Yahoo News The Stars Head to Tuscany: Lucca Film Festival Honors Ethan Hawke, Matthew Modine and Paul Schrader
The stars are descending on Tuscany. Ethan Hawke, Paul Schrader, Matthew Modine and Swedish auteur Ruben Östlund will walk the red carpet at the Lucca Film Festival, the annual event held in the picturesque Tuscan town, home to old-fashioned merchants, tailors, jewelers and some of the best olive oil on the planet.
The Hollywood Reporter Roma will become the official International Media Partner of LFF this year, providing daily coverage throughout.
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The LLFF, which kicks off on Saturday and concludes on Sunday, Sept. 29, is the vision of fest director Nicola Borrelli, who places an emphasis on uncompromising, unconventional cinema.
Also attending is Italian cinema legend Pupi Avati, fresh from premiering his gothic horror film The American Backyard in Venice. Francesco Costabile, the writer of of Familia, will also be in Lucca, along with the film’s lead actor, Francesco Gheghi, who recently won best actor in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Fest.
For eight days, Lucca will be all about cinema. Twelve feature films are in the international competition, including the Iranian drama The Old Bachelor, the coming-of-age title Girls Will Be Girls from India and music doc Mogwai — If the Stars Had a Sound from the U.K.
On Sept. 21, the fest will present the exhibition Marcello, L’antidivo di Successo, which marks the centenary of the birth of Italian screen icon Marcello Mastroianni, who owned a country home in Lucca. Chiara Mastroianni, the actor’s daughter with Catherine Deneuve, will inaugurate the exhibition, which will remain open to the public until Oct. 27. The actress will then introduce a screening of Marcello Mio, director Christophe Honoré’s very meta exploration of Chiara’s relationship with her late father that premiered in Cannes in May.
In the second half of the festival, four meetings with international guests will take place, some of them holding master classes. On Wednesday, Sept. 25, Modine will be on hand to discuss working with Stanley Kubrick on the filmmaking legend’s 1987 Vietnam war epic Full Metal Jacket. Modine will also present the Italian premiere of Stephen Wallis’ The Martini Shot, in which he plays a director shooting his final film before dying.
Schrader, the legendary screenwriter of such Martin Scorsese classics as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and veteran director of everything from 1980’s American Gigolo and 1985’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters to this year’s Oh, Canada, will host a master class on Sept. 26 and receive the LFF Lifetime Achievement Award on Sept. 27.
On the same day, Sept. 27, Ethan Hawke will hold his own master class. Hawke will discuss his career — which includes 2017’s First Reformed directed by Schrader — and present his latest directorial effort, Wildcat, starring his daughter Maya Hawke as novelist Flannery O’Connor.
The final master class will be with Östlund on Sept. 28. The man behind The Square and Triangle of Sadness is one of only nine directors who have won the Cannes Palme d’Or twice. The Swedish helmer will receive the Golden Panther Award on Sept. 29.
Meanwhile, the city of Lucca, with its Roman amphitheater, its circular wall, and its medieval and Renaissance architecture, will be transformed into an open-air stage. With the event Lucca Effetto Cinema, 20 theater companies will perform cinema-themed shows on the street in every corner of the city.
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