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Press Release: Noir Times Twenty |
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| 23/11/2010 |
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The 2010 COURMAYEUR NOIR IN FESTIVAL (December 7-13) celebrates its 20th edition with a programme that highlights its interdisciplinary nature between cinema, literature, television and the media. As well as its unique position as a cultural and entertaining event that places the many aspects of society’s dark side into the limelight.
Festival co-director Giorgio Gosetti: “When the festival was founded in 1991, we had only recently put the fall of the Berlin Wall, the declared end of the Cold War and a bloody period of domestic terrorism behind us. The crime novel, freed from inferiority complexes since the 1980s and basking in the MystFest (founded ten years prior by Felice Laudadio and Oreste del Buono) was sliding inevitably towards the ‘black.’
“Over time, the Noir festival has come to reflect our era and Italy has immersed itself in this modern tradition, producing an entire generation of international-quality writers. Twenty years later, we have changed profoundly but are still tied to our roots: to use art and entertainment as an opportunity to examine those cultural and civic influences that transform us and render us ‘differently aware.’'
The poster for the 20th edition was designed by the great Italian illustrator Giancarlo Berardi, who along with collaborator Marco Soldi has loaned us the image of the titular heroine of their graphic novels Julia and will be in Courmayeur to meet audiences. We will also present the first-ever movie screened at Noir, in 1991: Stephen Gyllenhaal’s Paris Trout, starring Dennis Hopper, to whom we want to pay homage as a true icon of the genre. Michael Winterbottom (with Adrian Wootton) will instead pay tribute to noir master Jim Thompson, with his latest film, The Killer Inside Me.
This year’s guest of honor and winner of the Raymond Chandler Award is Michael Connelly, king of the bestseller and creator of wildly popular characters such as the detective Harry Bosch and ex-Federal agent Terry McCaleb (brought to the big screen by Clint Eastwood in Blood Work). Born in 1956, and an engineering graduate, Connelly has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his work as a crime reporter and is a leading force in the Los Angeles tradition of hard boiled and noir. A long-time fan of Chandler, Connelly has chosen to show his favorite film at Courmayeur, Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye.
The 10 films vying for the BLACK LION for Best Film have a decidedly auteur flavor and focus predominantly on Europe and the new noir cultures, from Latin America to Asia. These journeys to the edges of the genre are: Mark Romanek’s adaptation of the Kazuo Ishiguro novel Never Let Me Go, starring Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley; another British title, J. Blakeson’s The Disappearance Of Alice Creed, with Gemma Arterton; the UK-Italian debut At The End Of the Day by Cosimo Alemà; Fabrice Gobert’s French film Lights Out, featuring Ana Girardot; Scandinavian films A Somewhat Gentle Man by Hans Petter Moland (with the incomparable Stellan Skarsgård) and the exhilarating Sound Of Noise by Simonson and Nilsson of Sweden; Oscar nominee Pablo Trapero’s Carancho (Argentina); Korean film The Housemaid by master filmmaker Im Sang-soo; Kosmos from the genius of Turkish director Reha Erdem; and the festival’s opening film, We Are The Night, the highly anticipated new work by Dennis Gansel (The Wave) about a group of gorgeous, bloodthirsty vampires.
The international film jury comprises writer Tito Topin, Sitges Film Festival director Angel Sala, Italian acting icon Silvio Orlando and younger thespians Guido Caprino and Carlotta Natoli.
The out-of-competition premieres include the much-anticipated third installment of the popular Narnia saga, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, directed by Michael Apted; the terrifying Julia’s Eyes, produced by Guillermo del Toro and starring Belén Rueda (The Orphanage); and Carlos, Olivier Assayas’ mini-series on one of the world’s most legendary terrorists, which will be shown in its in entirety and presented by the film’s producer, investigative journalist Daniel Leconte.
The weighty theme of terrorism is also covered in the special event Strage di Bologna: le risposte mancate, presented by Carlo Lucarelli with the collaboration of Patrick Fogli and comprising interviews, hypotheses, stories and never-before-seen footage, including Matteo Pasi’s work in progress, the documentary Un solo errore – Bologna, 2 agosto 1980.
Giorgio Faletti will kick off the literary proceedings of the DARK PAGES with his new book, Appunti di un venditore di donne. Other featured authors include England’s Iain Pears, presenting Stone’s Fall; Denmark’s Christian Mørk and his gothic novel Darling Jim; Germany’s Wulf Dorn with his psychothriller Trigger; the sophisticated Indigo by French-Italian author Gérard Roero Di Cortanze; and Italy’s Giovanni Negri with Il sangue di Montalcino.
The theme of revenge traverses two novels and will be told from both sides of the gender fence, by UK writer R. J. Ellory and the queen of the charts, Norway’s Anne Holt. Another grand dame of the genre, Maj Sjöwall, present her novel The Locked Room, as well as speak to Courmayeur audiences about the last 20 years of mystery fiction and the great success of Scandinavian authors.
The five stories of the DOCNOIR competition look at the American Jihad, boxing in Spain, Belgrade under Tito, the two most famous Escobars of Colombia and the oligarchs of Russia, who tell their disturbing stories for the first time in Thieves By Law.
Heading farther east, the Sol Levante Noir (Rising Sun Noir) exhibit will present illustrations created for the festival by the students of the European Institute of Design in Milan and their Japanese peers, and introduces the 2010 edition of Mini Noir, a festival-within-a-festival for children and adolescents. Mini Noir this year features a loving tribute to author Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere, Coraline), a birthday celebration for storybook hero Geronimo Stilton, avant-premieres (including a taste of new 3D animation Animals United) and discussions with writers.
The Courmayeur Noir in Festival – promoted by the City of Courmayeur with support from the Valle d’Aosta Region Board of Tourism and the Ministry of Culture - General Cinema Direction – is organized by Studio Cooperativa and directed by Giorgio Gosetti, Marina Fabbri and Emanuela Cascia. The festival media partner is the Fox Crime channel, alongside private sponsors Gruppo Binda with the brand Hip Hop and Perfetti Van Melle Italia with Vigorsol Cult. Cultural partners include Cinecittà News and Radio 2. The festival is a member of AFIC and FIAPF.
Details of programmed movies and writers are available in the 'films' and 'literature' sections of the website. |
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