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The names of A-list talent headed for the Rome Film Festival this year continued to grow as the eight-year-old event got underway Friday with the world premiere of "The Fifth Wheel," the latest comedy from Italian director Giovanni Veronesi.
The event, which will run through Nov. 17, is under the artistic direction of Marco Mueller, who in previous stints in Locarno and Venice showed a keen eye for film from around the world, including China.
This year's event will have a strong presence from Chinese talents, including a special career honor to Hong Kong's Tsui Hark, whose new "Detective Dee" film will screen outside Asia for the first time, to "Blue Sky Bones" (Lanse Gutou) from Cui Jian, screening among the 18 films vying for the festival's prestigious Marcus Aurelius prize.
"The White Storm" from Hong Kong's Benny Chan, screening out of competition, is among the Chinese titles screening in other sections.
Other lineup highlights include "Dallas Buyers Club" from Jean-Marc Vallee; "Another Me" from Isabel Coixet; and Spike Jonze's "Her" -- all joining "Blue Sky Bones" in competition.
But it is the well-known acting talent many of those films will attract that will wow Roman film fans: the latest announcements are that Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, and Scarlett Johansson will appear on Rome's red carpet this week along with Jennifer Lawrence, the Oscar-winning star of the new "Hunger Games" film, which will make its festival debut in Rome.
Among directors, Jonathan Demme, Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Jonez, and Tsui are some of the biggest names headed to the Italian capital.
Mueller also singled out "Hard to be a God" (Trudno byt' bogom) from Russia's Alesky German as a film worth paying attention to. German worked on the film for 35 years -- so long some cast members grew old and died of old age before it was complete -- but German died in February, before it could screen for the public. It will finally do so in Rome, and the festival will honor German's widow and son with a posthumous career achievement award.
"More than any other film we screen, 'Hard to be a God' may be most likely to be considered a classic one day," Mueller said.
This is Mueller's second year at the helm of the Roman festival, and a few days before the event got underway he said he was out to prove something with this year's edition.
"The Rome Film Festival doesn't have the long history some other events have, but we're out to show that the city can host a successful high visibility event," he said. "We learned a lot over the last year and it shows."
In many ways, the festival is at a cross roads this year, with some key stakeholders pushing for it to be a traditional festival like the ones Mueller directed in the past, and some pushing for more of a metropolitan cinema "party." This year's event is likely to decide which path the event will take, but at least for one edition, the Rome festival is a little of both.
In the festival's opening night Friday, Mueller showed both sides, boasting about the ambitious lineup he pulled together while also scheduling live music he said was more apt for a popular event. Mueller and other festival officials have also taken to calling it a "fest-festival," revealing the event's dual personalities ("fest" is short for the Italian word for "party").
