Torino Film Festival Chief Teases World Premiere of Billy Zane’s Marlon Brando Biopic: ‘He Is Possessed’ by the Late Actor

Giulio Base, the new artistic director of the Torino Film Festival, is looking to make festgoers an offer they can’t refuse.

While Ron Howard’s “Eden” opens the 42nd edition, being held Nov. 22-30 in the Italian city of Turin, with the director in tow, the festival’s closer will be the world premiere of “Waltzing With Brando,”
starring Billy Zane as Brando during the period when he was preparing to star in “The Godfather” and “Last Tango in Paris.”

Base is understandably proud that Zane will be in attendance to present the film. “You won’t believe it: He is possessed by Marlon Brando,” he says of Zane’s buzzed about performance.

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Base, who is an Italian actor-director, is celebrating the centennial of Brando’s birth with a 24-title retrospective of films featuring the two-time Oscar winner known for his naturalistic acting style and rebellious streak.

The Brando retro will feature a host of related events, such as Matthew Broderick introducing a screening of Andrew Bergman’s cult screwball comedy “The Freshman,” in which he played a New York
University film student who intersects with a doppelganger for Vito Corleone in the form of mobster Carmine Sabatini, played by Brando.

Base has added a new mixed-bag section to the event called Zibaldone. It features vintage titles with their stars on hand such as “The Hunt for Red October” for which Alec Baldwin will make an appearance.

Torino, which is Italy’s preeminent event for young directors and indie cinema, is breaking new ground in other ways.

“I can’t think of another festival where the women directors outnumber the men,” says Base, who specifies that no quota system was applied. “We didn’t do it on purpose, but we’re delighted that it happened.”

Male and female directors are equally represented in the main feature competition and the documentary sections, and 13 of the 24 entries in the shorts sidebar are directed by women. In addition, the main
juries are chaired by female presidents — novelist Margaret Mazzantini, director Roberta Torre and actor Michela Cescon.

Another way in which Base is putting his stamp on the fest is that he’s slimmed down the lineup to 120 titles, down from 190 last year.

The Torino competition, overwhelmingly dedicated to first and second works, includes Tunisian helmer Abdelhamid Bouchnak’s “The Needle,” in which family values are called into question when an
intersex baby is born into a traditional Muslim family; Danish director Jacob Møller’s 1950s-set “Madame Ida,” about a pregnant woman who is sent to live with the woman who is to adopt her child; and German director Chiara Fleischhacker’s “Vena,” about a young woman and her boyfriend contending with an unexpected pregnancy and seeking solace in crystal meth until a midwife provides some help.

“Motherhood seems to be a common thread that runs through the selection,” says Base. “Surrogate mothers, single mothers, unwanted pregnancies — maternity in all its forms,” he points out.

As in the past, Torino will also have a strong political strand. The competition features Ukrainian drama “Dissident” by Stanislàv Hurenko and Andriyh Alfiorov; Mara Tamkovich’s “Under the Grey Sky,”
about a Belarusian journalist who is arrested after covertly livestreaming brutal government crackdowns on peaceful demonstrators after rigged elections; and “Higher than Acid Clouds,” the new work by Iranian auteur Ali Asgari (“Terrestrial Verses”), a black and white autobiographical essay about how censorship drains life and color from his home of Tehran that will open the documentary competition.