Mueller rings changes for Rome Film Festival 2012

New Rome Film Festival Artistic Director Marco Mueller is ringing the changes for the seventh edition of the Rome Film Festival (November 9 – 17).

This year’s festival will feature two additional competitive strands: CinemaXXI (21st-century Cinema) and Perspectives Italy, while in a significant expansion organisers plan to showcase “around sixty” world premieres.

The festival will continue to exhibit largely at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, alongside some other venues in the Italian capital.

Mueller’s selection committee comprising former London festival head Sandra Hebron, Marie-Pierre Duhamel, Enrico Magrelli, Giona Nazzaro, Laura Buffoni and Mario Sesti (documentaries) will scout titles for the main Competition, non-competitive section and CinemaXXI.

The Official Selection will comprise an International Competition, a choice of films Out of Competition, and the two additional competitive showcases. The International Competition will continue to include a maximum of fifteen films, while up to six works will be screened Out of Competition.

CinemaXXI is reserved for works that “reflect the continuous reinvention of cinema on the contemporary visual scene,” and will host a competition showing feature films, medium-length features, and short films, for a maximum of fifteen films.

Perspectives Italy will take stock of new trends in Italian cinema, and will present a maximum of fourteen feature films and seven short films, all in competition.

The festival will host a programme of meetings with film professionals, conferences, seminars, and workshops for film projects and from November 14 - 18, the festival’s regular film market, The Business Street (TBS), and its co-production market, New Cinema Network (NCN), will be held in the centre of Rome.

Alongside the Official Selection, starting this year the festival will host Alice Nella Città, the showcase of youth-oriented cinema, as an independent sidebar.

The films in the International Competition will be judged by an international iury of seven who will assign the Golden Marc’Aurelio for Best Film, the Best Director Award, the Special Jury Prize, the Best Actor and Best Actress Awards, the Emerging Actor or Actress Award, the Award for Best Technical Contribution, and the Award for Best Screenplay.

An international jury of five will present the CinemaXXI Award and also the Special Jury Prize to feature-length films competing for CinemaXXI, as well as the Award for Short and Medium-length Films in the same section, while a jury of five Italian film and culture personalities will decide on the following awards to films screening in the Perspectives Italy section: the Perspectives Awards for Best Feature Film, Best Documentary and Best Short Film.

An international jury of five film and art personalities will also select the Best Debut Film Award. All first feature films premiering in the various sections of the Official Selection will be eligible for this new award.

The following have been selected as consultants: Chen Zhiheng (China/Hong Kong/Taiwan), Deepti D’Cunha (India), Elma Hadzirdezepovic Tataragic (the Balkans), Sheri Jennings (United States), Babak Karimi (Iran), Diego Lerer (Latin America – Central America, and South America), Paolo Moretti (“out-of-format” works – CinemaXXI), Alëna Shumakova (Russia, and the Commonwealth of Independent States), and Tomita Mikiko (Japan).