The starting places are the twentieth edition of the Asian Film Festival which this year will take place from 30 March to 5 April at the Cinema Farnese Arthouse, with an epilogue on 12 April at the Multiplex Barberini in Rome. The jury that will decrees the winners for each category is made up of director Enzo Aronica, the journalist Marco Lodoli and screenwriter Roberto Recchioni.
There are 18 works in competition, with productions from Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam and China and will run for the five different sections in the competition: Best male and female performer, best film Best Director and Most Original Work. A separate category, with seven nominations, is reserved for Newcomers, first-time directors.
There will be instead 9 films out of competition: five screened during the festival at the Farnese Arthouse cinema and four, on April 12 at the Barberini Multiplex where the winner of the 2023 festival will also be shown again.
THE JURORS
ENZO ARONICA
He began his artistic career in 1976. In 1982 he began studying directing and video technique at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. In Cinema, he starts as assistant to Jean Pierre Ponnelle and Pasqualino De Santis (Oscar Award for Photography). In 1987 he signed his first theater direction. Throughout his career, he has directed actors such as Massimo Popolizio, Roberto Herlitzka, Rocco Papaleo, Alessandro Haber, Maria Paiato, and many others. Furthermore, he has signed opera directions (Norma, Carmen, Don Pasquale, Barber of Seville), chamber opera and opera buffa (Le Cantatrici Villane, Il Signor Bruschino, La Bella Verità). Since 1996, he has been the artistic director of Fontanonestate, a historical event of the Roman Summer made in collaboration with the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Rome.From 2002 to 2010, he was the creator and artistic director of the international meetings of NEVERLAND, at Palazzo delle Espoosizioni, MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, Casa del Cinema). He taught Acting and was vice-president of the S.A.T., the Theater Training School, at the Training Institute for Entertainment Workers of Rome (IALS). With the SAT, he has been organizing since 2010 the World Day of Commedia dell’Arte, with the patronage of the Italian Center of ITI – International Theater Institut, and the Italian Commission of Unesco (Istambul, Singapore, Malaga, Santiago, Padua, Turin, Bologna, etc.)
For the Academy of Arts and Crafts of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, he collaborates as director, consultant and art director for the creation of multimedia works. Since 1993, he has been Didactic Director of the Permanent Theater Laboratory of Città di Castello (PG), permanent theatrical training organization in Umbria, established in agreement with the Municipality of the Culture Department and the “Ottobre” Cultural Association directed by Valeria Ciangottini. Since 1983, after studying with Carlo Boso of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, he has done an intense of theater teaching in New York on “Theory and technique of the stage between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries” at Colleges, Universities and Privates Workshops (PS119 in Glendale, Queens; Albert Leonard Middle School and New Rochelle High School in New Rochelle; West Hill High School in Stamford; Brooklyn College; St. John’s University; The Actor’s Studio; BdA-Bottega dell’Arte; Bali dance theatre; the Mime Center…) and in South America, at the Escuela de Arte Dramatica de Bogota (Colombia). Since 2009, he has been director of the Department of Performing Arts, Cinema and New Media at the DAF – Dance Art Faculty in Rome. Since 2010, he has held the Chairs of Screen Acting and Set Organization at EUTHECA – The European Union Academy of Theater and Cinema in Cinecittà, Rome.
Nowadays, he is engaged as director and co-producer in the making of the docu-fiction “ARCTIC ERA”, produced in collaboration with the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Rome and the CNR –National Research Council, with filming in Norway, Iceland, Brazil, Patagonia, Congo and Italy. As director, he is curating a series of reportages in collaboration with Pietro Del Re for La Repubblica. He is the creator and artistic director of the CameraOnStage Project, for the teaching and practice of the audiovisual language.
MARCO LODOLI
Marco Lodoli, journalist and writer was born in 1956 in Rome, where he lives and works as a teacher of literature in a professional institute in Tuscolano, the populous neighborhood on the Roman suburb. He made his debut in 1978 as a poet with “A harmless man” (Trevi Editore) while he continues with his life dedicated to teaching. Only in 1986 Marco Lodoli comes back to the bookstores with the novel “Diary of a fleeing millennium” published by Theoria followed the following year by “Snack bar Budapest” (1987), from which the director Tinto Brass based the film with the same name.
In 1989 Marco Lodoli held a series of conferences in Rome, Turin, Bari and Florence entitled “The reasons of the heart and the nakedness of the gaze on life”. “Grande Raccordo”, which tells of the journey and of death, as a careful analysis of the relationships between the self and the others, an often recurring theme in his works, won the Piero Chiara Prize in 1990, and the Grinzane Cavour prize.
In 1996 the novel “Cani e Lupi”, seven love stories, seven encounters between the dog and the wolf, between domesticated life and the ferocious moment, won the Palazzo al Bosco Prize and, the following year, Marco Lodoli won again the Grinzane Cavour prize with “The wind”. Marco Lodoli has been collaborating with “Repubblica” for years, writing about his city, the school and teaching that continues to be his passion, he is a film critic for the weekly “Diario” and his careful reviews have been collected in the volume “Fuori dal cinema”.
ROBERTO RECCHIONI
Roman, born in 1974, is a novelist and screenwriter and subject-writer for cinema and comics, illustrator, film and video game critic and web influencer.
His main occupation is sequential art and he has been called “the rock star of Italian comics”. Editorial director and principal writer of Bonelli for the family of series dedicated to Dylan Dog (the second best-selling and most successful comic book character in Italy, published in large parts of Europe, South America and North America) and writer of iconic characters as Tex (best-selling magazine in Italy and among the best-selling in the world), Diabolik and Topolino.
He created the comic book titles of “John Doe” and “Detective Dante” for Aurea Editoriale (together with Lorenzo Bartoli), two cult comics that had ten years of experience on newsstands, then renewed in bookshops. He gave birth to “Battaglia” (Mondadori, BD, Cosmo), “David Murphy: 911” (Panini) and the series of “Orfani” (Bonelli). “Mater Morbi”, his best-known graphic novel, won the major Italian critics awards and was published all over the world. “Chambara – la via del samurai”, “Asso”, “Ammazzatine”, “Le Guerre di Pietro”, “I will kill Billy the Kid AGAIN” are other comic novels published in Europe.
An international film was made from the graphic novel “Monolith” (also published throughout Europe as well as in the USA). As an illustrator and curator he created the series “Roberto Recchioni presents: The Masters of Horror, Adventure and Mystery” for Edizioni Star Comics.
He took care of the conception, screenplay and realization of the comics related to the films “Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot” and “Smetto quando voglio: Masterclass”. He also created the first comic linked to the cycle of “Cronache del Mondo Emerso” by Licia Troisi. He has published the novels “YA – La battaglia di Campocarne”, “Ya – l’Ammazzadraghi” with Mondadori and “Ringo: chiamata alle armi” for Multyplayer Edizioni. He made the Italian covers of Lee Child’s novels for Longanesi. For Feltrinelli he created the Graphic Novels “The End of Reason” and “Rome Will Be Destroyed In One Day”. He is making a new comic series for the international Heavy Metal magazine. He writes as a film critic for the “Best Movie” magazine and for the “Screenweek” portal and creates film social posters for Koch Media, Warner, Sony.