Owen, Costner star at Rome Film Fest

On Thursday, the Eternal City will raise curtains on the ninth Rome International Film Festival, based at Rome's Auditorium concert hall and featuring a line-up of 51 titles screening over the festival's 10-day run.
    The event is attracting a number of international cinema big names, including American star Kevin Costner, British actor Clive Owen and German director Wim Wenders.
    Unique to this year's event is the audience-based jury, in which audience members will vote following screenings to determine winners in each of the festival's four main categories.
    The festival's Gala category highlights the most important films of the year, and this year's line-up includes the European premieres of British director Stephen Daldry's Trash, Black and White directed by Mike Binder, Still Alice directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, and the Italian premiere of Gone Girl by David Fincher.
    In Trash, set in Brazil and based on the eponymous 2010 book by Andy Mulligan, three kids discover a wallet in Rio's slums, which throws them into a mystery that has them running from police. Black and White is a drama that has brought early Oscar buzz for Costner and co-star Octavia Spencer, and is based on a true story of a custody battle over a mixed-race child.
    Costner will give a talk as part of the film festival's Conversations series of presentations with actors and directors.
    Director Brad Anderson is also in the Conversations series, teaching a masterclass and presenting his film Stonehearst Asylum in its European debut, in the festival's category for world, international, or European debuts, called Mondo Genere.
    Anderson's film is a thriller based on an Edgar Allan Poe short story, slated for US release on October 24 and starring Ben Kingsley, Kate Beckinsale and Michael Caine. In Time Out of Mind, which had its international premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and will make its European debut in Rome in the Cinema d'Oggi category, a homeless man played by Richard Gere searches to reconcile with his estranged daughter, played by Jena Malone.
    Owen will be on-hand for a talk and a screening of director Steven Soderbergh's television drama, The Knick, in which the Coventry native plays a turn-of-the-century surgeon in a New York hospital.
    Wenders will also hold a talk in the Conversations series and present his documentary, The Salt of the Earth, which won the Special Prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival. The festival, which is still finding its footing in the same country as the iconic Venice Film Festival, continues to emphasize itself as a marketplace for international distributors, buyers and producers.
    Since its 2006 inception, the festival has hosted and sponsored a networking forum in venues running along Via Veneto known as The Business Street, where cinema dealmakers can meet and talk business.