Jornal da Mostra
Nº 364 > 29ª Mostra > 08/10/2005
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Isabella Rossellini pays homage to her father and enlightens 29th São Paulo International Film Festival
The Italian actress Isabella Rossellini toasts the 29th São Paulo International Film Festival paying a double homage. The first one to her father, with the short-film My Dad is 100 Years Old, which celebrates the centennial of Roberto Rossellini. The other one is the Film Festival itself: she signs the commemorative poster in 2005.Idealized by Rossellini and directed by the Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin – who had a retrospective of his films on the 28th São Paulo International Film Festival – My Dad is 100 Years Old celebrates the life and the work of Roberto Rossellini with originality, poetry and humor. “When I met Guy Maddin two years ago, during the shooting of The Saddest Music in the World, I knew at once that I had found the only person capable to illustrate the film I wanted to make about my father”, said the actress during the last Toronto Film Festival, where the production had its debut – the first exhibition outside Canada will be at 29th São Paulo International Film Festival.
The skill of Maddin in blending the look, the sensation and the sound of the old with the humor and the irony of the new allowed Rossellini to take to the screen the apprehension of her parents’ memory. On the masterpiece, of 16 minutes long, the actress plays her father, the mother – the actress Ingrid Bergman – and other icons of the cinema like Fellini, Hitchcock, Chaplin and the producer David O. Selzinick.
Invited by the 29th São Paulo International Film Festival to sign the event’s commemorative poster, Isabella Rossellini chose to represent the kiss. Symbol act of love and one of the most recurrent scenes of the cinema’s history.
