hey guys! i came across this whilst searching the net (as you do!) so here it is!

http://newsbox.msn.co.uk/article.aspx?as=a...ae=windows-1252

Kidman's new film launches festival
Nicole Kidman premiered her movie Fur - based loosely on the life of photographer Diane Arbus - at the inaugural Rome Film Festival.

"I wanted to support this festival and Italy," Kidman told a news conference.

"Film festivals are very good for small films like this one, the more we have the better.

The film by director Steven Shainberg tells the story of the transformation of a shy 1950s housewife into an artist, a move triggered by a passionate love affair with Lionel, her mysterious mentor played by Robert Downey Jr.

"It's a small, small portrait. In fact it's called an imaginary portrait. What counts is the creativity of the artist, what's inside," Kidman said. "My way of trying to play her was more trying to capture her inner self.

The festival will bring a handful of Hollywood stars to the Italian capital, including Sean Connery, who received a career achievement award in Rome on Thursday night, Leonardo DiCaprio and Richard Gere.

Fur, which combines biography and fictional romance, is shown out of competition along with other premieres, such as Alatriste, a movie about a soldier living in 17th-century Spain starring Viggo Mortensen; The Hoax, starring Gere; and Mira Nair's The Namesake, about an Indian family moving to New York City.

Italian diva Monica Bellucci appears in two films also out of competition: N (Io e Napoleone) or N (Napoleon and I) and Le Concile De Pierre or The Stone Council.

Among the 16 movies competing for the Best Movie Award are Iranian Niki Karimi's Chand rooz ba'd... (A few days later...) and Shane Meadows's This is England.

The Rome event, which has fuelled speculation of rivalry with the Venice Film Festival, runs until October 21. It is mainly held at the city's Auditorium, an exhibition and concert centre designed by architect Renzo Piano.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/10/14/1160246361482.html

Kidman sparkles in Rome
Email Print Normal font Large font October 14, 2006 - 2:43PM



Nicole Kidman arrives at the world premiere of her latest movie, Fur, in Rome.
Photo: Reuters

Nicole Kidman opened Rome's first international film festival with an intense portrayal of photographer Diane Arbus, who shocked America in the 1960s with her disturbing pictures of people on the fringes of society.

Director Steven Shainberg's movie, Fur, mixes reality with fantasy to explore Arbus's transformation from the posh, repressed housewife of a fashion photographer into one of the most daring artists of her time. That metamorphosis is seen through Arbus's intimate friendship with her bizarre neighbour Lionel, played by Robert Downey Jr, whose body is completely covered with hair because of a medical condition.

Like most of the events and characters in the film, loosely based on Patricia Bosworth's biography of the photographer, their relationship is invented.

"It's not a biography," Kidman told reporters after a press screening of the film, which was premiering in Rome on Friday.

"It's more about walking into your own creativity, discovering what you are like inside and what you want to say to the world," she said.

Arbus became an icon of modern photography for her ground-breaking portraits of a world of outcasts - among her favourite subjects were dwarves, giants, prostitutes, transvestites, homeless and mentally ill people.

"In the same way you have acting in your blood, you have art, whatever that is, in your blood from the minute you are born," Kidman said, adding: "Arbus had that."

Shainberg, whose uncle was a close friend of Arbus's, said he grew up with her pictures at home, at a time when she was struggling to win recognition for her unconventional art.

As an adult, Shainberg collected her photographs and long nurtured the idea of making a film about her.

"What is so compelling about her is that she was a personality that exploded at the age of 35. Until then this unbelievably poetic, complicated and mysterious intelligence was encased in a kind of steel box inside herself," he said.

"In the film, you feel this necessity to open the door and go out into the world, live life the way she wanted," said the director, best known for his 2002 film, The Secretary.

Kidman said it had been a "deep spiritual experience" to interpret a real character as talented and tormented as Arbus, who committed suicide in 1971 at the age of 48.

The Australian star, who won an Oscar for her role as writer Virginia Woolf in the 2002 film, The Hours, noted that both had taken their own lives. "Characters like these don't leave you; they imprint on you," she said.

Arbus separated from her husband shortly after starting to take pictures. Kidman, who married country music singer Keith Urban this year after divorcing actor Tom Cruise in 2001, said it was often hard to reconcile artistic talent with family life.

"When I got divorced, I was able to explore myself artistically, I didn't feel I was betraying my relationship and the person I was with," she said.

Reuters

thanks for the articles and the pic she looks beautiful

Thanx im not obsessed i fink shes gr8 and Kiha 4 da articles

~Viviana~

thanks Sophie & Kiha for the articles! loving her dress!!

its ok! i also found this link http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source/se...0%7c0&p=3&tag=1
isnt she gorgeous?

yeah she is!!!!!!!
but sophie, what are you doing hun? then you're off, then you're on.. are you there or not? or are you playing hide and seek again

Thank you so much for the articles.

Thanks!
ciao