Mitzi Peirone’s feature Saint Clare starring Bella Thorne will open the 70th edition of the Taormina Film Festival, organizers unveiled Monday.
Thorne, who plays the lead in the adaptation of Don Roff’s novel Clare at Sixteen, will attend the screening, the film’s world premiere, at the festival’s iconic Teatro Antico open-air theater, Saturday July 13. Thorne plays a solitary young woman in a small town who is haunted by voices that lead her to kill the nastier folks in town and get away with it.
Peirone (horror thriller Braid) co-wrote the script with Guinevere Turner (American Psycho). Ryan Phillippe and Rebecca De Mornay co-star. David Chackler, Arielle Elwes and Joel Michaely produced the film, with an original soundtrack by Zola Jesus.
“We couldn’t have dreamed of a better debut for our oneiric film than the gorgeously historic Taormina. We are elated and humbled, especially for a picture that delves into spiritual beauty, female sainthood and fate, there is no better home in the world than Sicily,” said Peirone.
Taormina previously announced that Lee Isaac Chung’s disaster feature Twisters will have its Italian premiere at this year’s festival, which runs July 13-19. The Taormina Film Festival is among the world’s oldest film festivals and held in southern Sicily, it boasts one of the world’s most beautiful locations. But the event has struggled for years with ever-changing festival directors and near-constant financial difficulties.