RIGA IFF will take place from 14 to 24 October this year. The festival’s eighth edition will open with The Rossellinis by Alessandro Rossellini. The director is the grandson of legendary Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, and his film offers a unique take on the lives and a look behind the scenes of the fame of the international cinema dynasty. The guests who will attend opening night will have the exclusive opportunity to experience the Baltic premiere together with the film’s international production team. Tickets are on sale from 14 July.

Latvian industry professionals were also involved in making the film – it was co-produced by VFS Films, co-written by acclaimed director Dāvis Sīmanis, and the film’s main cinematographer is award-winning Valdis Celmiņš. The film will screen on the opening night of RIGA IFF both in person at the Splendid Palace cinema as well as be available online throughout Latvia.

Dāvis Sīmanis emphasises that this film reveals Roberto Rossellini (Rome, Open City, 1945), who was known for being a dandy and enjoyed being the centre of attention, as a much more complex and contradictory personality. This is made possible largely due to the director’s exclusive access to the Rossellini family, and their archives; most of this unique material will be shown to the public for the first time. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and features Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman’s daughter, actress and director Isabella Rossellini, as well as film producer Renzo Rossellini and other members of the dynasty.

“Neorealism is inextricably linked to Roberto Rossellini and will through this documentary gain new significance in the way in which the family’s artificial and staged façade is dismantled to reveal the individuals’ real lives and true thoughts,” says Sīmanis.

The Rossellinis will also launch this year’s retrospective programme, THE ROSSELLINIS AND THE CENTURY, which will take a closer look at the lives and work of the influential Rossellini-Bergman clan over the course of several decades.

The first tickets for the festival programme will go on sale on 20 July. This year’s lineup includes the darkly ironic comedy Riders of Justice, starring Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, the documentary Aalto about the pioneers of Scandinavian design, and films that have yet to be announced, but which audiences will already have heard of from their successful screenings at several A-list film festivals.

Tickets for screenings in cinemas and online throughout Latvia are available on the festival’s website – rigaiff.lv. Attending in-person screenings will only be possible with a valid Covid-19 vaccination certificate and in accordance with the epidemiological safety regulations in effect at the time.

The films that have been announced so far are only a small part of the festival’s full lineup. The programme will regularly be updated with high quality films until October. The most convenient way to keep up to date with the latest news and receive a monthly selection of the films that have been announced, is by signing up to the Festival’s newly launched mailing list. Subscribe by visiting pasts.rigaiff.lv

The festival receives support from the State Culture Capital Foundation, the National Film Centre and Riga City Council.

For further information:
RIGA IFF Communications Department
press@rigaiff.lv