John Turturro’s “The Big Lebowski” spinoff, “The Jesus Rolls,” which follows his “Lebowski” character Jesus Quintana, will world premiere at the Rome Film Festival, which announced on Friday a lineup packed with potential awards contenders and plenty of big names booked for onstage conversations.
“The Jesus Rolls,” which Turturro directed from his own script and which also stars Bobby Cannavale, Audrey Tautou, Jon Hamm, Susan Sarandon and Pete Davidson, will screen in Rome on Oct. 16 as a festival pre-opening event, prior to its release in Italian cinemas via distributor Europictures the following day, ahead of its U.S. release in early 2020.
As previously announced, the Eternal City extravaganza will open with Edward Norton’s new film, “Motherless Brooklyn,” on Oct. 17, followed by a slew of hot titles that recently surfaced at other fests or launched directly in cinemas, such as Tom Harper’s “The Aeronauts,” “Downton Abbey,” “Judy,” “The Irishman” and Ron Howard’s “Pavarotti” doc.
Lorene Scafaria’s true-crime saga, “Hustlers,” toplining Jennifer Lopez, and Shia LaBeouf-starrer “Honey Boy” will also screen.
The Rome premiere of “The Irishman,” which festival director Antonio Monda described as the event’s “centerpiece,” will take place on Oct. 21, with talent expected to be in tow.
Rome Film Fest events include a Lifetime Achievement Award to Viola Davis and to Bill Murray, which will be presented by Wes Anderson.
The fest’s Close Encounters onstage conversations will include talks on various subjects by Norton, Howard, Ethan Coen, Benicio Del Toro, John Travolta, Bret Easton Ellis, Fanny Ardant, Olivier Assayas, Bertrand Tavernier, Jia Zhangke, Zhao Tao and Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose “The Truth” opened Venice and who will be honored with a retro in Rome.
Artistic director Antonio Monda, in his introductory remarks, called the conversations the thing that most encapsulate his personal stamp on the Rome fest.
The festival’s closer will be Italian psychological thriller “Tornare” by Cristina Comencini, about an Italian-American woman named Alice, born on a U.S. military base in Naples, who returns to Naples after her father’s death.
The world premiere of Russian auteur Andrei Konchalovsky’s “Sin,” a visceral portrait of Renaissance artist and sculptor Michelangelo, which was shot in Italy, will be the fest’s “special closing event.”
The 14th edition of the Rome fest will run Oct. 17-27.
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