Helen Mirren, Russell Crowe, Scott Eastwood, and Gore Verbinsky are among top talents set to attend Italy’s upcoming Taormina Film Festival that has unveiled the lineup for its upcoming 72nd edition that will mix crowdpleasers with more esoteric quality fare.
Crowe, as previously announced, is expected to make the treck to the storied fest in the Sicilian resort –known to U.S. audiences as the location of “The White Lotus” Season 2 – for the world premiere of Australian action thriller “Bear Country” in which he reunites with “Unhinged” helmer Derrick Borte to play a veteran club owner whose plans for a peaceful retirement with his girlfriend are derailed when a masked assailant robs his establishment. “Bear Country” will bow as a special event in Taormina’s ancient Greek theatre in the shadow of Sicily’s active Mt. Etna volcano with most of the the key cast, including “Breaking Bad” star Aaron Paul, in tow.
Verbinsky, probably best known for the first three “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies is coming to Taormina with his offbeat sci-fi comedy “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” that is screening in competition.
Other Taormina competition titles comprise Ashley Walters-directed coming-of-age drama “Animol” set in a British juvenile detention; Turkish director Banu Sıvacı’s intimate relationship drama “Hear the Yellow”; dissident Iranian filmmaker Mahnaz Mohammadi potent drama “Roya” about an Iranian teacher detained in Tehran’s Evin prison; Michael Gallagher’s “The Leader” starring Tim Blake Nelson and Vera Farmiga in the true story of the cult known as Heaven’s Gate that convinced dozens to abandon their lives and await evacuation from planet Earth.
