3 November | The epic story of a great sports rivalry: “Borg McEnroe” comes to the Rome Film Fest

On Friday November 3^rd, screenings in the Official Selection of the Rome Film Fest include, at 9:30 pm, Sala Sinopoli in the Auditorium Parco della Musica Borg McEnroe by Janus Metz, a fascinating, intimate and stirring portrait of the two indisputable icons of tennis history, an epic account of the legendary 1980 Wimbledon final. “To me this is the version set in the world of tennis of Raging Bull – explained the director. It’s the story of two young men, each of them fighting to prove he is the best, to feel important, to be someone. Imprisoned by their rivalry, one of the most spectacular in the history of sports, they were forced in the end to come to terms with themselves and their personal demons”.
At 10:30 pm, Sala Petrassi will hold the screening of Mudbound by Dee Rees. Set in the United States at the end of World War II, the film focuses its attention on social classes, friendship and racism: Jamie McAllan, who moved from Memphis to the rural south, and the farmhand Ronsel Jackson, recently returned from the battlefield, become friends when they meet to work on a farm in Mississippi. Between the hard work and the rigid social barriers, their relationship spoils their respective families’ plans, challenging the brutal reality in which they live.
Two films from the Official Selection will be screened in the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna, which at 5 pm, will feature Los Adioses by Natalia Beristàin. The main character of the film is Rosario Castellanos who, from an introverted university student with little tolerance for a society dominated and managed by men, became a key figure in Mexican literature and the Latin-American feminist movement. At 9:30, it will be followed by Tormentero by Rubén Imaz: Romero, a retired fisherman, discovered an oil field in his village, changing the lives of his friends and neighbours who turn their backs on him. Today, obsessed by his past, Romero seeks forgiveness and decides to redeem the honour he lost years earlier.
At 8 pm Sala Petrassi will host a Special Event that combines music and cinema, with the screening of the film NYsferatu – Symphony of a Century by Andrea Mastrovito, with live musical accompaniment. The Italian artist, who lives and works in New York, redrew entirely by hand one of the masterpieces of silent film, Nosferatu, made in 1922 by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. The result, which required an enormous effort for a production that took three years and thirty thousand drawings, is an animated film set in the gloomy and mysterious atmosphere of New York today, with its racial tensions against immigrants.
At 9:30 pm at the MAXXI, director Elisabetta Lodoli will present the documentary Ma l’amore c’entra?: the lives of three men fall apart when they physically abuse their partners, but it scares them enough that they resolve to try and turn over a new leaf. The shocking everyday stories that explore our sentimental education cross paths in the place where the three men have come to seek help. The screening will be preceded by the short film Muro di bambole.
 The Casa del Cinema will host three screenings: at 4 pm, Del resto fu un’estate meravigliosa by Luciano Michetti Ricci. The year is 1977, and the improvisations and provocations of a group of new comedians follow back to back in an area semi-deserted for the holidays. A sort of happening filmed without a script, that often takes its cue from the morning newspapers before setting up a skit. At 6:30 pm, the screening will feature Dillinger è morto by Marco Ferreri, a masterpiece of balance between realism and experimentalism and perhaps the highpoint of the director’s filmmaking, in the version newly restored by the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. At 9 pm, in the programme of the Films of our Lives section, Top Hat by Mark Sandrich.
There will be two films from the line-up of “The Italian School” retrospective, curated by Mario Sesti and organized in collaboration with the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca Nazionale in collaboration with the Istituto Luce Cinecittà: the Cinema Trevi movie theatre will be the venue for the screenings of Arrivano i titani by Duccio Tessari (at 6:30 pm) and L’armata Brancaleone by Mario Monicelli (at 9 pm) on the theme of “The Fantastic Story: the Infinite Adventure of Reinventing the Past”.
At 11 am, the Rome Film Fest comes for the first time to the “Melograno” movie theatre in the Women’s District Penitentiary, the Casa Circondariale Femminile di Roma Rebibbia. The event will be attended by the inmates and by students from schools and universities in Rome, who will view the screening of the film The Band Wagon by Vincent Minnelli, presented at the Rome Film Fest, and the short film SalviAmo la faccia, made by the women inmates directed by Giulia Merenda. The event at the Casa Circondariale Femminile di Roma Rebibbia is part of the “SalviAmo la faccia” project to fight gender violence and advance the empowerment of women, with the support of the Equal Opportunities Department of the President of the Council of Ministers, organized by the Cpia 1 in Rome (Provincial Centre for Adult Education) and by “Ossigeno per l’informazione”. 
The Rome Film Fest returns to the MediCinema movie theatre at the Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli (Gemelly Hospital): at 4 pm there will be a screening of Mazinger Z Infinity by Japanese director Junji Shimizu – which had its world premiere screening at the Rome Film Fest – dedicated specially to the paediatric patients and their families. The screenings are made possible by the collaboration that began this year between the Rome Film Fest and the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli with Medicinema Italia Onlus.
The first screening at the Teatro Tor Bella Monaca is scheduled for 9 pm, with Sara by Stefano Pistolini and Massimo Salvucci, which reconstructs the events that led to the murder of Sara di Pietrantonio, the Roman girl killed by her ex-boyfriend in the early hours of May 29th, 2016. The film will be introduced by Maria Vittoria Pellecchia, and will be followed by an encounter with the director Stefano Pistolini.
The independent and parallel sidebar Alice nella città will be screening Wonder by Stephen Chbosky (at 11 am) in Sala Sinopoli, whereas the 3 and Cinema Hall will host the screenings of Menina by Cristina Pinheiro (at 9:30 am) and of And Then I Go by Vincent Grashaw (at 11:30 am). Three events are scheduled at the Cinema Admiral: The Swan by Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir (at 6:30 pm), Si muore tutti democristiani by Il terzo segreto di satira, preceded by the short film Flavio by Giulia Regini (at 8:30 pm), and by My Friend Dahmer by Marc Meyer, preceded by the short film Looped Love by Alessandro Marzullo (at 10:30 pm). Lastly, at the Scuola Amaldi, the screenings will feature Diamante nero by Céline Sciamma (at 9 am) and White God by Kornél Mundruczó (at 11 am).
The programme of repeat screenings around the city includes: 
In Sala Sinopoli two episodes will be shown from Babylon Berlin by Tom Tykwer (at 5 pm), while the Teatro Studio Gianni Borgna will present Trouble No More by Jennifer Lebeau (at 3 pm). The 3 and Google Cinema Hall will feature And Then I Go by Vincent Grashaw, preceded by the short film Una serata speciale by Federico Zampaglione (at 3 pm). Four events are scheduled at the MAXXI, starting with La vida y nada más by Antonio Méndez Esparza (at 11:30 am), A Prayer Before Dawn by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire (at 2:30 pm), Birds Without Names by Kazuya Shiraishi (at 5 pm), and Mon garçon by Christian Carion (at 7:30 pm). The My Cityplex Europa movie theatre will feature the screenings of Birds Without Names by Kazuya Shiraishi (at 3 pm), La vida y nada más by Antonio Méndez Esparza (at 5:30 pm), The Only Living Boy in New York by Marc Webb (at 8 pm), and A Prayer Before Dawn by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire (at 10:30 pm). Finally, the Cinema Admiral movie theatre will be showing Porcupine Lake by Ingrid Veninger (at 5 pm).