Marco Müller joins the Taormina Film Fest as the new Artistic Director

Marco Müller announced as the new Artistic Director

of the Taormina Film Fest,

which celebrates its 70th Anniversary this year.

The festival will run from July 12th to July 19th this year, bringing the magic of Italian and international cinema to Teatro Antico.

Marco Müller is the new Artistic Director of the 70th edition of the Taormina Film Fest, which will take place this year from July 12 to 19  in Taormina. The announcement was made by the special commissioner of the Taormina Arte Sicilia Foundation/ Fondazione Taormina Arte Sicilia, Sergio Bonomo, who enthusiastically declared: "Maestro Müller's professional contribution will be a driving force of success for the prestigious film event”.

This Festival is one of the most renowned and prestigious in the world, and this year celebrates 70 years. The story of the festival combines glamour, culture and great cinema which over the years has brought many Italian and international stars to the Teatro Antico, the Ancient Greek open-air theatre – helping to cement Taormina as an iconic destination.

The Taormina Film Fest is promoted and organized by the Taormina Arte Sicilia Foundation/ Fondazione Taormina Arte Sicilia with the support of the Regional Department for Tourism, Sports and Entertainment of the Sicilian Regional Authority / Assessorato del Turismo, dello Sport e dello Spettacolo della Regione Siciliana, the Sicilia Film Commission, the Municipality of Taormina / Comune di Taormina and the MiC, Ministero della Cultura/Ministry of Culture – Direzione Generale cinema e audiovisivo/ Movies and Audiovisual Department. It will feature national and international premieres, masterclasses and retrospectives with prestigious guests from July 12 to 19, 2024.

"I wish to express my satisfaction and praise for the appointment of Marco Müller as Artistic Director of the Taormina Film Festival" – says Elvira Amata, Regional Councillor for Tourism, Sports and Entertainment - "I am sure that this high international profile will contribute to significantly strengthen the expectations and the quality of the choices to be made for the content of the Festival, which remains, as always, a highly anticipated event. I wish Marco Müller and the Fondazione Taormina Arte Sicilia all the best in their work, with the strong hope that the Festival will be a great success."

Cateno De Luca, Mayor of Taormina, emphasises: "The Taormina Film Fest represents an appointment of great importance that brings prestige to our splendid city and enhances its cultural high value. A tradition that has been going on for 70 years and that has given Taormina unforgettable pages of film history. I hope that the Taormina Film Fest will always live up to its history and to the Taormina brand. I congratulate Maestro Müller on his appointment and wish him an excellent direction of the Festival being sure that he will be able to give us a prestigious 70th edition”.

Producer, scholar, film professor and festival “maker” for more than 40 years, Marco Müller has directed, among others, the Pesaro New Cinema Festival, the Locarno and Rotterdam film festivals, the Venice Film Festival, the Rome Film Festival. He is currently director of the Film Art Research Centre at the Shanghai University and Professor Emeritus at the Shanghai Film Academy; in China he created and directed the Pingyao and Macao festivals. He has written and edited more than twenty monographic books on international cinema. The movies he has produced have won awards at the Venice Film Festival, the Cannes, Berlin and Sundance Festivals, as well as an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

In his commitment for the Taormina Film Fest, Müller is working with the contribution of a prestigious selection committee, consisting of Sandra Hebron, Enrico Magrelli, Carmelo Marabello, Édouard Waintrop, who will be joined by Joumane Chahine as consultant for international relations.

"I am happy to work in Sicily to rediscover my roots - I was born and raised in Rome, but my only quarter of Italian blood is from Palermo," Marco Müller emphasises. "I thank all the people, in the institutions and among friends of cinema, who have built for me this opportunity to experiment in Taormina the moving thought of how a useful popular festival can still be built. We will use the extraordinary Teatro Antico - which was always a source of jealousy for me when I was programming Locarno's Piazza Grande - and other cinemas in Taormina”.

THE SELECTION COMMITTEE

Sandra Hebron has held key roles in various areas of filmmaking, including financing, development, training and exhibition, specialising in festivals since 1997. She was Artistic Director of the BFI London Film Festival from 2003 to 2011 and subsequently worked as a consultant for several international festivals. She is currently Head of Screen Arts at the UK's National Film and Television School, where she also runs an MA in Film Studies, Programming and Curating.

Enrico Magrelli is a journalist, writer and film critic, author of radio and television programs and one of the historical hosts of 'Hollywood Party' on Radio Rai3. For over 20 years he collaborated with the Venice Film Festival as director of the Critics' Week and member of the Selection Committee. He was curator of the Cineteca Nazionale and consultant to the directors of the Bif&st in Bari. He has written or edited publications dedicated to major figures in Italian and international cinema.

Carmelo Marabello is Professor of Film and Media Studies at the Iuav University of Venice and Dean of the Venice International University. In the ‘80s he curated the retrospectives and special events of the Taormina Film Fest, and in the ‘90s he was programming director of the same festival with Enrico Ghezzi. Curator and author of Fuori Orario for Rai3 until the early 2000s, after having contributed to the creation of Rai Cinema he devoted himself to research and università teaching in Italy, Switzerland and United States.

Édouard Waintrop, writer, film critic (for 26 years on the cinema pages of Libération). He was Artistic Director of the Freiburg International Film Festival from 2007 to 2010, director of the Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival from 2011 to 2018 and in 2021 first director of the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Among his many other professional experiences, it is worth mentioning the direction of the two film theatres of the Grütli Foundation in Geneva.

TAORMINA FILM FEST 2024

70th Edition, July12-19