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Taormina Film Festival Harnesses Power of Hollywood, Independent Cinema to Drive 70th Edition


Program includes Hollywood fare such as 'Twisters,' Italian films like 'Finché Notte Non Ci Separi' and classics like 'Picnic at Hanging Rock.'

Marco Mueller, who has taken over as the festival’s artistic director (see interview), commented that one of the world premieres, “Mother Stone,” is a film made by a pair of volcanologists turned filmmakers, Daniele Greco and Mauro Maugeri. But Mueller has told Variety that the festival “will not hide from the contemporary contradictions of the world.” In the Mediterranean Focus program, “From Ground Zero,” a collective film produced by Rashid Masharawi, brings together work from 22 Palestinian filmmakers to record life in Gaza during the war. Following several years of political uncertainty, it feels as if Mueller’s vision and experience is precisely what the Sicilian festival needed, taking it into the future with its championing of young filmmakers, while still holding on to its traditional Mediterranean identity.

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