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Saint Clare starring Bella Thorne will open this year’s Taormina Film Festival.

The July fest has unveiled gala lineup, including action title Twisters directed by Lee Isaac Chung starring Daisy Edgar-Jones; psychological thriller The Surfer by Lorcan Finnegan starring Nicolas Cage and Il giudice ed il boss, which comes from the director of Placido Rizzotto, Pasquale Scimeca.

The main titles are completed by three rom-coms with the British-Icelandic Touch, directed by filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur and starring Kôki; and two Italian films, L’invenzione di noi due by Corrado Ceron starring Lino Guanciale, Silvia D’Amico and Paolo Rossi; and Finché notte non ci separi by Riccardo Antonaroli starring Pilar Fogliati, Filippo Scicchitano and Valeria Bilello, which closes the festival.

There will be an international premiere of From Ground Zero that presents the “tale of untold stories” signed by 22 young Palestinian filmmakers who have filmed daily life in Gaza. As ever,...

Other winners included Chinese crime drama 12 Citizens and an Indian adaptation of Hamlet.Scroll down for full list of winners

The 9th Rome Film Festival (Oct 15-25) drew to a close tonight with an awards ceremony that saw Stephen Daldry’s Trash take home the Bnl People’s Choice Gala Award.

Set in Brazil, the film centres on three youngsters who make a discovery in a trash dump that puts them on the run from the police. Rooney Mara and Martin Sheen star in the film from Oscar-nominated Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours).

It beat competition from 14 other titles including David Fincher’s Gone Girl, Steven Soderbergh’s TV series The Knick and Andrea Di Stefano’s Escobar: Paradise Lost.

This year for the first time the award-winners in each section of the programme were decided by the audience on the basis of votes cast after the screenings.

Click here for red carpet pictures from Rome[p...

Festival veteran discusses this year’s “pop mix” and a “very challenging” year.

Rome Film Festival (Oct 16-25) artistic director Marco Mueller hails this year’s line-up as a “pop mix”, which combines eclectic genres and nationalities, despite significant festival budget cuts.

“We have a very interesting pop mix,” says the respected veteran, who will depart the festival after this, his third year in charge.

“We move between an unusual Italian comedy [Alessandro Genovesi’s opener Soap Opera], amazing genre films, a large presentation of Latin American cinema – in a strong year for the region, Asian films and some of the key English-language films of the coming awards season.”

Line-up

This year’s line-up comprises 24 world premieres, including Aleksey Fedorchenko’s drama Angels Of Revolution, Christoph Hochhausler’s German thriller The Lies of the Victors and Afghan/German director Burhan Kurbani’s We Are Young. We Are Strong.

English-language titles in the line-up include the European premiere of Stephen Daldry’s Trash, [link...

Name and focus changes for every section, which are now all competitive, resulting in the festival’s structure being “slimmer’.

The ninth Rome Film Festival (Oct 16-25) has revealed a diverse line-up including the Italian premieres for potential awards contenders including David Fincher’s Gone Girl. the world premiere of Takashi Miike’s As the Gods Will and Burhan Qurbani’s We are Young, We are Strong and European premiere of Oren Moverman’s Time Out of Mind, Toronto hit Still Alice and Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet.

This year for the first time the award-winners in each section of the programme will be decided by the audience on the basis of votes cast after the screenings.

Each section has changed name and focus for 2014 and are all competitive, resulting in the festival’s structure being “slimmer’.

Italian comedies Soap Opera and Andiamo a Quel Paese bookend the line-up.

Full line-up

Cinema D’Oggi

World premiere

• Angely...

The 69th edition of the Venice film festival has started with great success, a rich edition full of big surprises, starting from the return of the director Alberto Barbera, who brings new sobriety to a festival that has become larger than life in his late editions.

Barbera, as you can see in the photos, is always smiling and with a smart attitude, proud of his choices and of his juries, and with a president such Michael Mann, who can blame him. This edition presents a little less movies than the previous one but you cannot complain with 18 films in the main competition among which the most awaited “The Master” by Paul Thomas Anderson, “Passion” by Brian de Palma, “Pieta” by Kim Ki Duk, “To the Wonder” by Terrence Malick, the almost blasphemous “Paradies: Glaube” by Ulrich Siedl and the scandalous “Spring Breakers” by Harmony Korine.

For the first time there...

As it has long been speculated, Paul Thomas Anderson's take on the origins of Scientology, "The Master," has scored the final slot on the Venice Film Festival's competition slate, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "The Master" got a secret 70mm screening this weekend in Los Angeles, and Thompson on Hollywood's Beth Hanna was there to report on the "visually dazzling" new work from the "Magnolia" filmmaker. The festival also announced Tuesday the addition of three out-of-competition titles: "How Do I Wish For You To Know My Future (Como voglio che sai il mio future)?" by Ermanno Olmi and Maurizio Zaccaro (Italy), the Mafia film "Convitto Falcone" from Pasquale Scimeca (Italy) and the horror film "Forgotten (Du hast es versprochen)" from Alex Schmidt (Germany).

The competition section of the Venice Film Festival just got a jolt. The festival has confirmed what Deadline reported last week, that added Paul Thomas Anderson’s sure to be controversial film The Master has joined the competition slate. The film is now set to make its debut there. As Deadline also reported, the film will play the Toronto International Film Festival as well. Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as a man who invents a belief system which soars in popularity, and it is regarded as a thinly veiled reference to L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams also star. The Weinstein Company releases the film in Oscar season on September 14. Venice also added Ermanno Olmi’s Come voglio che sia il mio futuro?, Pasquale Scimeca’s Convitto Falcone and the Alex Schmidt-directed horror film Du hast es versprochen to the fest lineup.

