Saturday, July 31, 2010

RIP: Suso Cecchi D’Amico, writer of "The Bicycle Thief"


One of Europe's most successful screenwriters, Suso Cecchi D’Amico, has died in Rome at the age of 96. D'Amico is perhaps best known as the writer of Visconti's "Ladri di biciclette/The Bicycle Thief" - a key film in the history of cinema. But by the time she had written this, she had also written "Roma: Free City" in 1946, and went on to pen nearly 120 films, including co-writing "The Taming of the Shrew" with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, "The Leopard" with Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon, "Brother Sun, Sister Moon", Casanova 70" and "The Leopard". She worked with directors Michelangelo Antonioni, Francesco Rosi and Mario Monicelli but most notably Luchino Visconti. She is credited with releases as late as 2006, at the age of 92!

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Toronto festival to feature European films


The Toronto International Film Festival (September 9-19) will feature an unprecedented number of European films this year. They include Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech (UK/Australia); Andy de Emmony’s East is East sequel West is West; Mike Leigh’s Another Year, Danis Tanovic’s Cirkus Columbia, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful and the premieres of Guillaume Canet's Little White Lies and Eric Lartigau’s The Big Picture.

For details, visit TIFF.