The Taormina Film Festival 2024 opens today, blowing out its first 70 candles, establishing itself as one of the longest-running and most prestigious film festivals at an international level.. Great protagonists of the opening night to celebrate an important birthday, The Silver Ribbons Return to the Ancient Theatre to pay homage to the excellence of Italian comedy with some of the protagonists most loved by the public, and to celebrate once again the great Nino with the “Premio Manfredi” – promoted by the Film Journalists with the Manfredi family.
The evenings with film screenings begin tomorrow at the Teatro Antico with the world premiere of Saint Clare by the Italian-American director Mitzi Peirone, in Taormina with the actresses Bella Thorne (who is presenting her debut short film Unsettled at the Festival) and Rebecca De Mornay. The first Italian film, also a world premiere, is Il giudice e il boss by Pasquale Scimeca who will be on stage at the Teatro Antico on Sunday 14th with the actors Gaetano Bruno, Peppino Mazzotta and Claudio Castrogiovanni. All the evenings at the Teatro Antico will be hosted by the journalist Elvira Terranova; the godmother of the Festival is the artist from Catania Ester Pantano, who after the evening of Saturday 13th July will also be on stage on the 14th on the occasion of the Cariddi d’oro alla Carriera to the producer Carlo Degli Esposti and for the closing ceremony on 19th July.
It should be noted that On Saturday and Sunday the Congress Palace will host the master of Israeli cinema, Amos Gitaiwhich presents its latest feature film, Shikun; and the collective of 22 Palestinian directors of From Ground Zero, a collective project supervised by director and producer Rashid Masharawi which brings the desperate voice of the population of Gaza to Taormina.
Organized by the Taormina Arte Sicilia Foundation, the Taormina Film Festival is promoted by the Department of Tourism, Sport and Entertainment of the Sicilian Region, led by Elvira Amata who states: «The great emotions that the Taormina Film Festival has always offered in the splendid setting of the Ancient Theater to the vast audience of spectators and the many tourists present on our island are back again this year. It will be a special edition thanks to the esteemed and qualified artistic direction signed this year by Marco Müller – whom I thank for his extraordinary contribution – which includes a rich program full of events and illustrious protagonists of the big screen of international level. I am sure that this year’s edition will be even more successful than the previous ones».
And it is precisely on the valorization of the territory that the innovative line conceived by the Extraordinary Commissioner of the Taormina Arte Sicilia Foundation, Sergio Bonomo, has focused, who underlined: «This year the Foundation has launched a development program aimed at involving the entire Taormina district up to the coastal areas, to stimulate collaboration and synergies between the different local production realities, a winning approach to allow the Festival to become a strategic driving force of the regional economy. In fact, our partners are Catania International Airport and, for the first time, the Port of Messina which, with its over five hundred thousand visitors a year, will be branded with the Festival logo. We are also extremely honored by the collaboration with Intercity of Trenitalia, the leading company of the Polo Passeggeri of the FS Group, with which we have inaugurated a partnership by including it among the Main Partners».
The commissioner’s voice is echoed by the artistic director of the Taormina Arte Sicilia Foundation, Gianna Fratta, an Italian conductor and pianist of international standing, who has dedicated herself to organizing a parallel section made up of theatrical, musical and multimedia events that enrich the cultural offering of the festival, between the Teatro Antico and the Villa Comunale: «Celebrating 70 years of history of the Taormina Film Festival is first and foremost a responsibility».