A career award for Oscar-winning actor Al Pacino kicked off the Rome film festival yesterday, bringing a Hollywood veteran to the movie showcase which this year has a markedly European flavour.
The 68-year old, who comes from a family of Italian immigrants to America, was nominated for an Oscar several times for films like The Godfather, Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon. He won the golden statuette once, as best actor for his portrayal of a blind man in Scent of a Woman (1992).
Currently he is on the big screen with Righteous Kill, where he and Robert De Niro play two veteran cops on the trail of a serial killer in a film that was panned by the critics.
The opening film of the Rome festival, which runs through October 31, is L'Uomo Che Ama (The Man Who Loves), an Italian love drama starring Monica Bellucci premiering today.
Film based on diary opens war wounds
A film dealing with the suffering of women raped by Soviet officers after the end of World War II hits German cinemas this week, winning both praise and criticism for its treatment of a long-ignored and painful issue.
A Woman in Berlin is based on the diary entries of Marta Hillers who was a young woman when Russian soldiers entered Berlin in 1945.
Ms Hillers's book was shunned by Germans when it was released in the 1950s but it proved a bestseller when it was published again some 50 years later. Ms Hillers died in 2001 aged 90.
Actress Nina Hoss, who takes the lead role, said she was shocked by Ms Hillers's ordeal.
"The more I learned about this story, the more I realised what hell this woman went through," Ms Hoss told NDR TV. "The way in which she reports her sufferingshows that she is trying to come to terms with her past through suppressing her emotions."
Dies after hospitals turn her away
A woman in Japan suffering a brain haemorrhage while about to give birth died after being turned away by eight hospitals, prompting anger over Japan's strained medical system.
Eight hospitals in Tokyo refused to take in the 36-year-old woman earlier this month, citing reasons such as not having enough doctors, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said yesterday.
An hour later, one hospital agreed to take her and carried out a Caesarean section and an operation on her brain. But the woman died three days later.
Last year a woman, refused by eight hospitals, miscarried in an ambulance while in 2006, a woman died after being turned away by 19 hospitals and falling unconscious during childbirth.
Queen 'perturbed' at infamous shoot
US photographer Annie Leibovitz said yesterday Queen Elizabeth seemed "a little perturbed" during a 2007 photo shoot at the centre of a British broadcasting scandal.
The head of the British state broadcaster's TV flagship BBC One resigned last year after he was faulted for presenting footage from a documentary showing the Queen apparently storming out of the shoot at Buckingham Palace.
In fact, the footage was of the monarch walking into the room which had been edited out of sequence. The BBC apologised to the Queen, but blamed production company RDF for supplying the footage edited out of sequence.
Ms Leibovitz said she had agreed to have the photo shoot filmed for a documentary, although the camera crew only managed to get the monarch entering and leaving the session.
"...which is what they got, only they got it a little confused," she said.
"The thing the BBC missed completely was that she was storming into the shoot."
Galleries seek money for key Titians
The National Galleries of Scotland and the National Gallery in London are seeking to raise £100 million to buy two key works by Renaissance master Titian before they are put up for sale.
Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto belong to the Duke of Sutherland, who wants to sell them. At £50 million each, experts say the galleries are being offered a rare bargain.
Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery, said he was hopeful of raising the money needed for Diana and Actaeon before the deadline at the end of this year. The galleries would then have three more years to pay off the promised cash.