The Rome Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 19th edition, which takes place from October 16-27.
Rome will present a lifetime achievement award to Johnny Depp, who will present Modi, his biopic of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, at the festival.
Viggo Mortensen will also receive a lifetime achievement award, and will present The Dead Don’t Hurt, which he wrote, directed and stars in.
Francis Ford Coppola will also be in Rome for a special ‘pre-opening’ festival presentation of the Italian premiere of Megalopolis at Cinecittà Studios – the Rome studio that hosted him while preparing some of the scenes from The Godfather Part III. The Mayor of Rome will also dedicate a special tribute from the city to Coppola.
Rome has lined up 18 films for its International Competition, titled Progressive Cinema – Visions for the World of Tomorrow.
Eight are world premieres. They include dark comedy The Trainer by American History X director Tony Kaye, which stars Vito Schnabel, Julia Fox and Steven Van Zandt.
Also world premiering in competition is Reading Lolita in Tehran, which has an ensemble cast led by actors Golshifteh Farahani (Paterson) and Zar Amir-Ebrahimi (Holy Spider). The Italian-Israeli co-production is directed by Eran Riklis (Lemon Tree).
Berlinguer. La Grande Ambizione by Andrea Segre is the festival’s opening film and also world premieres in competition. It stars Elio Germano as Enrico Berlinguer, who led the Italian Communist Party from 1972 to 1984.
Also world premiering in competition are Teemu Nikki’s Finnish-Italian 100 Litres Of Gold, Gilles Bourdos’ Le Choix starring Vincent Lindon, and a trio of Italian feature – Elisabetta Sgarbi’s L’isola Degli Idealisti, Luca Barbareschi’s Paradiso In Vendita and Sara Petraglia’s L’Albero.
Other competition titles include Christopher Andrews’ thriller Bring Them Down, an Ireland-UK-Belgium co-production starring Christopher Abbott and Barry Keoghan.
The festival’s non-competitive sections include Freestyle, Grand Public, Special Screenings, Best of 2024 and History of Cinema.
The Grand Public line-up includes Edward Berger’s Conclave, John Crowley’s We Live In Time, Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night and Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl.
Among the Best of 2024 screenings are awards favourites such as Sean Baker’s Anora, Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez, Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance.
The artistic director of Rome Film Festival is Paola Malanga.
International Competition line-up
100 Litres Of Gold (Fin-It)
Dir Teemu Nikki
L’Albero (It)
Dir Sara Petraglia
L’Art d’être Heureux (Belg-Fr)
Dir Stefan Liberski
Berlinguer. La Grande Ambizione (It-Belg-Bulg)
Dir Andrea Segre
Bring Them Down (Ire-UK-Belg)
Dir Christopher Andrews
Le Choix (Fr)
Dir Gilles Bourdos
About Luis (Ger)
Dir Lucia Chiarla
Greedy People (US)
Dir Potsy Ponciroli
L’Isola Degli Idealisti (It)
Dir Elisabetta Sgarbi
Jazzy (US)
Dir Morissa Maltz
Bound In Heaven (China)
Dir Huo Xin
Reading Lolita In Tehran (It-Isr)
Dir Eran Riklis
La Nuit Se Traîne (Belg)
Dir Michiel Blanchart
Polvo Serán (Sp-It-Switz)
Dir Carlos Marques-Marcet
Querido Trópico (Pan-Col)
Dir Ana Endara
Spirit World (Sing)
Dir Eric Khoo
Paradiso In Vendita (It-Fr)
Dir Luca Barbareschi
The Trainer (US)
Dir Tony Kaye
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