Accidenti!, this one sneaked past me on the radar (oh, the joys of working full-time).
Having launched in Auckland the other week, the 16th edition of the Italian Film Festival is still playing north of the Bombay Hills (for this weekend) and has several more stops around the country through October and November; with Wellington having opened this week. So if you love your Italian cinema, there are some damn fine films on show here.
As you’d expect from an Italian cinematic extravaganza, there are plenty of stirring dramas and quirky comedies to see. This year there are also a couple of Italian classics to enjoy – the 1950’s Academy Award-winning The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di Biciclette) and the 2001 hit The Last Kiss (L’Ultimo Bacio).
Aside from the two above, the films I am most keen to see are The Man Who Will Come (L’uomo Che Verrà), The Right Thing (La Cosa Giusta), Habemus Papam, Baaria (La Porta del Vento) and Raise You Head (Alza la Testa) – for which the trailers look fab.
Are you a fan of Italian cinema? What’s your favourite Italian film of all time?
Here’s where the Italian Film Festival 2011 is playing near you:
Rialto Cinemas, Newmarket, Auckland, Sept 28 to Oct 16
Bridgeway Cinemas, Northcote Point, Auckland, Sept 29 to Oct 16
Paramount Cinemas, Wellington, Oct 12 to Oct 30
Hollywood Cinema, Christchurch, Oct 19 to Nov 2
Rialto Cinemas, Dunedin, Oct 26 to Nov 9
Suter Theatre, Nelson, Nov 2 to Nov 16
Cinema Gold, Hawke’s Bay, Nov 9 to Nov 23
Rialto Cinema, Tauranga, Nov 16 to Nov 30
Check out the ‘Calendar’ section of the Italian Film Festival site for all screening times.
And now for Part One of our list of festival films (courtesy of the film festival website). Unfortunately most of the trailers have no English subtitles, but you’ll get the picture. Apprezzare!
Italian Film Festival 2011 films:
The First Beautiful Thing (La Prima Cosa Bella): 2010, Paolo Virzì, 118min, Romantic Comedic Drama
2010 David Di Donatello: Best Actor, Best Actress & Best Screenplay
In 1971, at a popular beach resort near the Tuscan port of Livorno, gorgeous wife and mother, Anna (Micaela Ramazzotti), is roped into a beauty contest. Her jealous husband, Mario (Sergio Albelli), is enraged by the attention from assorted wolf-whistlers, while 8-year-old son Bruno is horrified by the spectacle of it all. His younger sister Valeria is the only one enjoying the scene.
Jump to the present, when Bruno (Valerio Mastandrea) gets an urgent visit from Valeria (Claudia Pandolfi) telling him their mother (Stefania Sandrelli) is sick. Bruno tries to wriggle out of going back to Livorno but finally agrees, the trip triggering an assortment of bittersweet memories.
Cast: Valerio Mastandrea, Micaela Ramazzotti, Stefania Sandrelli, Claudia Pandolfi
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Our Life (La Nostra Vita): 2010, Daniele Luchetti, 99min, Drama
2010 Festival de Cannes Official Selection – In Competition; Winner Best Actor; 2011 David Di Donatello: Best Director, Best Actor
When tragedy befalls the family, Claudio leans on his boss, Porcari, to give him his own construction site to supervise. In exchange, Claudio will keep a secret that Porcari is determined to cover up.
Cast: Elio Germano, Raoul Bova, Luca Zingaretti, Isabella Ragonese, Giorgio Colangeli
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Habemus Papam: 2011, Nanni Morretti, 104min, Drama
2011 Festival de Cannes Official Selection – In Competition.
The story of a composed Cardinal who quickly becomes a Pope afflicted with performance anxiety.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr8O687r-60
Cast: Michel Piccoli, Nanni Moretti, Jerzy Stuhr, Renato Scarpa, Margherita
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What More Do I Want? (Cosa Voglio di Più): 2010, Silvio Soldini, 122min, Romantic Drama
Anna (Alba Rohrwacher, I Am Love) is a woman in her early thirties who works as an accountant at a large insurance firm. She lives with her long-time boyfriend Alessio (Giuseppe Battiston), a nice guy who thinks they should settle down and have a child. The ‘married with family’ Domenico (Pierfrancesco Favino) works for a catering company and has trouble making ends meet.