The programme for this year’s festival has been announced and there are a number of literature-based films including the Opening Night Gala Never Let Me Go, Closing Night Gala 127 Hours and the provocative ‘Muslim punks’ film The Taqwacores.

With so many films in this year’s Lff programme having their origins in printed form, a discussion panel is also being held on 25th October, with a number of screenwriters discussing their adaptations in the Hollywood Reporter-sponsored event A Novel Idea: Adapting Books for the Screen.

Below a selection of the films with a literary connection screening at this year’s London Film Festival:

Literary Feature Films:

127 Hours; Dir. Danny Boyle – Gripping, adventurous film making and headline grabbing drama from Oscar winning director Danny Boyle, based on Aron Ralston’s book Between a Rock and A Hard Place (set for re-release in January).

The American; Dir. Anton Corbijn – George Clooney...

In addition to the previously announced titles, Tiff just keeps adding more great stuff to their line-up.

The most recent announcement (I’m sure there are more to come), includes a couple of interesting titles along with a couple of heavy weights. Up front is Danny Boyle’s story of survival 127 Hours starring James Franco, Casey Affleck’s bizarre biopic/drama I’m Still Here (trailer), Guillem Morales’ great looking Spanish thriller Julia’s Eyes (trailer) and Matt Reeves’ remake Let Me In (trailer).

Other titles which sound promising include Mitch Glazer’s Passion Play, a fable starring Mickey Rourke and sex bomb Megan Fox, Álex de la Iglesia’s insane parody about the Spanish Civil War with clowns The Last Circus and Benoît Jacquot’s Deep in the Woods.

All of the new additions after the break.

Last Night Massy Tadjedin, USA/France World Premiere

A married couple are...

Yep. Matt Reeves' Let Me In is getting the Special Presentation treatment at the Toronto International Film Festival, along with the latest from Danny Boyle, John Sayles, Clint Eastwood and others. Here's today's announcement:

Toronto International Film Festival Adds New Galas And Special Presentations To Its High-calibre Line-up

Toronto - The Toronto International Film Festival announces the exciting addition of two Galas and 18 Special Presentations to this year's line-up, including 14 World Premieres. This year's Festival includes the world premieres of new films by Clint Eastwood, Danny Boyle, John Sayles, Guillem Morales and Stefano Incerti. The Galas and Special Presentations announced today feature on-screen appearances by Matt Damon, James Franco, Jennifer Connelly, Will Ferrell, Keira Knightley, Joaquin Phoenix, Ed Harris, Toni Servillo, Mickey Rourke, Megan Fox, Bill Murray, Charlotte Rampling, Emma Roberts and Eva Mendes.

Galas

Closing Night Film

Last Night Massy Tadjedin, USA/France World Premiere

A married couple...

I'm adding the make-up of the Venice Film Festival Horizons sidebar selections a little late to the site, I'm mostly curious to see the low ratio of films that'll be picked up from this section for the upcoming Tiff announcements. Deemed as re-branding of the section, a more eclectic melange of titles mixing short, medium length pics, documentaries film and feature length items, of the items that will generate the most interest are the opening and closing titles which were revealed the week before, but we should see media coverage mentions on Paul Morrissey's News From Nowhere, Jose Luis Guerin's docu Guest (I've yet to see 2007/2008's In the City of Sylvia) and Sion Sono's Cold Fish and short film offerings from Guillermo Arriaga, Isaac Julien and Clara Law. Horizons: Feature-length Works "Sleeping Beauty," Catherine Breillat (France, opener) "Oki's Movie," Hong Sang-soo (South Korea, closer) "The Nine Muses,...

Rome -- Directors Marco Bellocchio, Francesco "Cito" Maselli, and Pasquale Scimeca are among nearly 50 Italy-based writers, actors, producers, and directors who have joined forces to create 22Film, a new production company that will set out to back small-budget and high-quality films.

The new company, which was created in opposition to the Silvio Berlusconi government's "vision" of the film industry and the country's cultural heritage, will seek to make 22 such films a year.

Berlusconi, a billionaire media tycoon, has been criticized for using his political power and influence in the media sector to change the kind of movies and television programs made in Italy.

In a statement, the company said it was a "collective response to the policies of the Berlusconi government against out cultural heritage, to continue to tell the true stories of our country, and the many faces of Italy that have never been seen."

The company said it would start work almost immediately.

ROME -- Film legends Michelangelo Antonioni and Wim Wenders will be among the first directors to make films in Sicily with funding from the regional government's new €7 million ($9.2 million) budget from the European Union.

The first film to receive the bulk of its funding from the Sicily fund will be Rosso Malpelo, from director Pasquale Scimeca. But Antonioni and Wenders are thus far the biggest names associated with the project, with plans to film Aquiloni sull'Etna (North Winds on Mt. Etna) and Palermo Story, respectively.

Antonioni, one of the deans of the Italian film industry, has two Oscar nominations and has made more than 40 films over a career spanning more than six decades. Wenders was nominated for a best documentary Oscar in 2000 for Buena Vista Social Club.

Scimeca is best known for his 2000 film Placido Rizzotto, which was honored with a special FEDIC Award at the Venice International Film Festival that year.

The EU announced it would finance the Sicilian fund last year.