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NOIR IN FESTIVAL ON BLANC
The NOIR landed with its shadows on the snows of Italian Mont Blanc in the early 90’s after a decade’s experience with MystFest on the Adriatic coast. Every year at the beginning of December the best of cinema and literature in the field of thriller, mystery, spy story, horror and noir s.f. is on show in one of the most fascinating ski resorts in the Italian Alps: Courmayeur, at just an hour drive from Geneva and Turin and 2 hours from Milan. The 12 films in competition are all premières of the year and will be screened by an ever prestigious Jury and awarded the Mystery Award for Best Film and the Napapijri Prize for the Best Performance. The Festival also features a documentary section, retrospectives exploring the history of the genre, discovering cult authors, setting new trends, as well as a TV Noir section and the newest festival for young audience MINI Noir. As to literature, the Festival promotes the meeting with the best Italian and the International crime-novel writers, and gives each year the prestigious Raymond Chandler Award to the career of a master and the Giorgio Scerbanenco Award to the best Italian published crime-novel. Conferences and seminars investigate into the genre's artistic developments and into its close links with reality. Events, exhibitions and publications further enrich the appointment with Courmayeur Noir in Festival: not to be missed by all fans and professionals of the genre.
NOIR IN FESTIVAL ON SCREEN
In its long tradition of discoveries and rediscoveries of new or already known authors under the sign of thriller, Noir in Festival has proposed, among retrospectives and films, a complete panorama of Italian crime movies from the 40’s to the 70’s, a fresh look on masters such as Alfred Hitchcock, Pierre Chenal, Orson Welles, Robert Wise and William Friedkin (attending in 1997), and imposed new authors like Wes Craven, Sam Raimi, John Woo, Quentin Tarantino, Takashi Miike (1999: his first Western retrospective), Sabu and Park Chan-wook. But also documentary masters like Emile De Antonio and Fred Wiseman have been celebrated, as well as the great literature on the screen with tributes to Durrenmat, Conrad or Dostojevski.
The international Juries of the NOIR have had among their members: Dario Argento, Edward Bunker, Suzanne Cloutier, Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Jules Dassin, Jeffery Deaver, Jean-Christophe Grangé, Maria de Medeiros, Abbas Kiarostami, Val Kilmer, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Mike Hodges, Peter James, Christopher Lee, Laura Morante, Chris Penn, Michele Placido, Amanda Plummer, Gillo Pontecorvo, Patricia Rozema, James Sallis, Jimmy Sangster, Jerzy Skolimowski, Bob Swaim, Michael Tolkin, Margarethe von Trotta, Peter Weller, Donald Westlake and Farley Granger.
In 1992 NOIR IN FESTIVAL brought to Italy Quentin Tarantino (a true fan of our festival) with Reservoir Dogs, in 1993 premiered Romeo is Bleeding, with Gary Oldman and the noir tv series Fallen Angels, produced by Sydney Pollack. In 1994 Shallow Grave by Danny Boyle, with Ewan McGregor and The Seed of Madness by John Carpenter have been presented; while in 1995 Seven by David Fincher was launched, and the 1996 saw the début as director of Kevin Spacey with Albino Alligator. Prestigious guests in 1997 with the tribute to William Friedkin and the premieres of The Devil’s Advocate at the presence of Charlize Theron, and of Starship Troopers, at the presence of the director Paul Verhoeven and the actor Casper Van Diem; and finally Alien Resurrection, with Sigourney Weaver. In 1998 we saw in Courmayeur Enemy of the State, by Tony Scott with Will Smith, and The Spanish Prisoner by David Mamet, while 1999 introduced to Italian audience the Oscar winner American Beauty, the hit The Bone Collector with Angelina Jolie and Denzel Washington, and Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead, guest of honor Dante Ferretti. In 2000 two major premieres, among the others, of Neil LaBute’s Nurse Betty and of M.Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis. In 2001, the first “Iran Noir” program in Europe was set up in Courmayeur. An Italian event of 2002 was the première of The Legend of Al, John and Jack by the leading comic trio Aldo Giovanni & Giacomo, while the Italian debut of the jap horror cult The Ring has also taken place. In 2003 the festival presented Runaway Jury, starring Gene Hackman and Rachel Weisz, as well a tribute to Stan Lee (the father of Marvel comics). The 2004 saw the Hong Kong trilogy Infernal Affairs which inspired Scorsese for The Departed, while in 2005 the festival introduced A History of Violence by David Cronenberg and The Cronicles of Narnia Italian première. The 2006’s hits of the Noir were Cassavetes’Alpha Dog (Best Film), the Academy Award recipient The Last King of Scotland, Tony Scott’s Déjà vu and the young audience’s favourite Flushed Away among others.
Many other directors have competed for the Black Lion Awards in Courmayeur: Tim Burton, Lucas Belvaux, Luc Besson, John Dahl, Claire Denis, Eric Rochant, Mike Figgis, James B. Harris, Neil Jordan, James Merendino, Mark Peploe, Bob Rafelson, Nicolas Roeg, Carlos Saura, Ron Shelton, Steven Soderberg, Johnnie To, Robert M. Young.
THE DARK SIDE OF THE BOOK
In the name of Raymond Chandler, the master giving his name to the Prize awarded to a great mystery writer’s career, Noir in Festival has hosted the best names of the literature of the genre like Scott Turow, Elmore Leonard, John le Carrè, Leonardo Sciascia, James G.Ballard, Frederick Forsyth, Alicia Giménez-Bartlett, James Grady, Graham Greene, John Grisham, Manuel Vasquez Montalban, Osvaldo Soriano, P.D. James, Fruttero & Lucentini, Ed McBain, Andrew Vacchs, Mickey Spillane, Ian Rankin, George P. Pelekanos, and James Crumley who have all been awarded the Prize. But also, Quentin Tarantino, Chris Carter, Scott Turow and Arturo Perez Reverte have been awarded with a Special R.Chandler.
Literature at the NOIR does not only mean prize awarding, but also book presentations, meetings with foreign and Italian authors, the promotion of publishing series, magazines. Many are the remarkable names to be remembered in this territory as well: Robert Bloch, Mary Higgins Clark, Robin Cook, James Ellroy, Anne Perry, Walter Mosley, Michael Tolkin, José Latour, Joe Lansdale, Nicholas Evans, Raymond Benson, Kathy Reichs, Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett, Ian Caldwell, Harlan Coben, Jefferey Deaver, Barry Gifford, Amitav Gosh, Jean-Cristophe Grangé, James W. Hall, Jean-Claude Izzo, Michael Marshall Smith, Matthew Pearl and Patrick Raynal; the recent exploit in noir science fiction with Norman Spinrad, K.W.Jeter, and Bryan Aldiss (as an hommage to S. Kubrick); the 2006 tribute to the first time in Italy Elmore Leonard.
Rediscoveries and discoveries also on the literary side with the publishing revival in Italy of Cornell Woolrich, David Goodis, Jim Thompson, Philip K. Dick, Ed Bunker; the “revelation” of female crime-writing with Ruth Rendell, Anne Perry or Dorothy Unhak, the launching in Italy of the new authors of the French Série Noire, and of the New Age of British Mystery, but also the discussion on the many mysteries of history like the Cold War Spies, the JFK assassination or the 1956 Uprising of Budapest.
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