Last year, Italian marketing guru Tiziana Rocca returned to the post of artistic director of Italy’s Taormina Film Festival eight years after she was forced to step down due to political infighting following a successful five-year stint. The festivals specialist, who nurtures close ties to Hollywood, revived Taormina’s competitive strands and brought major names such as Martin Scorsese to speak at the festival in her return year. 

This year’s edition is set to be another starry one, with major names such as Helen Mirren, Russell Crowe, Clive Owen, Jane Campion and Scott Eastwood set to land in the Sicilian town next week. Speaking with Variety amidst preparations for the upcoming event, Rocca says her priority is to build a festival that “feels like it is for everybody.”

“We have this incredible Greek theater with so much history that is a spectacular venue for 6,000 people,” she adds of the festival home, an imposing auditorium carved into a Sicilian hillside above the Ionian Sea. “But to fill this theater, we need to make sure that the program is very popular. This year, we have films from all over the world, and we want to have lots and lots of young people in the theater every evening. This festival energy is very important.”

Festival highlights this year include HBO’s “House of Dragon,” which will open the festival and the world premiere of Derrick Borte’s “Bear Country,” starring Crowe. The competitive strand will gather Berlin standouts such as Gore Verbinski’s “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” Ashley Walters’ “Animol” and Mahnaz Mohammadi’s “Roya,” as well as recent Cannes breakouts such as Rafiki Fariala’s “Congo Boy.”

“When the theater is full, and people are watching something together, it is a very emotional experience,” adds Rocca, who says one of her key missions with the festival is to keep ticket prices low so local families can attend screenings and events. “I respect the public, the city, and I know sometimes there is a lot of sacrifice involved in people coming to the festival. I want everybody to feel they have a chance to participate in the festival.”

Having major Italian and international talent available to the public is another priority of Rocca’s, who states one of her “great joys” as an artistic director is being able to facilitate learning opportunities for budding filmmakers and young students. 

“I always try to get actors and directors to come, experience Taormina, and to be generous on the red carpet,” she continues. “I tell them: take the pictures, sign all the signs. Last year, we brought Martin Scorsese, who was supposed to give a 30-minute masterclass but spoke for an hour and a half with our students. He is so generous to the younger generations. He told them: ‘Don’t lose hope, follow your dreams.’” 

Rocca says budding filmmakers are living through “difficult times” when there is a “loss of hope” that one can make it in an industry that feels like it is always inching close to crisis. “Young people in film have lost a bit of hope. For this reason, I think it’s important for young students to hear from those who have made it and for them to hear that it was difficult for them at the start, too.” 

The artistic director is categorical in saying she wants Taormina to be “a human festival.” “I don’t like artificial intelligence. It cannot substitute anyone. All it can do is copy; it can’t create. For this reason, it’s very important to have a human factor to the festival, for it to be about people talking to each other. I try to avoid social media, I tell students to get off social media, to leave their phones in their pocket when they come to the festival.”

Asked about opening this year’s festival with the Italian premiere of the first episode of HBO’s “House of the Dragon” Season 3, Rocca says it feels “natural” to screen series at the festival. “When HBO proposed that we screen the series, I felt we were the perfect place for it. Our beautiful theater is the perfect venue for all things spectacular, and ‘House of the Dragon’ is spectacular.” Stars set to attend the opening night gala at Taormina’s Greek amphitheater include Steve Toussaint (Lord Corlys Velaryon), Harry Collett (Jacaerys Velaryon), Bethany Antonia (Baela Targaryen) and Phoebe Campbell (Rhaena Targaryen).

As for the industry side of the affair, Rocca says it all boils down to Taormina as a meeting place. “I want the festival to be a place where people can meet, where they can talk about creativity,” she adds. “These encounters may lead to people working together. It has happened a lot in the past. We’re a festival everyone loves: the public, the industry, there’s a place for everyone. It’s an inclusive festival. For real people.”

Lastly, Rocca says the festival is key to the local economy of the Sicilian region: “The festival is very important for the industry but also for the region because it brings a lot of tourists. When we have the festival, everything is fully booked. No hotel room remains, restaurants are full, it is an event of true economic value.”

War Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said the United States remains committed to helping defend Bolivia’s fragile government amid ongoing warnings of a coup d’état.

In a post on X, Hegseth said the War Department and the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition (A3C), a recently established multinational military and political alliance, reject all attempts to overthrow the government of Rodrigo Paz Pereira a mere six months into his term.

“The United States is watching. Bolivia must not allow itself to fall prey to the old status quo of narco-terrorist dominance in the region,” Hegseth wrote. “We will continue to support our A3C partners like Bolivia to ensure that narco-terrorists are deterred from profiting on death and destruction in our hemisphere.”

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Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, has been rocked by weeks of social unrest as mass protests have blocked streets in major cities amid economic inflation and rising fuel prices.

Bolivian Defense Minister Marcelo Salinas resigned Tuesday.

Upon taking office, Paz supported a land reform bill to boost agribusiness that Indigenous farmers said put them at risk of eviction. He further scrapped fuel subsidies, sending prices surging by nearly 90%. Motorists complained that the gasoline was contaminated and ruined their cars.

