane Campion, Gael Garcia Bernal, Gaspar Noe, Gus Van Sant and Wim Wenders, "Huit/Eight" on world poverty, will also be screened at the festival. Other political films include "Good" by British director Vicente Amorim, about the rise of Nazism, "Osama" director Siddiq Barmak's "Opium War" set in Afghanistan and mafia film "Galantuomini" by Edoardo Winspeare of Portugal. All three are vying for the festival's best film, best actor and best actress prizes. Out of competition, Meryl Streep stars as herself in John Walter's documentary "Theatre of War" about the 2006 staging of a modern adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play "Mother Courage" in New York's Central Park. "To me it is the most anti-war play that exists," Streep told the ANSA news agency, adding that she took the part out of her "anger and frustration over the direction in which US policy has taken the country." On the light side, British filmmaker Stephen Elliott will offer the much-anticipated European premiere of the comedy "Easy Virtue" based on the 1925 Noel Coward play. The festival, which will run until October 31, was launched in 2006 by then Rome mayor Walter Veltroni, a film buff with many friends in Hollywood. Its future looked uncertain ahead of Italy's general elections in April as the right-wing candidate to succeed Veltroni, eventual winner Gianni Alemanno, threatened to scrap it or at least make it more Italian. Two of the five Italian films competing this year will bookend the festival, which will open with "L'Uomo Che Ama" (The Man Who Loves) by Maria Sole Tognazzi starring the sultry Monica Bellucci and close with Maurizio Scaparro's out-of-competition "L'Ultima Pulcinella". Five French films are in the lineup including the comedy "Aide-Toi et le Ciel T'Aidera" (With a Little Help from Myself) by Francois Dupeyron starring Claude Rich, "Cliente" (A French Gigolo) by Josianne Balasko and "Le Plaisir de Chanter" (The Joy of Singing) by Ilan Duran Cohen, starring Jeanne Balibar and Laurent Deutsch. A lifetime achievement award will be bestowed on Italian legend Gina Lollobrigida, whose career has spanned more than six decades.
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