On the opening night the LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2016 Gianni Amelio, and the latest film by Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallahad

Today at the start and up to 12 November in Rome at the Savoy Cinema Festival MedFilm , the first and most important showcase in Italy dedicated to the cinema of the southern shores of the Mediterranean and the Middle East directed by the indefatigable Ginella Vocca that at its 22nd edition takes up the momentum ever. Will the Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallahad usher,the festival with the Italian premiere of the film Brooks, Meadows and Lovely Faces (Al Ma 'wal wal Khodra El Wajh Hassan). Three years after the presentation to MedFestival of After the Battle, the author, active protagonist of the Arab Spring, He will return to Rome to meet with the public and critics, and to present his latest work, a wild melodrama that behind the glittering patina, It chronicles the daily problems in a complex country like Egypt.

The evening will open with the transfer to Gianni Amelio the Lifetime Achievement Award 2016. Amelio, director and witness the passions and stories of women and men, tirelessly questioning the forms of cinema will be honored with a screening – Wednesday 9 November – de The first man. On the same evening today will be awarded the Prize Koine 2016 a SaMiFo – Health Forced Migrants – the first medical reception center, a collaboration between the Centre and Astalli Asl Roma, intended to protect the right to health and taking care of victims of torture.

Also this year confirms the collaboration between MedFilm Festival and the Representation Office in Italy of the European Parliament with the LUX FILM DAYS in ROME and the screening of two of the three films finalists Lux prize 2016: As soon as I open my eyes and Leyla Bouzid Toni Erdmann Maren Ade. This year on the occasion of the celebrations for the 10th anniversary will be extended the public of the LUX Film Days, including also the city of Salerno. In fact there is a direct streaming with Festival Shadow Line to be held in the city of Salerno, for the presentation of the film in contemporary Tunisian Leyla Bouzid.

To pick up the threads that unite peoples and cultures, rather than raise walls that separate them, the festival will host this spirit two special showcases dedicated to the Guests of Honor Countries: l’Iran e la Tunisia.

But we come to the films in competition that features and shorts are 39. For the Official Prize Competition Love and Psyche, edited by Giulio Casadei, nine films which may be all or nearly included in the vast and varied world of genre cinema: melodrama (Brooks, Meadows and Lovely Faces di Yousry Nasrallah, all’iraniano Inversion di Behnam Behzadi, Tunisian Hedi di Mohamed Ben Attia and The Italian Accabadora Enrico Pau) the French-Tunisian gangster-movie Chouf Karim Dridi, dal prison-movie giordano Blessed Benefit di Mahmoud Al Massad, the horror fantasy Algerian Kindil Damien Ounouri, dal francese road movie Days France di Jérôme Reybaud al meta-cinema dell’algerino The Trial Garden di Dania Reymond. Beyond the inevitable differences, what emerges in every single movie is the willingness to put man at the center, with all its load of fragility, hopes, want. An ode to everything that cinema capable, says Aldo Spiniello about Hedi, the "hurt and rescue at the same time".

The International Documentary Competition Open Eyes Award, always curated by Gianfranco Pannone, shows ten films united by the theme of memory, found among villages, city, province, different nations, linked by the desire to put it back into play in this, in a world subject to the continuous pressure of geopolitical conflicts. Representing Italy, new film Mario Brenta Karine de Villers, Delta Park, set in a hotel, in which the time between slow is the amount of the loss of the sense of whether the guests, young refugees waiting for a destination.

The official selection of the International Short Film Competition Methexis Award and Cervantes Prize, edited by Alessandro Zoppo, they are part of 20 courts that move along the expressive spectrum of contemporary cinema, from fiction to documentary, from animation to experimental. genres, looks and identities blend and hybridize. At the center of these jobs, habit / obsession of the film and the filmable, our relationship with images, wild eye that tries in every way to capture life.

Then there 's the large space dedicated to Italian cinema showcase with Pearls, Our focus on independent cinema and its young authors. Opens the section on stateless cinema and physical Amir Naderi, at the height of his abstraction with Monte.

Finally, among the Special events. MedFilm it incontra International Mediterranean Film Festival of Tetouan the con anteprima italiana di Small Pleasures, New Moroccan filmmaker Mohamed Chrif Tribak, won the Audience Award in Tetouan.

in Jury throughout the Italian Official Love and Psyche Award Competition actress Isabella Ragonese, the journalist and writer Federico Pontiggia, He distributrice Claudia Bedogni, film critic Angela Prudenzi and the writer and journalist Tiziana Lo Porto. This year the jury will be joined by the jury PiuCulture, online newspaper focused on the daily life of foreigners living in Rome. Instead for the International Documentary Competition Open Eyes: film critic Roberto Silvestri, The director and screenwriter Irene Dionisio, the journalist and writer Francesca bellino, cinematographer Tarek Ben Abdallah, and the journalist and writer Katia Ippaso. Finally, to award the prizes of the International Short Film Competition Award Methexis, a panel of 9 students from the School of European and Mediterranean National Film and inmates of the Prison of Rebibbia New Complex.

The symbol of this year's festival is a mural, tracked down in the maze of streets of Tunis. A design that in simplicity and delicate irony tract expresses its evocative power. A drawing Project Zoo, stage name of Bilal Berreni, French-Algerian artist who died in Detroit in 2013 just 23 years.

Countless government entities and embassies that sponsor and support this 22nd edition together with leading national newspapers including The Republic.