ITALY: Italian actresses Sophia Loren and Monica Bellucci open Rome's film festival

Record ID: 187010

  • Title: ITALY: Italian actresses Sophia Loren and Monica Bellucci open Rome's film festival
  • Date: 25th October 2007
  • Summary: (SHBZD3) ROME, ITALY (OCTOBER 18, 2007) (REUTERS) WIDE OF NEWS CONFERENCE/ CORNEAU APPLAUDING WIDE OF NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (French) ALAIN CORNEAU, FILM DIRECTOR, SAYING: "We went into this sort of re-manufacturing and revision of the text de Jose Giovanni 40 years later, with a contemporary vision, building a cinematographic universe which is our own, a new one. And this is was accomplished by considering what is done in the US, in Honk Kong, Korea, all this sort of collective work on the film noir, and by searching for the best actor for each role."
  • Embargoed: 9th November 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVAEHVPEN0GYIJAGLYWDQHTIH40Z
  • Story Text: Rome paid tribute to two of its world-famous actresses during the start of the second Rome film festival on Thursday (October 18).
    Homegrown sex symbol Monica Bellucci officially opened the festival, now on its second year, as the gang moll in "Second Wind", a French gangster movie set in the 1960s.
    Bellucci dyed her long, dark hair to play Manouche, the curvy blonde clad in tight sequin dresses who falls for Gustave "Gu" Minda, a middle-aged gangster who has escaped from jail.
    Manouche wants to start a new life with the cash-strapped Gu in Italy, but he insists on pulling one last heist.
    The film, by director Alain Corneau and with Daniel Auteuil as Gu, is a remake of a 1966 French classic by Jean-Pierre Melville which starred Lino Ventura in the gangster's role.
    Both are adaptations of a tale of honour among outlaws by Jose Giovanni, a former criminal-turned-novelist and filmmaker who spent 11 years in prison and said he had based his book on real-life people he met in the underworld.
    For director Alain Corneau, who worked with Giovanni as a young assistant-director and has made several police thrillers, the challenge was ensuring his version is faithful to the original novel and at the same time updating the cinematography with new technology.
    "We went into this sort of re-manufacturing and revision of the text de Jose Giovanni 40 years later, with a contemporary vision, building a cinematographic universe which is our own, a new one. And this is was accomplished by considering what is done in the US, in Honk Kong, Korea, all this sort of collective work on the film noir, and by searching for the best actor for each role," Corneau told reporters after a press screening of the film, which is one of 14 titles in competition at the festival.
    Melville's 1966 film was a big hit, despite being bogged down by constant fighting between the director and Giovanni, as well as a lawsuit by the real Manouche.
    For Bellucci, whose strong-willed character ultimately decides to leave her lover to his fate, working on the film had been a great challenge.
    "I was really looking forward to work with Alain Courneau, and he gave me this role which is like a present to me, because the Manouche character is quite a feminine one but at the same time really strong. She is a business woman, she lives in a world of gangsters and it's a world she knows quite well as she grew up in it and she respects its rules," said Bellucci who added it was her idea to dye her hair blonde to reflect "the image we have of film noir heroines."
    Another curvaceous Italian actress who became a sex symbol in those years, Sophia Loren, received a lifetime achievement award at the festival.
    "Every award for an actress is important because it means you've done well in your career... "It's very special because it is given to me in Italy," the veteran actress said whose acclaimed performance in Vittorio De Sica's Two Women in 1960 earned many awards, including the Cannes, Venice and Berlin Film Festivals' best performance prizes.
    Her performance in that film was also awarded an Academy Award for Best Actress.
    Loren received an honorary Academy Award in 1991 for her contribution to world cinema and was declared "one of the world cinema's treasures".
    She also made well-received appearances in Robert Altman's Ready to Wear and the 1995 comedy Grumpier Old Men playing a femme fatale opposite Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.
    The Rome event runs until Oct. 27 and will screen 140 films.
    Among the most eagerly awaited titles is Saturday's (October 20) world premiere of "Youth Without Youth", Francis Ford Coppola's first movie in 10 years, the story of an ageing teacher who becomes young again after being struck by lightning.
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