Roma Film Fest to Honor Actress Stefania Sandrelli

ROME – The 17th edition of the Roma Film Festival will focus this year on iconic Italian actress Stefania Sandrelli, organizers said Tuesday.

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The festival, which is separate from the seven-year-old International Rome Film Festival, focuses each year on a single artist, creating the festival around that artist’s works. With Sandrelli, they will have plenty to pick from: the 66-year-old actress has appeared in 125 films and television series and has worked with some of Italy’s best known directors, including Ettore Scola, Mario Monicelli, Lina Wertmueller, Bernardo Bertolucci and Gabrile Muccino.

She is probably best known for her roles opposite Marcello Mastroianni in Pietro Germi’s 1961 classic Divorzio all’Italiana (Divorce Italian Style), with Dustin Hoffman in Germi’s comedy Alfredo, Alfredo from 1972, along with Vittorio Gassman in Scola’s post-war period drama C’eravamo tanto amati (We All Loved Each Other So Much) from 1974, and in Muccino’s 2001 romantic comedy L’ultimo bacio (The Last Kiss).

Last year, the festival similarly honored director Franco Zeffirelli, known for his interpretations of William Shakespeare classics, including the Oscar-winning 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet and the 1990 version of Hamlet, which starred Mel Gibson as the melancholy Dane.

The festival will take place Dec. 18-30.