“Gentlemen, Taormina is back!”. As Tiziana Roccaartistic director of the 71st edition of the film Festival, inaugurates the first day of the event which is one with the city: “I tried to bring the competition and the great guests back – he said at the press conference – because I believe it is important to fill the ancient theater and restore that glamor that in Taormina has been missing for a long time, because it is the city that has to live the festival”.
Great international guests – from Michael Douglas in Catherine Deneuve and Martin Scorsese – But also different genres in the films in competition and out of competition, from the horror of “Togheter” (Michael Shangs) and “Jastimari – The refuge” of Palermo Riccardo Cannellashot on the Madonie, passing through the highly anticipated war film “Warfare”, up to the comedy to “goodbye, sadness”, directed by Giovanni Virgilio (with the Messinese Nino Frassica) and the closing film “Love is fine on everything” of Giampaolo Morelli.
A festival in which – as the godmother reiterated Valeria Solarino – the pink quotas are predominant; From the jury made up of a single man (Steven Gaydos) and four women (D’vine Joy Randolph, Sandy Powell and the Italian Ilenia Pastorelli and Alessandra Mastronardi), up to the parterre of the singers, awarded with Taormina Music Award, who will perform at the ancient theater with free performance at the author’s cinema. Forerunner Nina Zilli, and, therefore, Clara, Baby K, Noemi, Carmen Consoli and Lola Ponce.
First international star to climb last night on the stage of the ancient theater, Michael Douglasawarded with the Taormina Excellence Achievment Award to the extraordinary career that saw him protagonist of authentic cults such as “Chinese syndrome”, “Wall Street”, “The War of the Roses”, “Fatal attraction”, “Basic Instinct” and “revelations”.
The American actor, who returns to Taormina after twenty years of absence, for his participation in the Festival explicitly asked to re-propose “Someone wanted on the Cuculo nest”, the cult film of Milos Forman of which he was co-producer, based on the novel of the same name by Ken Kesey (published in Italy by Rizzoli). A film that threw a merciless look at life in the asylums, who entered history for being – together with “A Night happened” and “The silence of the innocent” – one of the three masterpieces to have won the five main Oscars: films, direction, non -original screenplay and actors (Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher).
“The biggest fortune in my life, in addition to marrying my wife Catherine Zeta-Jones was that film -he said meeting the press -. I finally left my father’s shade when I won the Oscar and only then did I feel recognized, also considering that my father was running three times for the Oscars, but he never won it. In short, it is not true that if you are a star of a star you have the road flattened, to have it you have to run with your legs ».
But compared to his actor performances, Douglas confesses to prefer the roles as bad, like that of Gordon Gekko, protagonist of “Wall Street”: “He was the villain of history, but he liked because he dressed well and he was a man of power, a sort of political leader, but corrupt. He said nothing true but you believed him. I have always found fascinating that people said to me “yes, it was the bad but we love him”. In this reception of the public there is all the topicality of the character ».
But Gekko belonged to a America full of possibilities, different from that of today: “The elections in our country have been the greatest disappointment” He said referring to the Trump government, criticized hard also during the masterclass at the PalaCongressi with the students, in which he said: «I apologize for my country who has a great responsibility for the chaos in which we live; When I am with people from other nations I always apologize to everyone “.
“Immigration is a problem in every country, including Italy – continued speaking to the press – but our president has created the drama for which all immigrants are killers and rapists and once elected has exploited the executive power claiming that the United States were threatened, so as not to have to go to the congress. In doing so, California made a strategic target: it is a blue, democratic state, with a vast presence of immigrants, many of whom have been working for decades, which has been producing 60% of American food “.
It is not proud of the US government, but it proudly speaks of the two films of erotic genre “Fatal Attraction” and “Basic Instinct”. And speaking of the famous scene of the Sharon Stone’s inconvenience of the legs: «The director Paul Verhoeven had made a lot of auditions, but being a Dutch and Calvinist he had difficulty finding an actress willing to show his nudity. It was very agitated and I reassured him. Then fortunately came the stone that was fantastic, and everything went great, without the intervention of that figure today called “Intimacy Coordinator” ».
In a meeting made of continuous passages between past and present, there was no look to the future, About artificial intelligence. «I am very pessimistic because I see what happens on social media. It is another world that I have only recently understood by comparing myself with some technology experts. It will take about five years because they become reality and we will no longer recognize our planet ». Great hopes instead on the Z generation: «My younger son is part of it. I really hope they can politically improve everything and clean up this mess we have done ».