Amazing lineup of Italian films for those of you in the Los Angeles area!
Anime Nere, Il Capitale Umano, Le Meraviglie, Il Ragazzo D’Oro, La Mafia Uccide Solo D’Estate, Smetto Quando Voglio, and Italy in a Day, all at the same film festival.
From the Cinema Italian Style website:
Co-presented by the American Cinematheque and Luce Cinecittà, with the support of the Italian Ministry of Culture-Film Department, Bonato Milano 1960 and Leading Hotels of the World. Technical Sponsor: Rossano Ferretti. In collaboration with the Italian Trade Commission and the Italian Cultural Institute, Los Angeles, under the auspices of the Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles.
Join us at the Egyptian and Aero Theatres for our annual celebration of Italian cinema, opening with Italy’s official Oscar submission for Best Foreign-Language Film, Paolo Virzì’s masterful HUMAN CAPITAL (Il Capitale Umano), a sharp social critique cloaked in an engrossing neo-noir mystery. Virzì’s David di Donatello winner is set among the upper-class enclaves of Northern Italy, while the family that’s the focus of director Alice Rohrwacher’s impressionistic THE WONDERS (Le Meraviglie) has moved to the central heartland for a simpler life as farmers. Francesco Munzi’s gripping BLACK SOULS (Anime Nere) is set in Calabria, where three brothers are caught in the ’Ndrangheta’s criminal web.
The documentary ITALY IN A DAY offers scenes from the entire country – it was assembled from more than 600 YouTube videos shot in a single 24-hour period as a snapshot of contemporary Italian life. BEAUTIFUL THINGS, a Nastro d’Argento winner for Best Documentary, looks at the changes a decade makes to four lives in Naples. Edoardo Winspeare’s narrative film QUIET BLISS (In Grazia di Dio) follows four women in lower Salento during the economic recession. A long marriage tested by a cancer diagnosis forms the basis for Ferzan Ozpetek’s romantic drama FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS (Allacciate le Cinture).
Comedy looms large in this year’s Cinema Italian Style lineup – particularly crime comedies. TV host Pif makes an assured debut behind the camera with THE MAFIA ONLY KILLS IN SUMMER (La Mafia Uccide Solo D’Estate), which traces the life of an Everyman who comes of age in organized crime stronghold Palermo. The Manetti brothers’ hilarious SONG ‘E NAPULE salutes both Naples’ neomelodico singers and ’70s cop dramas by following a musician sent undercover to infiltrate a mob wedding. And director Sydney Sibilia’s I CAN QUIT WHENEVER I WANT (Smetto Quando Voglio) milks the economic downturn for laughs as underemployed university graduates go into the designer-drug business.
The series also looks indirectly at Italy’s place in the film world both past and present. Pupi Avati’s dark drama A GOLDEN BOY (Ragazzo D’Oro) profiles a writer (Riccardo Scamarcio) in the shadow of his father – a B-movie screenwriter. And closing this year’s Cinema Italian Style is a new restoration made possible by main supporter Dolce & Gabbana, with Luce Cnecittà and Cineteca di Bologna: Giuseppe Tornatore’s CINEMA PARADISO, an Oscar-winning reminder of the strong spell movies can cast upon their viewers.
All films are in Italian with English subtitles, unless otherwise noted. Series compiled by Laura Delli Colli, Gwen Deglise and Camilla Cormanni. Program notes by John Hagelston.
I Love Italian Everything 