A Sicilian director to watch: Luca Guadagnino

[...] Born in Palermo, Sicily, to an Algerian mother and a Sicilian father, Guadagnino grew up in Ethiopia and in the Sicilian capital before moving to Rome where his self-taught filmmaking training consisted of what he calls the Rainer Fassbinder film school: watching three movies a day and devouring books about film.

Meanwhile, after becoming “obsessed” with Swinton, first seen in Derek Jarman’s “Caravaggio” (1986), he approached the actress about shooting a short. It never got made, but they struck up a friendship that blossomed into a creative partnership.

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Sicilian cinema lands in Brazil

Sicilian cinema lands in Brazil thanks to collaboration set up in June 2009 between the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily and the Italian-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce. This will give way to a project full of cultural events which will have great media coverage for a month in the three most suggestive Brazilian cities: Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro and Ribeirao Preto. “The Taormina Film Fest in Sicily wants to greatly support the Sicilian cinema, which is going through a happy and important period for its future”, said artistic director, Deborah Young. “The Festival, together with the Sicily Region and the Province of Messina, strongly supports the nomination of Ba’aria for the Oscar and offers all of its support to producers in Sicily who want to make new films that can be exported abroad”. Thanks to the work of the Artistic Direction of the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily, Sicily will be the special guest in Brazil of the fifth Italian Cinema Pirelli Week from November 25th to December 23rd.

Source Adnkronos.com