The Rome Film Fest's Extra section - one of the festival's primary sidebars, has unveiled its packed and diverse line-up.

While the Fest will present main stream filmgoers-fare in the Premiere and Cinema 07 line-ups next week, Extra serves as Rome's experimental portal. Artistic director Mario Sesti told ScreenDaily.com that Extra explores areas that 'border' traditional
big-screen cinema.

The multi-faceted section is comprised of five sub-sections.

One highlight is the Extra/Other visions subcategory, with 29 titles (honed down from last year's 40) of which 16 titles vie for the Euros 20,000 Cult Prize sponsored by the Fox satellite television platform. The documentaries in this competition are all European and international premieres.

Documentaries in the Cult prize section include the Colin Firth-produced death row documentary In Prison My Whole Life directed by Marc Evans about former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal. The documentary will be shown concurrently with the London Film Festival.

Other titles include Italian documentary Zero - Investigation on 9/11; Spanish directors Hugo Domenech and Raul Montesinos' La sombra del iceberg that looks at the meaning behind the photo that made photographer Robert Capa famous and Sean Fine and Andrea Nix's documentary on child soldiers in Uganda entitled War Dance, among other titles (see list below).

Other highlights include Extra/The Actors Craft and Extra/Encounters - both strong Festival draws last year for audiences to interact with professionals.

This year Actor's Craft celebrates actresses Jane Fonda, Shirley Knight and Cloris Leachman who Sesti says appealed for their contribution to 1970s cinema and their way of 'tackling the theme of female identity.' Actor's Craft will also celebrate actress Sophia Loren - this year's recipient of the Actor's Award. Extra will be presenting several of Loren's films in a retrospective.

A second retrospective of 15 American films in collaboration with Studio Universal called 'Travels in American cinema, encounters with Actors Studio' from the 1960s and 70s is to include John Huston's The Misfits, Mike Nichols' The Graduate and Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

Extra/Encounters includes sessions with Terrence Malick, Francis Ford Coppola, Bernardo Bertolucci, Gerard Depardieu, Icelandic Filmmaker Ragnar Bragason and TV series creator Joel Surnow.

Extra/Tributes is dedicated to varied personalities in and 'near to cinema.' This year will feature author Kim Arcalli, Italy's horror forefather Riccardo Freda, cult director Sergio Leone, experimental director Alberto Grifi, Italy's comic genius Toto and film-maker Marco Ferreri.

Lastly, Extra/Special programs has varied content to include I Diari of Piazza Vittorio (docs about members of Rome's traveling multi ethnic Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio), a video arte line up, a cinema and web program as well as a five-category on line short film competition in collaboration with MySpace.

The Rome Film Fest's full line up will be announced Sept 27.

Extra/Other Visions Cult Prize competition:
Forbidden Lies - Anna Broinowski, Australia (2007)
The Gates - Antonio Ferrara and Albert Maysles, US (2007)
In Prison My Whole Life - Marc Evans, UK - US (2007)
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters - Seth Gordon, US (2007)
Manda bala - Send a Bullet - Jason Kohn, Brazil - US, 2007
Natural Born Star - Even Benestad, Norway (2007)
Parole Sante - Ascanio Celestini, Italy (2007)
Adam's Pears (Le pere di Adamo) - Guido Chiesa, Italy (2007)
La Position du lion couche - Mary Jimenez, Belgium 2007
Sigur Ròs - Heima - Dean DeBlois, Iceland (2007)
La sombra del iceberg - Hugo Domènech and Raul Montesinos, Spain (2007)
Taxi to the Dark Side - Alex Gibney, US (2007)
The Unforeseen - Laura Dunn, US (2007)
The Universe of Keith Haring - Christina Clausen, Italy - France (2007)
War Dance - Sean Fine and Andrea Nix, US (2007)
Zero - Investigation on 9/11 - Franco Fracassi and Francesco Trento, Italy 2007

Extra/Other Visions
Auschwitz 2006 - Saverio Costanzo, Italy (2007)
Children (Börn) - Ragnar Bragason, Iceland (2006)
Clint Eastwood, a Life in Film (Clint Eastwood, le franc tireur) -
Michael Henry Wilson, France (2007)
La cravate - Alejandro Jodorowsky, France (1957)
Donne assassine - Herbert Simone Paragnani, Italy (2007)
Dr Plonk - Rolf De Heer, Australia (2007)
The Last Lear - Rituparno Ghosh, India (2007)
My Fair Son - Cui Zi'en, China (2007)
Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation - Charles Burnett, South Africa (2007)
New Home Movies From the Lower 9th Ward - Jonathan Demme, US (2007)
Niente è come sembra - Franco Battiato, Italy (2007)
Parents - Ragnar Bragason, Iceland (2007)
Pop Skull - Adam Wingard, US 2007

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