The Trump administration has said drug traffickers are responsible for inciting the mass unrest.

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“Let there be no mistake: the United States stands squarely in support of Bolivia’s legitimate constitutional government,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote Wednesday on X. “We will not allow criminals and drug traffickers to overthrow democratically elected leaders in our hemisphere.”

“Let us not make any mistake about that; it is a coup financed by this perverse alliance between politics and organized crime across the region,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said Tuesday, stating that the protests were part of an ongoing “coup d’état.”

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Meanwhile, former President Evo Morales, the country’s first Indigenous president who ruled for an unprecedented 14 years, is calling for early elections. “Paz only has two paths left: a suicidal decision like militarization or … an election in the next 90 days,” he wrote on X.

For almost two years now, Morales has been hiding out in Bolivia’s central coca-growing Chapare region, evading an arrest warrant on human trafficking charges relating to allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old girl. He rejects the allegations as politically motivated.

At least 12 people have been killed and dozens of others injured in Russian strikes across Ukraine, according to Ukrainian authorities, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commemorated at least 707 children killed by Russia during the two countries’ more than four-year-long war.

At least five people were killed and 11 others injured in Russian bomb and drone attacks on eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the National Police of Ukraine’s press service said on Thursday.

“Seven settlements were under fire: the cities of Dobropillya, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, Mykolaivka, Sloviansk, the village of Oleksiyevo-Druzhkivka, and the village of Kuritsyne. 42 civilian objects were destroyed, including 16 residential buildings,” the press service said in a message on Telegram.

The damage to civilian infrastructure was extensive, read the message, with at least 14 apartment buildings and 11 cars damaged as well as “a medical institution … an evacuation vehicle and an ambulance” also destroyed.

The next deadliest Russian attack took place in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. At least three people were killed and 21 others were injured in Russian missile and drone attacks in the region, according to Governor Oleh Syniehubov.

Also in northeastern Ukraine, at least two people were killed and four others injured in a Russian attack on the village of Yampil, in the Shostka district, according to Oleg Hrygorov, the head of the Sumy regional military administration.

“The enemy attacked the central part of the Yampil community … two people died as a result of the attack … Four injured women were also taken to hospital. They are being provided with the necessary medical assistance,” Hrygorov wrote on Telegram.

At least one person was killed and five others injured in Russian shelling in central Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, said Oleksandr Ganzha, head of the region’s military administration.

“In the Nikopol region, the Nikopol, Marhanetska, Chervonogryhorivska, Pokrovska and Myrivska communities were under attack,” wrote Ganzha on Telegram, adding that the injured were in hospital receiving treatment.

Ganzha said that the Russian shelling caused extensive damage to civilian infrastructure, with fires breaking out in Slobozhanske and Petrykivska.

“The fire that occurred in the building of a logistics company was extinguished,” he added.

Lastly, one person was killed by Russian shelling on the Komyshany settlement in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, according to Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the local military administration.

Over 707 children killed

Russia’s latest attacks across Ukraine came as Zelenskyy commemorated International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression by remembering the children killed over the course of Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine, which began in February 2022.

“This day is about the most painful episodes of the war, about the greatest injustice and the evil Russia inflicts when the most vulnerable and the most innocent are killed. Children,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post on social media.

At least 707 Ukrainian children have been killed, said Zelenskyy, adding that “there are also thousands of children whom Russia has wounded, abducted, and thousands of children whose fate remains unknown”.

“Eternal memory to every child who was killed. It is our enduring duty to remember, to protect our children, and to do everything possible to ensure that the evil Russia has brought is punished.”

Later on Thursday, the Kremlin said that Zelenskyy is welcome to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow “any time”, after the Ukrainian president called to set a date for a face-to-face meeting between the pair to end the war.

“Zelenskyy can come at any time to Moscow,” state media quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying, adding that Putin had not yet been shown Zelenskyy’s letter.

Latest Ukrainian attacks

In Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, at least one person was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on Luhansk, according to the Moscow-appointed regional governor, Leonid Pasechnik.

“In the Troitsky Municipal District, an enemy drone struck a civilian vehicle. Unfortunately, the driver was unable to escape and died at the scene from his injuries,” Pasechnik wrote on the Makh channel.

Pasechnik said that the Ukrainian army also hit a commuter train in the Novoaidar Municipal District, adding that none of the 13 passengers on board were injured.

At least one person was killed and three others injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on a commuter train in the Russia-annexed Crimea, according to Sergei Aksyonov, Moscow-backed head of the Ukrainian peninsula.

Later on Thursday, Aksyonov said that three people were killed and seven others injured in a Ukrainian attack on non-residential buildings in Crimea’s Simferopol city.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had taken control of the village of Komsomolskoye, in southeast Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region.

In a statement, the ministry said it had launched three assaults on the Ukrainian army, resulting in losses of “up to 430 servicemen, four armoured combat vehicles, eight cars, and a counter-battery radar station”.

The assault came as Putin said the country must strengthen its air defences, a day after Ukrainian drones struck an oil complex and naval base in St Petersburg, Russia.

“Russia has an air defence system. Yes, we must improve it. Yes, we must strengthen it. And we will do so,” Putin said during a meeting with foreign journalists in St Petersburg.