Sardinia Festival Hopes Event Gooses Sluggish Italian Box Office
Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentA slew of top-notch directors, producers and stars is set to make the trek to the fifth edition of the Filming Italy Sardegna Festival, which combines film and TV and is stepping up efforts to serve as a collective celebration of the Italian and global industry’s restart spirit.Since Italy’s box office returns are sputtering due to audience aversion to wearing a mask in theaters, Tiziana Rocca, chief of this unique event, is adding an open-air venue with a giant screen at its main hub, the Forte Village resort near Cagliari, capital of the emerald island of Sardinia (Sardegna in Italian).“Seeing movies in the open air is a different thrill, especially for younger audiences that have been rebelling against mandatory masks in movie theaters,” Rocca says. Accordingly, the June 9-12 fest will open with the Italian premiere of Universal’s crowd-pleaser “Jurassic World Dominion” in its new outdoor Piazza Forte Cinema.As for other movie offerings, U.S.