Black and White
Rome Film Festival announced the titles of the first five English-language films on the lineup of the ninth edition taking place October, 16 to 25, 2014. The program section Cinema d’Oggi (Cinema Today) will present the European Premiere of Time Out of Mind by Oren Moverman (starring Richard Gere and Jena Malone). The Gala section will present the International Premiere of Trash by Stephen Daldry (starring Rooney Mara and Martin Sheen); the International Premiere of Love, Rosie by Christian Ditter (starring Lily Collins and Sam Claflin) and the European Premiere of Black and White by Mike Binder (starring Kevin Costner, Gillian Jacobs, Jennifer Ehle and Octavia Spencer), presented in collaboration with the independent sidebar Alice nella Città. Finally, the European Premiere of Stonehearst Asylum by Brad Anderson (starring Kate Beckinsale, Jim Sturgess, Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine, Brendan Gleeson, and David Thewlis) will be presented in the Mondo Genere (Genre World) section.
Time Out of Mind marks the return behind the camera for writer-director Oren Moverman. His debut feature, The Messenger, saw him awarded the Berlinale Silver Bear for Best Screenplay (with Alessandro Camon). He is also the director of Rampart, a gritty thriller based on a subject by cult writer James Ellroy, who co-wrote the screenplay. Moverman’s new film stars Richard Gere, the icon and star of An Officer and a Gentleman, Pretty Woman, and Chicago, in a remarkable, ground breaking performance. In Time Out of Mind the famous American actor plays a man in dire straits who is forced to find refuge in a homeless shelter. As he struggles to get by, he also tries to reconnect with his daughter, played by Jena Malone (Return to Cold Mountain, Pride and Prejudice, The Messenger, Hunger Games: Catching Fire).
Trash
Trash is the new film by the award-winning English filmmaker and theatre director Stephen Daldry, director of several of the most beloved films of the past decade, all of which were nominated for an Oscar®: Billy Elliot, The Hours, The Reader, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In Trash, a dramatic thriller set in a Brazilian megalopolis, Daldry brings to the screen the eponymous novel by Andy Mulligan. The screenplay is by Richard Curtis, the author of successful comedies such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, The Diary of Bridget Jones, and Love Actually. The cast features Rooney Mara, the young actress famous for her roles in The Social Network, Millenium: Men who Hate Women and Her (screened in Rome in 2013), and Martin Sheen, the extraordinary film and television actor, star of masterpieces such as Badlands by Terrence Malick and Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola, and winner of the Golden Globe for his role as the US President in the television series The West Wing.
Love, Rosie
Love, Rosie, the film adaptation of the best-selling “Where Rainbows End” by author Cecelia Ahern, is directed by German screenwriter and director Christian Ditter, auteur of the award-winning short films Enchanted and Grounded, and the box-office hit feature French for Beginners. The film tells the story of two young people, Rosie and Alex, who have been best friends since childhood, and are forced to live apart; their relationship will continue in e-mails, letters, text messages, postcards, as they move closer together or farther apart, always on the fine line between friendship and love. The female star of the film is Lily Collins, the actress and model who achieved fame in the film Mirror Mirror, alongside Julia Roberts. The film also features Sam Claflin (Finnick Odair in the Hunger Games saga) and Christian Cooke (Mercutio in Carlo Carlei’s Romeo and Juliet, presented at the Rome Film Festival in 2013).
Black and White is the new film by director, actor, and screenwriter Mike Binder (The Sex Monster, The Upside of Anger, Man About Town) stars Oscar®-winning actors Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves, The Bodyguard, JFK) and Octavia Spencer (The Help, Snowpiercer, included in the 2013 Rome Film Festival). Black and White – presented in collaboration with the independent sidebar Alice nella città – explores the tensions caused by the racial divide, focusing on the painful domestic story of lawyer Elliot Anderson who, with his wife, raises his black granddaughter Eloise. When his wife dies, he will be forced to fight for legal custody against Rowena, the child’s grandmother. The two starring actors are joined by Anthony Mackie (Real Steel, The Fifth Estate,Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and Jennifer Ehle (The Ides of March, Contagion, Zero Dark Thirty).
Stonehearst Asylum
Stonehearst Asylum is the latest film by Brad Anderson, the cult director of Session 9, The Machinist, Transsiberian presented at the Berlin Film Festival, Vanishing on the 7th Street, and The Call. Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether”, Stonehearst Asylum is a thriller set in an asylum that conceals an alarming secret. The film features a heavyweight cast including Sir Ben Kingsley (winner of an Oscar® for Gandhi, who has worked for directors such as Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Roman Polanski, and James Ivory), Kate Beckinsale (Pearl Harbor, Underworld, The Aviator), Jim Sturgess (21, Across the Universe, The Best Offer, Cloud Atlas), Brendan Gleeson (Gangs of New York, Troy, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), and Daniel Thewlis (Total Eclipse, Seven Years in Tibet, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for Naked). Stonehearst Asylum also features two-time Oscar®-winner Sir Michael Caine (whose memorable performances have contributed greatly the history of cinema, from Alfie to Batman Begins, Sleuth, The Wilby Conspiracy, The Man Who Would Be King, Hannah and Her Sisters).