Rome opens its Film Festival with Monica Vitti and awards to Bardem and Ross

The news currently comes from a single source — the Rome Film Festival organisation, picked up by Artribune, RomaToday and Sky TG24 — and independent confirmation of the programme details is not yet available.

The twenty-first edition of the Rome Film Festival, artistically directed by Paola Malanga, got under way on Tuesday 13 October and will continue until 25 October, for thirteen days of screenings at the Auditorium Parco della Musica. The choice of Monica Vitti as the face of the official image places the event within the tradition of Italian auteur cinema, a reference that the direction seems to want to keep alongside the international presences on the programme.

The opening evening preceded the presentation of the Industry Career Award to Tessa Ross, British producer and CEO of House Productions, a recognition aimed at those who have built a professional path behind the camera rather than in front of it. This is not an obvious signal: festivals tend to concentrate media attention on the stars of the big screen, whereas here the Festival chose to open precisely with an award to production work, less visible but structural for the industry.

The second career award, given to Javier Bardem, comes instead from the hands of Paolo Sorrentino, in a symbolic passage between two figures who have worked in European auteur cinema. The Spanish actor will also be in Rome to present “El ser querido”, the film directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen included in the Best of 2026 section: his presence therefore is not limited to the ceremony but extends to the actual programming, a choice that reinforces the link between the honorary recognition and the festival’s content.

Compared with past editions, the Festival’s structure — thematic sections, industry awards alongside acting ones, a guiding image drawn from the history of national cinema — confirms a model already established in recent years: not competing on the world premiere status of releases, a field in which other international festivals have a calendar advantage, but building a narrative that holds together Italian cinematic memory and international projection. The dual presentation of awards to a producer and an actor, at the very opening of the event, points in this direction: it signals that the Rome Festival intends to represent the entire film industry chain, not only its most visible face.

It remains to be seen, in the coming days, how the screening programme will concretely develop over the announced thirteen days and which other international titles will find space alongside Sorogoyen’s. At present the available source is a single one and the informational picture is limited to the official announcements of the artistic direction.