The films participating at the next Istanbul International Film Festival starting March 31^st - April 15^th, 2007 have been announced. Numerous and prestigious Italian titles are present throughout the festival’s 27 sections.
The opening ceremony will feature Italian-Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetec’s Saturno contro; while director Gianni Amelio ‘s The Missing Star has been selected as the only Italian film in competition. In the section “Akbank Galas”, we find Emanuele Crialese’s film The Golden Door , and director Vittorio De Seta’s Letters from the Sahara presented in the section “Challenging the Years”, with the French-Italian co-production Hearts (Petites Peurs Partagées) by Alain Resnais.
The section dedicated to films from other International Film Festivals (From the World of Festivals) presents The Family Friend by Paolo Sorrentino and Fandango co-production 10 Canoes by Rolf de Heer. First feature film by Alessandro Angelini, L’aria salata, and the film All the invisible children comprised of seven shorts by seven different directors, will be screened in the section “No Way Out”.
The section of the festival dedicated to a director from the past, honours Pier Paolo Pasolini with a retrospective of his work featuring 20 titles which include films and documentaries. The closing film in this tribute to the Friulian director, is Pasolini prossimo nostro by Giuseppe Bertolucci.
Finally, to commemorate the late Gillo Pontecorvo, there will be a screening of “Queimada”, made in 1969 and starring Marlon Brando.