Coincidence brings Anna and Domenico together and they quickly fall into a heated affair, based on passionate motel rendezvous, cell phone arguments, and endless lies. Anna’s increasingly distant behavior goes unnoticed by Alessio, but Domenico’s wife becomes steadily more suspicious of her husband. As the two lovers begin to fall deeper under the spell of passion, they are faced with a life-changing choice.
Cast: Alba Rohrwacher, Pierfrancesco Favino, Teresa Saponangelo, Giuseppe Battiston
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The Cézanne Affair (L’uomo Nero): 2009, Sergio Rubini, 116mins, Romantic Comedy
When Gabriele (Fabrizio Gifuni) returns to a town near Bari in southern Italy to farewell his ageing father Ernesto (Sergio Rubini), memories of his childhood are reawakened: his upbringing by his loving mother (Valeria Golino, Hot Shots), his Don Juan of an uncle (Riccardo Scamarcio) and his father’s irascibility and exasperation over many thwarted attempts to realise his artistic ambition.
Ernesto was convinced he was destined to become a famous painter and was willing to sacrifice everything for his belief in his own talent, even his pride, but Gabriele is determined not to turn out like his father. It is only now that, years later, through chance and circumstances, Gabriele begins to understand Ernesto and to see what sort of person his father really was.
Cast: Sergio Rubini, Fabrizio Gifuni, Valeria Golino, Riccardo Scamarcio
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The Man Who Will Come (L’uomo Che Verrà): 2009, Giorgio Diritti, 114mins, Drama
2010 David Di Donatello: Best Film. 2009 Rome Film Festival Grand Jury Prize & Audience Award.
Winter, 1943. Martina is a wide-eyed 8-year-old who hasn’t spoken since her baby brother died in her arms. Now her mother Lena (Maya Sansa) is pregnant again, and Martina looks forward to the new arrival.
But 1943-44 is a difficult period. Lena and her husband, Armando (Claudio Casadio), along with the other peasants, struggle to feed themselves and the families who’ve fled the city and are lodging in their spare rooms, whilst debating how much assistance to give the partisans with the impending arrival of the Germans. At the same time Armando’s sister (Alba Rohrwacher) has spent time in the city herself, adopting ways that grate on her mother.
Cast: Alba Rohrwacher, Maya Sansa, Eleonora Mazzoni, Claudio Casadio
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Ten Winters (Dieci Inverni): 2010, Valerio Mieli, 97min, Romantic Drama
2010 David di Donatello: Best First Time Director
Winter 1999, student Camilla (Isabella Ragonese, La Nostra Vita) leaves home to study and takes up residence in a semi-derelict house in an overcast Venice devoid of tourists. On the last leg of her journey – a ferry to her island – she’s spotted by a would-be Romeo, Silvestro (Michele Riondino, The Past Is a Foreign Land). Despite getting the brush-off, Silvestro follows Camilla to her home and manages to insinuate himself as a guest for the night, but he fails in his gentle efforts to seduce her.
Over the next ten years Silvestro and Camilla develop a strong bond, and the narrative beautifully captures the bittersweet push and pull between two souls who keep finding their way back to each other.
Cast: Isabella Ragonese, Michele Riondino, Glen Blackhall
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Sea Purple (Viola di Mare): 2009, Donatella Maiorca, 102min, Romantic Drama
2009 Rome Film Festival: In Competition
Nineteenth century Sicily. A house made of turf at the top of a cliff. A hidden scandal.
Angela (Valeria Solarino) isn’t like the other girls of her age. In her early twenties she still runs, smokes and plays with boys. She fears nothing and nobody, not even her tyrannical father, the powerful guardian of the mines. Angela’s soul mate and best friend is Sara (Isabella Ragonese) and as their relationship intensifies, it crosses the boundaries of acceptable female behaviour in Sicily at that time.
Shut up inside a cave by her tyrannical father after she has refused to marry the man chosen for her, Angela is rescued by her mother who succeeds in persuading the parish priest to change her daughter’s name and gender in the register office. It is only one letter, a mere, harmless letter. An “A” becomes “O” and the world is turned upside down. The chains that had imprisoned an existence suddenly disappear and it is now Angela who is in charge of the isle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kiyBJrdkMU
Cast: Valeria Solarino, Isabella Ragonese, Ennio Fantastichini, Giselda Volodi, Maria Grazia Cucinotta
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Check out more films from the festival in Part Two of our preview…
