The Festa del Cinema di Roma AKA the Rome Film Festival kicked off on Thursday with an extension of the already thriving film festival season. As well as the extraordinary curation of films – with the likes of The Farewell (Lulu Wang), Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria), Waves (Trey Edward Shults) – there will also be Close Encounter talks and appearances from celebrated names in the filmmaking world such as Ethan Coen, Bret Easton Ellis, Fanny Ardant and Kore-eda Hirokazu.
One of the early highlights of the festival was on Saturday evening when the veteran marvel of the film world, Bill Murray, was honoured with the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award. It was reported, however, that the 69 year-old actor was asleep during the press conference which was scheduled earlier that day. Luckily for the people of Rome and those following the festival around the world, Murray did show up to the main event.
To lead the special event for Bill Murray was filmmaker and friend Wes Anderson. They have of course collaborated on each of Anderson’s films since Rushmore, including The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and the upcoming The French Dispatch. Edward Norton and Frances McDormand were also present, both co-stars on Moonrise Kingdom, and McDormand worked with Murray again on the television production of Olive Kitteridge.