On
October 25, Italy’s annual marathon film event, 50 Days of International
Cinema, opens in Florence. The series of festivals featuring widely diverse
films, themes, styles and sources add up to 50 days during which sitting in
front of a movie screen will be time well spent. Last year, over 50,000 people
attended screenings, and the feast of films planned in this edition looks
likely to entice just as many, if not more. Be prepared to laugh, cry, wonder,
learn and challenge your preconceptions, as you circle the cinematic world
during this unmissable event.
Kicking
off the event is the Florence Queer Festival (October 25 to 31), which
explores both celebration of diverse sexuality and lifestyle and the need to
fight ongoing discrimination. Films include Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake 3D,
Ross MacGibbon’s novel take on the most famous of Bourne’s classical ballets,
and Jobriath A.D., detailing the life of the first rock star to
publically declare himself gay. The Florence Queer Festival will also include a
photography exhibit by South African Zanele Muholi, who seeks to increase awareness
of the problems faced by gay people in Africa, where ‘corrective’ rape, with
the intention of ‘curing’ homosexuality, is still common practice.
France Odeon Festival (November
1 to 4) commemorates the great and recently deceased Claude Miller, including a
preview of his last film, Thérèse Desqueyroux, starring Audrey Tautou.
Next
up is the Festival dei Popoli (November 10 to 17), featuring a host of
documentaries from all over the world that explore all things contemporary and
new ways in which reality cinema can provide a point of contact with the
general public. New this year through a partnership with MYmovies.it, many of
the documentaries will also be available online.
The
Ethnomusic Film Festival: Images and Sounds of the World (November 18 and
19) explore far-off lands and peoples, rich in colour and alluring sights, and
the exotic and mesmerising sounds that accompany them. Kanzeon: The Magic
Power of Sound draws the viewer into the songs, rites, history and
traditions of Japanese Buddhism, while The Dance of the Wodaabe is a
documentary about the Peul Wodaabe tribes of Niger, and the elaborate dances
and songs of their geerewol courting ceremony.
Contemporary
art meets film during Lo Schermo dell’Arte festival (November 21 to 25).
Through films, videos, installations, book presentations, meetings and
workshops this fascinating and often complicated relationship is unravelled,
dissected, turned on its head and presented with passion to the young fans who
attend this always-sold-out event. British artists are prominent this year,
including the Focus On section, which features British filmmaker Issac Julien,
and the preview of Self Made, the first full-length feature by Gillian
Wearing, winner of the 1997 Turner Prize.
The
cinematography, voices and cultures of the Balkan Peninsula come to Italy
during the Balkan Florence Express (November 26 to 29). Once strong, the
cinematic tradition of the region was shattered in the conflicts of recent
decades. As Balkan filmmaking re-emerges, images of contemporary unrest in
cities and villages, wounds still unhealed, youth attempting to reach beyond
the recent past, and the eruption of new modes of communication are reflected
not only in the narrative structures and images, but even in methods of filming.
With feature films and documentaries from Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina,
Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania, the selection includes perhaps the
most famous film from the Balkans in recent years, Emir Kusturica’s Underground.
Love,
not money, makes the world go round is the message of this year’s International
Festival of Women and Film (November 30 to December 5). Women filmmakers
from around the world interpret the theme of Love or Money in myriad ways,
examining themes of Hollywood models, feminists, globalisation, East and West,
homologous marketing and the avant-garde. Two prizes are part of this festival:
the Sign of Peace, for the movie that explores in an exemplary and positive way
the central conflicts of today; and the Gilda Prize, for the best
representation of the changing image of women in society.
The
Arno and the Ganges flow together during the River to River Indian Film
Festival (December 7 to 13). To mark the upcoming 100th birthday of Indian
cinema, the first Indian film, Raja Harishchandra by Dadasaheb Phalke
(1913) will be screened. A Bollywood guest star, whose name has yet to be
disclosed, will also make an appearance during the festival, which will range
from feature films to documentaries inspired by a passionate and profound
appreciation of Indian culture.
After
screening over 150 films from around the world, the festival turns homeward,
for the New Italian Cinema Events (NICE) City of Florence Prize (December14). The NICE Festival is an itinerant show promoting new Italian
film, and the eight films that were chosen last year to represent Italian
contemporary film have been travelling the globe, from San Francisco to
Kaliningrad, will finish their tour in Florence.
50 Days of International Cinema October 25 to December 14
Most
events and screenings take place at the Odeon Cinema, piazza Strozzi 2,
Florence.
Check
www.odeon.intoscana.it for
shows and times or call 055/214068.
