The Matthew Online

FilmFest: charity event raises $1.35 million for AIDS research

By Leah Rieger

ROME, Oct. 28 - A charity auction for the funding of AIDS research raised over $1 million on Friday night at a celebrity-filled event that included some John Cabot University student volunteers.

“Romans, lend me your wallets,” Sharon Stone flirtatiously said to the rich and famous who were attending the "Cinema against Aids" benefit organized by the American Foundation for AIDS Research, or amfAR. The event was held in conjunction with the Rome Film Festival to raise money and awareness for AIDS research. 

According to the Associated Press, the event raised $1.35 million. Fendi hosted the event along with Stone, who stood in as the auctioneer.   

FilmFest explores the dreams of Fellini

By Maria D'Alessandro

ROME, Oct 26 - For the first time, the public has the opportunity to look into the secrets of legendary Italian director Federico Fellini's "night work."

The exhibition "Fellini Oniricon," at the Auditorium-Parco della Musica through Nov. 7, presents the director's The Book of My Dreams, a collection of 400 drawings Fellini jotted down as soon as he woke up between 1960 until 1982, an early morning attempt to capture a piece of the previous night's dreams.

"The book shows more than 20 years of such an oneiric artist," said Vittorio Boarini, curator of the exhibition and director of  the Fondazione Federico Fellini in Rimini.

FilmFest: The generations come together for a Beatles musical

By Casey Calvert

ROME, Oct. 26 – Twentysomethings aren’t supposed to like musicals. Or history. Or anything their parents can relate to. So when Paul Fanelli, 20, a Boston College student, uploaded a trailer for the new ‘60s inspired musical film “Across the Universe” onto his Facebook page, he shouldn’t have been inundated with responses.

Right?

Think again.

 

FilmFest: French animators probe our fear of the dark

By Courtney Smith

ROME, 26 Oct. — What lies in the shadows, in the unknown abyss created by imagination, that causes one’s heartbeat to quicken and triggers the imagination?

It is in this obscurity that fear finds us, as depicted in Prima Linea Productions’ animated film "Peur(s) du Noir" (Fear(s) of Darkness) chosen as the "surprise film" in the Cinema 2007 section of the Rome Film Festival.

 

FilmFest by the numbers: the figures look up

By Monica Carolan

ROME, Oct. 25 - The official tally won't be in for a few days, but it appears the Rome Cinema Festival this year has outperformed 2006.

Compared to the inaugural 2006 festival, attendance and attention is up. The number of journalists attending the event in 2006 was 2,400; this year, 2,500. It appears ticket sales will be up as well. According to festival organizers, after the first few days of the festival, 42,000 tickets were sold. In 2006,100,000 tickets were sold in the total eight days of the festival.

FilmFest: yeah it's cliche', but the red carpet still attracts a crowd

By Natalija Dimitriyevitch

ROME, Oct.25 - Paolo Bernardini is not your average 26-year-old Italian. For starters, he's a veteran of the red carpet.

Sitting at Café de Paris on Via Veneto, Bernadini shared with The Matthew Online his thoughts on the Rome Film Festival and on what it takes to break into acting.

FilmFest: New documentary investigates Sao Paolo's kidnapping crisis

By Lindsay Sullivan

ROME, Oct. 25 – Kidnappings seem like an occurrence that only happen in movies. But living with such a fear is a daily routine for many of the10 million inhabitants of the Brazilian capital of Sao Paolo, a new documentary showing this week at the Rome Film Festival shows.

The film "Manda Bala" (Send a Bullet) by first-time director Jason Kohn reveals Sao Paolo's startling truth: one person every day is kidnapped.

Sao Paolo native, Carolina Baldo, told The Matthew Online what it's like to live in a city where the poor live in unimaginable slums and the rich live like aristocracy. “This is very hard because this is the main problem for Brazilians," Baldo says. "If you have money, you have to go around with bullet-proof cars and bodyguards. I came to Italy for that reason as well. Because when I would go out I was always afraid that someone would pull behind me and get me. My uncle got kidnapped for three months and it was so horrible.  So this can really happen to anyone. They just want the money.” 

FilmFest: French film shows it's no fun playing doctor

By Alexa Magdalenski

ROME, Oct. 24 - Children took center stage earlier this week in the screening of “On dirait que…,” (“Let’s Say”), a candid portrayal by children about what it means to be an adult, unscripted from their own points of view.

The film is part of the Alice in the City Competition in the Rome Film Festival.

This French film from 2007 was directed by Francoise Marie and starred a group of children, aged eight to 13, who acted out the occupations of their parents from their own perspective. Make-believe came alive as the children became doctors, teachers, police officers, farmers, grocers, and circus travelers with convincing effect.

FilmFest greets the return of Francis Ford Coppola

By Alexis Blaha

ROME, 24 Oct.—Returning from a 10-year-hiatus, award-winning film director Francis Ford Coppola debuted "Youth Without Youth" on Saturday during the Rome Cinema Fest to express his emotional attachment to his latest film and to the Eternal City.

"Youth Without Youth", or "Altra Giovinezza" in Italian, debuted Oct. 20 at a packed Santa Cecilia Theater in Rome.

Despite the attention, Coppola took the stage to air his issues with film festivals, calling them outdated.  They exist in order to serve as critics’ common ground for destroying films, he told reporters. He did admit he approves of the Rome FilmFest model.

FilmFest fetes Clint Eastwood, Italy's original western hero

By Alexandra May

ROME, Oct 24 — A lone whistle. A cold stare. A drawn gun.

You can add to that "A Fist Full of Dollars", "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", and a million-dollar director.

Clint Eastwood’s steely-eyed look marked a generation of cowboy westerns, classics that were shot locally in Sardinia or in Spain and were produced by Italian studios.

The RomeFilmFest this week paid tribute to its favorite western hero, a star it helped create in the Michael Henry Wilson directed documentary, Clint Eastwood, Le franc tireur.