Lifetime Achievement Award for Oliver Stone together with production designer Allan Starski (Oscar for “Schindler’s List) and Russian director Alexander Sokurov (Golden Lion for” Faust”)
The 19th edition of the international film competition will be held from June 26th to July 3rd, in the Aragonese Castle: every evening a double screening will be introduced by the protagonists of the seventh art.
The guests will include Alessandro D’Alatri, Barbara Bouchet, Marco Bocci, Roy Krispel, Marta Gastini, Bruno Gascon, Valto Baltzar.
Oliver Stone will attend the festival, one of the directors who have most marked the last forty years of cinema, and Alexander Sokurov, Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival with “Faust” in 2011. And again: Allan Starski, Oscar award-winning set designer for “Schindler’s List”. With international guests, the nineteenth edition of the Ischia Film Festival marks the historic return to major cultural events with the audience.
“The return of internationally renowned guests at the Ischia Film Festival is an important signal of restart for a sector deeply hit by the forced inactivity of the recent months and, in general, for the entire country, which is recovering with optimism, regaining the lost freedoms and the direct use of art, in a scenario of absolute splendor”, emphasizes the founder of the event, Michelangelo Messina.
Oliver Stone, who has directed films such as “Platoon”, “Natural Born Killers”, “Wall Street”, “Born on the Fourth of July”, “JFK ” and “Nixon”, winning three Oscars and four Golden Globes, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award on Wednesday, June 30th, meeting the public at the Cathedral of the Assumption before the screening of his “Any Given Sunday”, a 1999 film with a stellar cast, led by Al Pacino.
With the usual formula, aimed at celebrating the films that enhance the cultural identity of the territories, especially in times marked by the pandemic, the Ischia Film Festival will provide every evening a double screening introduced by meetings with the authors, with the audience, in the three suggestive open-air halls of the Aragonese Castle (Piazza d’Armi, the terrace of the House of the Sun and in the Cathedral of the Assumption) – everything in full compliance with the health regulations against Covid.
For the 4 competitive sections and 3 non-competitive sections, 96 works were selected from 42 countries around the world. Among these there will be 47 previews of which 14 will be exclusive, 4 international, 4 European and 25 Italian, in a heterogeneous fresco able to reflect on topical issues, from the environment to gender violence, as well as social commitment, historical revisions and intimate reflections.
For the works in competition, the sections Feature Films, Short Films, Location Denies, Campania Scenarios have been confirmed. Among the selected films, 41 are Italian productions or co-productions, while 55 are foreign works, with as many as 43 films that will be screened in the original language with Italian subtitles thanks to a scrupulous subtitling work by the festival. Among the premieres in competition, there will also be “Echoes of the Empire” by American director Robert H. Lieberman, the French-Finnish musical comedy “Le Café de mes Souvenirs”, the long motorcycle trip between two unlikely friends “Pozzis Samarcanda”, the story of a painful kidnapping in “Sombra”, which will be presented by Bruno Gascon and “Abu Omar” by the Israeli Roy Krispel. The meetings with the authors will be conducted by film critics Antonio Capellupo and Giuseppe Borrone, with the extraordinary participation of Gianni Canova.
The opening film on Saturday, June 26 at 20:30 is “Quo vadis, Aida?” by Jasmila Žbanić; followed by “L’ultimo Paradiso” by Rocco Ricciardulli with Riccardo Scamarcio. Among the protagonists of Sunday, June 27, there will be Barbara Bouchet (who will be awarded with the Ischia Film Award) and Marco Bocci, who will introduce the screening of “Calibro 9” with the director Toni D’Angelo. Director Francesco Bruni will attend the screening of “Cosa sarà”.
On Monday 28 June, Allan Starski will meet the public and receive the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Ischia Film Festival, before the screening of another of his masterpieces, “Oliver Twist”. Simultaneously, in another room under the stars, director Giorgia Farina will present “Guida romantica a posti perduti”, in which Jasmine Trinca and Clive Owen embark on a journey across Europe.
Marta Gastini will be the protagonist of two films “Io sono vera” by Beniamino Catena and the preview of the film “Black Parthenope” by Alessandro Giglio.
An international allure will also cloak the moonlit evening on Friday, July 2nd, dedicated to the talent of Alexander Sokurov, who will receive the IFF 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award, before the screening of his masterpiece “Russian Ark”, a unique sequence shot of about ninety minutes in which the subjective gaze of the camera travels through different historical periods in a metaphysical and dreamlike journey.
The Festival will also offer a wide selection of online films on the digital platform www.ischiafilmfestivalonline.it, where all the works out of competition and most of the works in competition for the sections Location Denied and Short Films will be available.
Saturday, July 3rd will host the grand finale of the festival, with the award ceremony of the winning works at the Cathedral of the Assumption.
A challenging job will be undertaken by the jury made up of Karin Hoffinger, head of international relations at the Berlinale, film critics Zlatko Vidackovic, artistic director of the Pola Film Festival, and Emanuela Martini, former director of the Torino Film Festival by the director and screenwriter Alberto Rizzi, the screenwriter, director and actor Massimo Gaudioso and the art historian Tommaso Strinati, the actress Alessia Barela, the President of the Laceno d’Oro International Film Festival, Antonio Spagnuolo, and the producer and director Emanuele Palamara.
On Monday, June 28th, at 10:00, the 19th International Conference on Film Tourism is scheduled, which will investigate a particularly topical issue: how to reformulate activities now, as the restrictions and the social distancing demanded by the pandemic have increased the digital opportunities, but they have also frayed and modified the link with the territories.
The Ischia Film Festival is held under the High Patronage of the European Parliament, with the accession of the President of the Republic, and with the contribution of the Campania Region (Directorate of Cultural Policies and Tourism) and the General Cinema Directorate of MiC.
Visit also:
Ischia Film Festival Official Website
