(ANSA) - Rome is studying the possibility of launching a major new international cinema festival capable of cutting mustard with the likes of Cannes, Berlin and Venice.
The festival will reportedly have an annual budget of six million euros, similar to that of Venice, and its debut edition is scheduled for autumn 2006. Mayor Walter Veltroni has commissioned a feasibility study and asked two top Italian cinema critics, Giorgio Godetti and Mario Sesti, to start planning the event.
Movie buff Veltroni has also managed to get Robert De Niro and his New York-based Tribeca Film Festival involved in the project. The Italian-American actor confirmed that "we are working" with the city on the festival, during a visit to an
exhibition of paintings by his artist father, Robert De Niro Sr., in May.
If it goes ahead, the show will take place at Rome's new, state-of-the-art auditorium, designed by world famous Italian architect Renzo Piano. "This festival is a dream we have for the auditorium," said Goffredo Bettini, the president of the foundation that
runs the complex. Rome already plays host to a handful of minor cinema festivals - such as the MedFilm Festival and the Rome
Independent Film Festival (RIFF). But these shows do not have the international profile a city with such a proud cinematographic heritage perhaps deserves.
Venice - which kicks off next weekend - might be the venue of the world's oldest film festival, but the Eternal City has always played a much bigger role in the filmmaking world. Many Italian and Hollywood classics were set in the capital, such as Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita and William Wyler's 1953 romance, Roman Holiday, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.
Rome's legendary Cinecitta' Studios is where Fellini and other maestros like Luchino Visconti and Vittorio De Sica produced their best work during the post-war golden age of Italian cinema. The studios and the city continue to play a starring role in the industry.
Mel Gibson shot parts of The Passion at Cinecitta', while Ocean's Twelve and Mission Impossible III are among the movies Rome has recently provided backdrops for. Therefore, some cinema experts believe that if the capital's festival took off, many producers would prefer to present their wares here than in Venice. What's more, the controversies and organization problems
that have overshadowed Venice at times in recent years could make it vulnerable to the advances of a glamorous upstart.
For example, Italy's own Roberto Benigni - the director of the Oscar-winning Life Is Beautiful - is presenting his latest movie in Toronto, not Venice, this year. "A festival that came to life almost as the plaything of a film-enthusiast mayor is threatening to become something much more serious," wrote Paolo Mereghetti in daily newspaper Corriere della Sera. "Maybe too serious. At least for Venice."
