23/09/2022 - New director Paola Malanga reintroduces a competitive element, with 130 titles screening throughout the festival running 13-23 October

Popular and experimental films, a section for new talent, resurgent genres such as westerns and romantic comedies, a widespread female presence (7 of the 16 films in competition are directed by women) and so much “wanted and deserved” Italian cinema. This is how Paola Malanga - the festival’s new artistic director who is taking up the baton after Antonio Monda’s seven years at the helm of the event, which is now reaching its 17th edition - presented her first ever Rome Film Fest. New sections but, most importantly, the return of an international competition “which everyone wanted” characterise the new direction of the festival, which is set to unfold between 13 and 23 October this year, at the Parco della Musica Auditorium and on 28 screens throughout the city, including the Nuovo Sacher Cinema belonging to Nanni Moretti, who will compose his own selection of films to promote from the festival.

The new Progressive Cinema Competition consists of 16 titles, including fiction films, documentaries and animations. Featuring among these are European titles such as French movies The Lockdown Tower [+see also:
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film profile] by Guillaume Nicloux and Houria [+see also:
film review
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film profile] by Mounia Meddour, French-Ukrainian film Shttl by Amy Walter, Germany’s In a Land That No Longer Exists by Aerun Goette, Italian works La cura by Francesco Patierno and I morti rimangono con la bocca aperta by Fabrizio Ferraro, Spanish films Ramona [+see also:
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interview: Andrea Bagney
film profile] by Andrea Bagney and El caso Padilla by Pavel Giroud, Latvia’s January [+see also:
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film profile] by Viesturs Kairiss, Switzerland’s Thunder [+see also:
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interview: Carmen Jaquier
film profile] by Carmen Jaquier and the French-Tunisian-Palestinian-Saudi Arabian-Qatari co-production Alam [+see also:
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film profile] by Firas Khoury. The selection is rounded off by American movies Causeway by Lila Neugebauer, Raymond & Ray by Rodrigo García and Sanctuary by Zachary Wigon, as well as Korean work Jeong-sun by Jeong Ji-hye and Hong Kong’s The Hotel by Wang Xiaoshuai.

The non-competitive Grand Public section composed of 16 titles aimed at wider audiences is set to boast hotly anticipated Italian titles such as The Hummingbird [+see also:
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interview: Benedetta Porcaroli
film profile] by Francesca Archibugi (opening film),  Caravaggio’s Shadow [+see also:
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film profile] by Michele Placido (starring Louis Garrel and Isabelle Huppert), Strangeness [+see also:
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film profile] by Roberto Andò, War - La guerra desiderata [+see also:
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film profile] by Gianni Zanasi, Robbing Mussolini [+see also:
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film profile] by Renato De Maria, Il principe di Roma [+see also:
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film profile] by Edoardo Falcone, Era ora by Alessandro Aronadio, and Astolfo [+see also:
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film profile] by Gianni Di Gregorio. European films in the line-up include The Lost King [+see also:
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film profile] by Stephen Frears, La signora Harris va a Parigi by Anthony Fabian, What’s Love Got to Do With It [+see also:
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film profile] by Shekhar Kapur, and Rheingold [+see also:
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film profile] by Fatih Akin.

Titles deserving of a mention within the Freestyle section - composed of 25 works which are free both in terms of form and style - include Bassifondi [+see also:
film review
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film profile] which is directed by Francesco Prividori and written by the D’Innocenzo brothers, Django, the series by Francesca Comencini, starring Matthias Shoenaertz and Noomi Rapace, the second season of Romulus by Matteo Rovere, the series Sono Lillo by Eros Puglielli, the Italian-Spanish documentary Daniel Pennac: ho visto Maradona! by Ximo Solano, the Italian-German doc Trained to See - Three Women and the War by Luzia Schmid, and Jane Campion, la femme cinéma by France’s Julie Bertuccelli.

Movies set to be treated to a special screening include A Cooler Climate by James Ivory (who’s set to receive the Lifetime Achievement award), Kill Me If You Can by Alex Infascelli, and Polanski, Horowitz. Hometown [+see also:
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film profile] by Mateusz Kudla and Anna Kokoszka-Romer. The Best of 2022 section will bring together 11 films hailing from other international festivals, including Palme D’Or winner Triangle of Sadness [+see also:
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interview: Ruben Östlund
interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile] by Ruben Ostlund, Final Cut! [+see also:
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interview: Michel Hazanavicius
film profile] by Michel Hazanavicius, Scarlet [+see also:
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interview: Pietro Marcello
film profile] by Pietro Marcello, The Innocent [+see also:
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film profile] by Louis Garrel, the Ukrainian candidate for the Oscars Klondike [+see also:
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interview: Maryna Er Gorbach
film profile] by Maryna Er Gorbach, The Beasts [+see also:
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interview: Rodrigo Sorogoyen and Isabe…
film profile] by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, and Forever Young [+see also:
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interview: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
film profile] by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.

The public will also get to see the likes of Mario Martone, Luc Besson, Stephen Frears, Paolo Virzì and James Gray, who will be speaking about their first films. Tributes and retrospectives, meanwhile, will be dedicated to the protagonists of this year’s festival, Joan Woodward and Paul Newman, as well as to Marisa Paredes and Jean-Luc Godard. A great many restored films are likewise on the agenda, including The Big Feast by Marco Ferreri, The Stolen Children by Gianni Amelio and La porta del cielo by Vittorio De Sica.

(Translated from Italian)