Director Bhanu Sivaju’s “Hear the Yellow” swept the major awards at this year’s Taormina Film Festival. The drama, which began its festival journey in February in Berlin, was named Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the Sicilian event, with stars Suleiman Kadim Kabari and Selva Erdener winning Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively.
‘Hear the Yellow’ is Sivaju’s second film. The drama is about a young Suna who returns to a small village in Turkey only to find it drafty and cracked. Her family home is fragile, as are her relationships with the locals, but Suna continues to shine a light on the dark corners of her past. Sivač’s feature debut, The Pigeon, also premiered in Berlin in 2018.
This year’s Taormina jury was chaired by New Zealand director Jane Campion, and included The Piano star Holly Hunter, costume designer Miyako Bellizzi, casting director Francine Meiszler, breakout director Akinola Davis Jr. (In the Father’s Shadow), Amazon MGM Studios global marketing head Sue Kroll, and Italian actor and director Pietro Castellitto. Other major names appearing in the Italian town include Russell Crowe, Helen Mirren, Connie Nielsen, Scott Eastwood, Aaron Paul, Nina Dobrev, Sam Nivola, Clive Owen, and Gore Verbinski.
The Campion-led jury also recognized Greta Scarano’s performance in Guido Chiesa’s Piccolo Miracolo, awarding her the Best Actress award. Tut Nhuot won Best Emerging Actor for his role in Ashley Walters’ prison drama “Animol,” while Belfine Sonmez won Best Emerging Actress for her role in Ben Voight’s “Gropiusstadt Supernova.”
The Taormina Youth Campus, made up of over 300 students and 25 young jurors and organized in collaboration with ANEC Sicilia and AGIS Sicilia, awarded Gore Verbinski’s genre-bending science fiction Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die as this year’s Golden Caridino. “Piccolo Miracolo” received a special award. Fili Invisibili, directed by Fabio Scifiliti, won the ARCA Award for Best Short Film.
The star-studded 72nd Italian extravaganza kicked off with the Italian premiere of HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” shown at the town’s stately Ancient Greek Theater. Other highlights included the world premiere of Derrick Bolte’s Bear Country, starring Russell Crowe, and Crowe also held a masterclass discussing his upcoming role in Chad Stahelski’s Highlander reboot.
Taormina’s other competition titles included “Roya,” a powerful drama by dissident Iranian filmmaker Mahnaz Mohammadi about an Iranian teacher held in Tehran’s Evin Prison, and Michael Gallagher’s “The Leader,” starring Tim Blake Nelson and Vera Farmiga, the true story of a cult known as Heaven’s Gate that convinced dozens of people to give up their lives and await evacuation from Earth. Gallagher and Blake Nelson spoke to Variety locally about what it means to tell the story of the famous cult at a time of heightened political tensions around the world.
The 72nd Taormina Film Festival was held from June 10th to 14th.
