Sergio Castellitto will be the President of the International Jury of the International Rome Film Festival (28th October – 5th November 2010). The other members of the Jury will be: journalist and writer Natalia Aspesi (Italy), winner of the Pietro Bianchi Award for film criticism; director Ulu Grosbard (United States – Belgium), who has directed feature films among which Falling in Love with Meryl Streep and True Confessions featuring Robert De Niro; writer Patrick McGrath (United Kingdom) author of best sellers such as Asylum and Spider; director Edgar Reitz (Germany) who wrote the series Heimat, and Olga Sviblova (Russia) director of the Multimedia Arts Museum in Moscow.

The films in competition in the Official Selection will be judged by the six members of the International Jury which will then award the “Marc’Aurelio for Best Film”, the “Marc’Aurelio for Best Actress”, the “Marc’Aurelio for Best Actor”, and the “Marc’Aurelio Grand Jury Award”.

Gian Luigi Rondi, President of the Festival, expresses his pleasure for Castellitto’s participation, and explains: “He is one of our most prestigious cinema and television actors, he is also very successful and well-known abroad, and has directed multi-awarding winning films which have received great appreciation from critics and audiences”.

Here is what Sergio Castellitto says about his nomination as President of the Jury: “I am very happy  and grateful to Gian Luigi Rondi, Piera Detassis and all of those who thought of me for this assignment. The International Rome Film Festival has grown amazingly in these years, becoming a place where one can see and talk about Cinema. The selection of the films will be very interesting. The Jury is composed of extraordinary personalities and it will be a great pleasure and honor for me to preside it. I personally know the hard work that the artists go through in order to create a film, and therefore my first intent will be that to judge then their hard work.”

BIOGRAPHIES OF THE MEMBERS OF THE JURY

Sergio Castellitto
Actor and director Sergio Castellito becomes known owing to the comedies Piccoli equivoci (1989) directed by Ricky Tognazzi and Stasera a casa di Alice (1990) directed by Carlo Verdone, and due to his engaging performances in films such as La carne (1991) directed by Marco Ferreri and L’ora di religione (2002) directed by Marco Bellocchio. He is awarded two Nastri d’Argento with Il grande cocomero (1993) directed by Francesca Archibugi, and L’uomo delle stelle (1995) directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, as well as a David di Donatello as Best Leading Actor in Non ti muovere (2004), based on the novel of the same title written by his wife Margaret Mazzantini which he even directed and adapted. He gives his voice in the French version of the film Arthur and the Invisibles (2006) directed by Luc Besson, and he is king Miraz in the second chapter of The Chronicals of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008). In 2009 he is the leading actor in Alza la testa, directed by Alessandro Angelini, presented during the fourth edition of the International Rome Film Festival.

Natalia Aspesi
She began working as a journalist for the daily newspaper La Notte in the ’60ies. Following, she worked for Il Giorno, and then she worked as a correspondant for La Repubblica, where she still continues to work  by running a column entitled “Questioni di cuore” (“Heart Matters”), and by writing articles concerning news, literature, and cinema.

Ulu Grosbard
Belgian theater and cinema director, actually started his job career as a diamond-cutter. He then moved to the United States where he studied at Chicago University and at Yale School of Drama. In the ’60ies he worked as assistant, among others, for Elia Kazan, Robert Rossen and Arthur Penn. He directed his first film, The Subject Was Roses, in 1968. He directed several feature films among which: Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971); Straight Time (1978); True Confessions (1981); Falling in Love (1984); Georgia (1995) and The Deep End of the Ocean (1999). Very active in theater, he has directed many successful comedies in Broadway. At present he lives in New York.

Patrick McGrath
has written ten books, among which Asylum (1996), one of the major bestsellers in Italy. Three of his books have become films, among which Spider (2002), directed by David Cronenberg and adapted by McGrath himself. His books are published in Italy by Bompiani. His latest work is Constance (2010).

Olga Sviblova
graduated in Psychology at the State University in Moscow. She then got her PhD in Art Psychology. From 1987 to 1995 she wrote and directed several documentaries, among which the award-winning Krivoarbatski Pereulok, 12 concerning the Russian architect Konstantin Stepanovič Mel’nikov, The Black Square on the Avant-garde Russian art (1953-1988), In Search of a Happy End and Dina Verni. In 1996 she founded The Moscow House of Photography, which from 2003 has become the Multimedia Art Museum, of which she is the director. From 1996 to 2009 she supervised more than 500 exhibitions of Russian artists in Russia and abroad. From 1997 to 2008 she worked as artistic director in a number of photography festivals. In 2007 and in 2009 she was responsible for the Russian Pavilion of Contemporary Art at the Venice Biennale.

Edgar Reitz
German director and screenwriter, famous for his much appreciated series Heimat. In 1962, with the “Oberhausen Manifesto“, he claimed the right to create the “New German cinema” and in 1963, with Alexander Kluge, he founded the ”Institut für Filmgestaltung” in Ulma, of which he was director until 1968. In 1967 Reitz directed his first feature film Mahlzeiten. For this film he chose a seemingly conventional subject: a love story in which there is a clear influence of Nouvelle Vague, especially of Godard. Mahlzeiten was awarded Best Film at the Venice Film Festival in 1967. Between 1968 and 1969 he directed two more feature films: Uxmal and Cardillac, the former actually remaining unpublished. In 1995 Reitz founded the “Europäisches Institut des Kinofilms” (“European Cinema Institute”), in Karlsruhe. He teaches cinema at the “Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung” in Karlsruhe. In 2004 he presented his last film of the trilogy: Heimat 3.