The Tribeca Film Festival has established a special bond with the inaugural Rome Film Festival, which launched on the international film festival circuit last October with an instant must-attend status as a serious showcase of international cinema. Highlights from last year's Tribeca Film Festival were showcased in Rome, and now it is Tribeca's turn to return the favor....presenting a program of European films that debuted at the Rome event.

Dramatic features in the special program include: NAPOLEON AND ME, a lighthearted costume drama directed by Paolo Virzi and starring Daniel Auteuil as the doomed world conqueror in his final days of exile on the island of Elba; PLAYING THE VICTIM, a black-humored Russian Hamlet, directed by Kirill Serebrennikof, one of Moscow's top theater directors,and the winner of the Grand Prize at the Rome Film Festival; UK director Shane Meadows' THIS IS ENGLAND, a 1980s period piece that tells the story of a lonely eleven-year-old boy who is adopted by a group of skinheads; and a newly restored version of the 1968 masterwork, MEMORIES ABOUT SAYAT NOVA, a poetic mood piece by Sergei Paradjanov.

Two documentary films are included in the program: THE TRUE LEGEND OF TONY VILA by director Guiseppe Gagliardi is a half -true, half -imagined tale about the fate of a real life singing star who mysteriously disappeared; and THE ORCHESTRA OF PIAZZA VITTORIO by Agostino Forrente, which tells the story of an orchestra formed from 30 different musicians playing 15 unrelated instruments in one neighborhood in Rome. The Orchestra will give a free performance following the May 5th screening.

Sandy Madelberger, Fest21.com Online Dailies

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