Below are the guidelines for the LGBT section of the RIFF
for which a discount of 10% is reserved for those who have an Arcigay card
- Love & Pride Day Presentation The Rome Independent Film Festival, now in its 20th edition, is pleased to invite you to Love & Pride Day, dedicated to contemporary LGBT+-themed cinema. The director of the section Panorama of the Berlinale Wieland Speck will present the documentary Miguel's War by Eliane Raheb, winner of the Teddy Awards at the 2021 Berlinale. The protagonist Miguel Jelelaty will be present. The Love & Pride Day screening will take place on November 25th at 8:15 pm at the Nuovo Cinema Aquila. Info and synopsis below.
- The Rome Independent Film Festival is also pleased to present numerous other titles with LGBTQ+ narratives, both international and Italian, each of great artistic and cinematic value. The foreign documentaries will be presented by their directors, if present, in conversation with international distributor Cosimo Santoro (The Open Reel) and film critic Dafne Leda Franceschetti, former programmer for the Sicilia Queer Filmfest, who will provide an introductory presentation of the title in the directors' absence.
Below is the international documentary program and synopses:
Friday, November 19th
New Cinema Aquila – Screening 1 – 10:15 PM – Director in the room
- The Fulgor by Martín Farina, Argentina, 2021, 65'’
Synopsis: Carnival is upon us. We witness the ritual of "cleaning the flesh" performed by the gauchos, who unfurl their knives. The bucolic landscape blends with the city streets. Slowly, everything fills with color, feathers, and half-naked men. Masks begin to cover faces, and alcohol dissolves inhibitions.
Online factsheet: El Fulgor – RIFF – Rome Independent Film Festival
Saturday, November 20th
New Cinema Aquila – Screening 1 – 10:15 PM – Director in the room
- The Grand Bolero by Gabriele Fabbro, Italy, 2021, 90'’
Synopsis: A psycho-thriller set in Italy during the Covid-19 lockdown. Roxanne, a rugged, middle-aged pipe organ restorer, struggles to control her obsessive attraction to her new, mute young assistant.
Online factsheet: The Grand Bolero – RIFF – Rome Independent Film Festival
Tuesday, November 23
New Cinema Aquila – Screening 1 – 10:00 PM – Director in the room
· Mía & Moi by Borja de la Vega, Spain, 2021, 107'’
SynopsisAfter losing their mother, Mía and Moi take refuge in their family's dilapidated house in the countryside, in the middle of nowhere. With them is Moi's boyfriend, Biel. Together, the three try to overcome their wounds, especially Moi, recovering from a severe nervous breakdown. The days pass, marked by painful memories, but also, little by little, they mark a new reunion and the desire to start living again without making big plans for the future. The arrival of Mikel, Mía's boyfriend, however, disrupts their coexistence and upsets each of the three housemates in different ways.
Mía & Moi – RIFF – Rome Independent Film Festival
Wednesday, November 24th
New Aquila Cinema – Screen 1 – 6:15 PM
- Everything at once (Paco & Manolo's gaze) by Alberto Fuguet, Chile/Spain, 2021, 102'’
Synopsis: A film-essay about a peculiar artistic couple: Paco & Manolo, Catalan photographers from the outskirts of Barcelona who have been working and living together for three decades. The two merge their individual perspectives and imagery, ultimately becoming those of a single photographer. All their images are featured in Kink magazine, a photography fanzine they founded and now successful throughout Europe, a space for a homoerotic and essentially Mediterranean aesthetic.
Online factsheet: Everything at Once – Paco & Manolo's Gaze – RIFF – Rome Independent Film Festival
Thursday, November 25 – Love & Pride Day
Room 1 – 8.15pm – Cast in the room
- Miguel's War by Eliane Raheb, Lebanon/Germany/Spain, 2021, 128'’
The documentary, winner of the Teddy Award at the 2021 Berlinale, will be presented by Wieland Speck, director of the Panorama section of the Berlinale, in the presence of the protagonist Miguel Jelelaty.
Synopsis: In this portrait, complex in both form and content, a gay man confronts the ghosts of his past and explores hidden desires, unrequited love, and tormenting feelings of guilt. Miguel was born in 1963 to a conservative Lebanese Catholic father and an authoritarian mother from a wealthy Syrian family. Numerous conflicts over his national, religious, and sexual identity forced him to flee to Spain at the age of twenty. In post-Franco Madrid, where he lived an openly gay life, his life resembles one long Almodóvarian orgy, full of excess and the breaking of sexual taboos. This period is followed first by a collapse, then by a rebirth.
Online factsheet: Miguel´s War – RIFF – Rome Independent Film Festival