Taormina Film Fest – Location
The natural setting of Etna is undoubtedly one of the most evocative things of the location where the Taormina Film Fest takes place. During the event the whole city of Taormina becomes an open-air location: from the congress palace to the ancient Greek theater. In fact, the exhibition takes place in a traveling environment that includes the most spectacular places of the renowned Location between Catania and Messina.
How to reach Taormina
Reaching Taormina with your own car is truly disarming simplicity. In fact, the town is located in the center of the Messina-Catania A18 motorway, so in both directions there is the homonymous motorway exit. The railway station is instead the one present in the seaside resort at the foot of Taormina, or Giardini-Naxos. Reachable by slow-moving regional trains, it is then necessary – through transfer – to reach Taormina which is located on a hill with respect to the aforementioned Giardini-Naxos
The history of Taormina Film Fest
It was born in Messina in 1955 and in 1957 it became the Messina and Taormina International Film Festival [1]. In the same year the “Silver Charybdis” were established. From 1957 to 1980 it hosts the David di Donatello awards ceremony almost consecutively. In 1970 the review is doubled, and the “Taormina International Film Festival” is created in Taormina with a competitive character with the Grand Prize of Nations, which ran parallel to the review and that year was awarded to Sydney Pollack for the film Aren’t horses killed like this? The review has been held exclusively in Taormina since 1971, and has hosted many stars of international cinema over the years: from Elizabeth Taylor to Marlene Dietrich, from Sophia Loren to Cary Grant, from Marlon Brando to Charlton Heston, from Audrey Hepburn to Gregory Peck, from Tom Cruise to Melanie Griffith, Antonio Banderas, Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas. From 1981 to the first three films were awarded the Charybdis of gold, silver and bronze, and the Masks of Polyphemus (gold, silver and bronze) to the best interpretations. In 1984 the Silver Ribbon Award of the Film Journalists Union arrived in Taormina.
Taormina Film Fest during the latest years
The festival, inserted within Taoarte, was then directed from 1999 to 2006 by Felice Laudadio, who worked to bring the big names of world cinema into the late Sicilian summer. Since 2000, the event has once again hosted the annual ceremony of awarding the Silver Ribbons of the Italian Film Journalists Union. The fiftieth anniversary edition was held in 2004.
Since the 2007 edition, the management has been taken over by Deborah Young, for many years deputy director of Laudadio. In this edition the Transformers film was screened on June 21, 2007 in European premiere with director Michael Bay and part of the cast present.
From 2012 to 2014 the festival was chaired by Tiziana Rocca and Mario Sesti took over the editorial direction, with a part of the team that together with him had coordinated the Extra section of the Rome Festival. In the first two years of this management, the festival eliminates the competition and proposes a section of international comedies and horror alongside the usual evening premieres such as that of Man of Steel with all the cast and director, or that of The Lone Ranger. In 2015 Tiziana Rocca appoints a four-way direction with Jacopo Mosca, Chiara Nicoletti, Gabriele Niola and Franco Montini, the festival opens with Inside Out, and then in 2017 the direction dries up leaving Jacopo Mosca and Chiara Nicoletti directors. Since 2018 the organization has been entrusted to the Videobank group.
The 65th edition of 2019 was presented during the week of the Oscars in Los Angeles. It includes meetings with Nicole Kidman, Oliver Stone, Richard Dreyfuss and other movie stars, at the express wish of the authors Oliver Stone and Igor Lopatonok, the preview documentary film Revealing Ukraine, a sequel to the work already undertaken by Lopatonok with his Ukraine, is transmitted free of charge to the public. on Fire, which premiered at the Taormina Film Fest (2016). National premieres include Tolkien by Dome Karukoski, Yesterday by Danny Boyle, and Spider-Man: Far From Home by Marvel Studios.
The logo and date of the 66th edition are announced on 9 January 2020. The Film Fest sees Leo Gullotta as the artistic director and as part of the committee. Postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival ran from 11 to 19 July 2020 in a semi-digital edition with the participation of MYmovies for streaming and other screenings in the hall but with a number of spectators reduced by 2/5. Leo Gullotta renounced his remuneration and confirmed his participation. Among the guests Willem Dafoe, Emmanuelle Seigner, Vittorio Storaro and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Among the premieres Heart and Bones directed by Ben Lawrence with Hugo Weaving, Devotion directed by Giuseppe Tornatore
