The Taormina Film Fest in Sicily, Italy's premier summer festival, celebrates its 55th anniversary from June 13 to 20, 2009 with a new name and a radical change of direction.
With the aim of offering festival access to audiences around Sicily, finding extra screening space for its shows, increasing its impact in Sicily, offering a wide range of media stories and increasing tourism in the entire region, from this year the festival becomes the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily.
In addition to sharing Taormina's films and entertaining many of its actors, directors and journalists, each of the new locations around the island will participate in the eight-day festival with its own exclusive film program.
Noted American film critic Deborah Young became the festival director in 2007 and has committed to strengthen Taormina's identity as a Mediterranean festival with strong ties to the US and world cinema. In 2007, the centennial of Egyptian cinema was celebrated, making headlines around the Arab world; last year, Turkey enjoyed the same successful media attention. This year's Guest of Honor will be France.
The festival has chosen to remain a boutique showcase for a limited number of highly-selected films from the most recent production. In 2007, eight of the films were international or world premières and an amazing five of them were subsequently nominated to represent their country for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.
In Taormina, festival visitors can attend the famous Master Classes, held every year by influential protagonists of world cinema, and spectacular open-air screenings in the 2,300-year-old Greek-Roman amphitheater, which have included red carpet world premières of major Hollywood films like Transformers and M:I 2.
Two new sections were successfully inaugurated last year: informal meetings between young actors and Sicilian students in Campus Taormina, and Spazio Taormina, dedicated to the film industry.
The festival hosts three separate competitive sections screening no more than eight films each: Mediterranea, reserved for films produced by the Mediterranean countries; Beyond the Mediterranean dedicated to world cinema; and the much-anticipated Sicilian Short Film Competition, organized in partnership with N.I.C.E. (New Italian Cinema Events), which promotes the winning film around the world.
Combining the glamour of the Taormina Arte Awards with serious programming and finely curated retrospectives, the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily is a modern, rapidly evolving event unfolding in a spectacular natural setting.