Rome Film Fest rewards British cinema, career honours for Bardem and Moore

The winners of the twenty-first Festa del Cinema di Roma were announced on Saturday, October 24 in the Sala Petrassi of the Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone, at the close of an edition that recorded nearly 120,000 total attendees. The best film is ‘I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning’ by Clio Barnard, a story of Birmingham’s working class, which also brings with it the award for best male performance to Anthony Boyle, shared ex aequo with Paolo Pierobon for ‘Brianza’.

The Grand Jury Prize went to ‘The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd’ by Tim Blake Nelson, while best director was awarded to Rafiki Fariala for ‘Congo Boy’, a film that also won the Audience Award together with ‘Mustang’ by Kasia Smutniak. The award for best actress went to Victoria Luengo for ‘Sants’.

The festival also made room for honorary recognitions: during the Rome event, two Career Achievement Awards were presented, to Javier Bardem and Julianne Moore respectively. In addition, there was an award dedicated to behind-the-scenes contributions to the industry, given to Tessa Ross, and a prize designed to highlight emerging artistic careers, awarded to Anthony Ippolito. For the documentary section, the jury selected ‘Dans la gueule de l’ogre’ by Mahsa Karampour, with a special mention for ‘Un hiver russe’ by Patric Chiha.

At Alice nella Città, the section directed by Fabia Bettini and Gianluca Giannelli dedicated to younger audiences, the best film chosen by the youth jury was ‘Everytime’ by Sandra Wollner. Taken together, the awards form an honours list that this year rewards British, African, Spanish and Italian cinema across the board, with no single national cinema clearly prevailing over the others. Among the performers most followed by the Roman public was also Kasia Smutniak, star of ‘Mustang’, the film that shared the Audience Award with ‘Congo Boy’ on the closing night.