Moonlight Opens Rome Film Fest, Critic Finds It Artificious

The 2016 Festa del Cinema di Roma opened with Barry Jenkins' Moonlight, not Pif's In guerra per Amore as erroneously reported by some newspapers. The screening at the Sala Sinopoli of the Auditorium Parco della Musica was a glamorous affair, with the President of the Republic exiting first. Curator Antonio Monda chose the independent film, produced by Brad Pitt, over a mainstream star vehicle. The critic Mariagrazia Pontorno panned the film as conformist in its anti-conformism, criticizing its aestheticized treatment of themes like marginalization, bullying, and homosexuality. The three-act story of Chiron's childhood, adolescence, and adulthood was deemed weak, artificial, and unconvincing, borrowing from Richard Linklater's Boyhood but lacking sincerity.