The Third Edition of the Rome CinemaFest, recently renamed to be know as the Rome International Film Festival, is marked by torrential rains and storms of controversy.

For the last two nights unusual storms drenched the festival and its elegant fest goers as press corps members fled the huge tent where their screenings take place in fear of the roof collapsing in the gail-force winds and teaming rains. It did not collapse, but many of the billboards blew over.  One huge one buried a white coup much to the dismay of its owner… well it was illegally parked anyway!

The stormy controversy took place at the time of the first screening of a film in the Festival that laments the poor treatment of Fascists after the partisan victory in WWII.  It seems that students were appalled at the way the film seemed to be more than a little pro-Fascist while painting a monochromatic picture of the world of the partisans that resisted the Nazis, their politics and collaborators.