Hollywood to Salute Italy During a Week-Long Celebration Leading up to the 80th Academy Awards
LOS ANGELES
Five Italian Academy Award-nominees – production designers Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo, composers Dario Marianelli and Marco Beltrami, and young director Andrea Jublin – will be the stars of the 3rd Los Angeles Italy – Film, Fashion and Art Fest (February 17-23, 2008), the grand ‘made in Italy’ festival celebrating Italy’s contribution to the entertainment arts. Promoted by the Capri in the World Institute, with the support of the Cinema Director General of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, the Assessor to Tourism of the Campania Region and of Eni, the festival will undoubtedly do its part to ‘heat up’ the party atmosphere in Hollywood the week before the Oscars are awarded.
Previous Academy Award winners Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo are again nominated for Best Art Direction and Set Decoration Oscars, this time for Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd”; Dario Marianelli, a 2008 Golden Globe winner, is nominated for Best Original Score for Joe Wright’s ‘”Atonement”, while Marco Beltrami is nominated for his score for James Mangold’s “3:10 to Yuma”. Also on the Italian team is Andrea Jublin, the author of “Il Supplente”, produced by SKY Cinema and nominated for Best Live Action Short.
The major event of the Los Angeles, Italy Festival will be the ceremony honoring Bernardo Bertolucci with a star the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Tuesday, February 19th, in front of Mann’s Chinese Theatre. The Festival, created and produced by Pascal Vicedomini, in collaboration with Eni and CSC’s Cineteca Nazionale, will kick off on February 17th with the US world premiere of Bertolucci’s 1967 documentary ‘La via del petrolio’, which chronicles the route of ‘black gold’ from Persia to Germany.
The Festival will also include tributes to Michele Placido and to Carlo Lizzani, the latter introducing his latest film “Hotel Meina”, a story of the Holocaust. Lizzani will be presented his Friend of Italy award by Steven Zaillian, an Oscar winner for his “Schindler’s List” screenplay.
This year’s Festival will feature special screenings of contemporary works as well as cult creations by our most popular authors overseas; meetings and debates with the luminaries of the Italian and foreign cinema and TV on hand in L.A. for the Academy Awards; conferences with students from the American Film Institute and from the prestigious USC School of Cinema-Television; free artistic performances for the media and the public; a taste of Italian food and wine; conventions at the Italian Cinema Lounge Trastevere @ Hollywood & Highland Center; and awards given to ‘friends of Italian art and entertainment’.
Los Angeles Italy – The Italian Film & Fashion Fest is chaired by Italian-American screenwriter and director Bobby Moresco (Oscar winner for “Crash”), assisted by Marina Cicogna, Franco Nero and music producer Tony Renis, as a symbol of a particularly successful year for young Italian composers. It is produced in collaboration with Los Angeles’ CIM Group (the US holding company that owns Mann’s Chinese Theatre and the Kodak Theatre), with the support of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Italian Embassy in the United States, the Lazio Region’s Assessor for the Small and Medium Enterprises, and with the support of Cinecittà Holding and the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles.