The 18th Lavazza Italian Film Festival screens nationally in September and October presenting 28 of the best films from cinema masters and ground breaking new talent from Italy.
“The Venice, Rome, Berlin and Cannes film festivals have featured an exciting range of star-studded Italian films in the last 12 months and we are excited to be presenting them on the big screen," Festival Director Elysia Zeccola tells SBS Italian.
As to what fans can expect from this 18th edition, she says "The festival is a celebration of Italian cinema, language, culture and la dolce vita and you can’t find that sitting on your couch at home.”
Listen to Elysia Zeccola's full interview (in English) with SBS Italian's Magica Fossati:
Elysia Zeccola in our Federation square studios Source: Magica Fossati
The full 2017 program has now been announced:
The LIFF Opening Night Gala will feature the Italian Golden Globes award-winning comedy Lasciati andare (Let yourself go!) directed by Francesco Amato. The film stars Toni Servillo as a Jewish psychoanalyst who lives on the same floor as his ex-wife Giovanna. After a minor illness, his doctor prescribes physical activity and at the gym he meets Claudia, a personal trainer who will change his life.
Fortunata starring Jasmine Trinca in a performance that earned her the Best Actress Award in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival and the Best Lead Actress Award at the Nastri d’Argento Awards. Directed by Sergio Castellitto it is a tale of a single mother fighting for her independence. Also stars Stefano Accorsi.
Box-office smash hit and 2017 Nastri d’Argento Award winner for Best Comedy It's the law! (L’ora legale) from directing duo Salvatore Ficarra and Valentino Picone about small town politics in the Sicilian village of Pietrammare where the tainted leadership of a crooked mayor is set to be challenged. The ensemble cast includes Ficarra and Picone alongside Vincenzo Amato, Leo Gullotta, Tony Sperandeo and Antonio Catania.
From the director of Welcome to the South and Welcome to the North Luca Miniero comes the hilarious new comedy Messy Christmas (Non c'è più religione) set on the small island of Porto Buio where the town mayor (Claudio Bisio) enlists the help of local Islam convert Bilal (Alessandro Gassman) to find a child to play baby Jesus in the traditional Christmas nativity scene… but as the island birth rate has been zero for years the only solution may be to change Jesus’ nationality, and even his religion!
Directed by Massimo Gaudioso, screenwriter of numerous Italian films such as Tale of Tales and Gomorrah, comes An almost perfect town (Un paese quasi perfetto) starring Silvio Orlando. Set in the stunning mountains of the Lucan Dolomites of Southern Italy, this small town is deserted by most of its youth leaving just a small group of ex-miners. But when a new factory is announced, this could be the solution to all the town’s problems.
Mirko Frezza plays a hardened ex-con who returns to his working-class Rome suburb in the moving drama I was a dreamer (Il più grande sogno), directed by Michele Vannucci and starring Alessandro Borghi. But the path to redemption is difficult when your father is a criminal and temptation is around every corner.
The feature debut from Simone Godano Wife & Husband (Moglie e marito) is a body-swap comedy starring Pierfrancesco Favino and Kasia Smutniak as Andrea and Sofia. After ten years of marriage they are on the verge of divorce but when a scientific experiment leaves their bodies seemingly irreversibly swapped, they have no choice but to live each other’s lives... and they are in for some surprises.
Benedict Cumberbatch narrates the fascinating documentary Naples ’44 adapted from British Intelligence Officer Norman Lewis’s memoir. Lewis entered war-torn Naples with the American Fifth Army in 1943 at the end of WWII observing the complex social cauldron of a city that contrived every day the most incredible ways of fighting to survive. This is a powerful condemnation of the horrors of war.
Giuseppe Piccioni’s These Days (Questi giorni), follows four young women on a road trip to Belgrade in an adventure which will mark a turning point in their lives. Featuring Margherita Buy alongside Filippo Timi.
In Summertime (L'estate addosso) by director Gabriele Muccino, a gay couple living in San Francisco take in two teens traveling from Italy to start a new life in America. The four become fast friends and embark on enthusiastic explorations of love, life, and themselves, trying to discover and define who they are during a summer they’ll never forget.
Director Lisa Azuelos confirms her status as a strong director of actors, with Italian model-turned-actress Sveva Alviti, stealing the show in every scene of Dalida. Based on the true story of acclaimed music icon "Dalida" who gained celebrity in the 50s, singing in Italian, French, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew and German - she had a repertoire of hits as vast and varied as her private life was tumultuous and tragic. Also starring Riccardo Scamarcio as her brother Orlando.
Available for school bookings is From Naples with Love (Troppo napoletano) a joyous romantic comedy about Ciro, an 11-year old kid who falls head-over-heels for a new girl at school and loses his once healthy appetite causing his panicked mother Barbara (singer Serena Rossi) to take him to a child psychologist!
Emma (Il colore nascosto delle cose) is a romantic comedy by Silvio Soldini, best known for the 32-time award winning drama Bread and Tulips. Teo is an elusive womaniser who works as a creative in a trendy ad agency. Emma is an osteopath, blind since she was 16. When the two first meet at an event held in total darkness, Teo is mesmerized by Emma’s voice. Emma, freshly out of her marriage, is too smart to give into the illusion of Teo’s affection, but he seems like the perfect man to engage in a bit of carefree fun with.
From Edoardo De Angelis, the director of Perez, comes the David di Donatello Award-winning Indivisible (Indivisibili). Aided by terrific break-out performances by real-life twin sisters Angela and Marianna Fontana, the film is the story of conjoined twin sisters, 18-year-old Daisy and Viola, who are gifted with beautiful voices and often sing at local functions. Their father, a seedy small-time businessman, has turned them into an entertainment act to support the family and ultimately fill his own pockets. Tensions arise when a chance meeting with a doctor reveals that the twins can be safely separated.
Sun, heart, love (Sole, cuore, amore) is Daniele Vicari’s sensitively observed study of a woman named Eli (Isabella Ragonese). A loving mother to her children and devoted wife to her unemployed husband, Eli manages to find a job in a cafe but it’s two hours away from her home. The hours are long but without any other job prospects, she embraces the opportunity. This is a social realist drama that powerfully encapsulates the toll the economic downturn is taking on Italy.
Gianni Amelio’s beautifully shot drama Tenderness (La tenerezza) stars festival ambassador Greta Scacchi (Looking for Alibrandi), in a film loosely based on Lorenzo Moreno’s award-winning novel, The Temptation to Be Happy. In post-WWII Naples retired lawyer and proud native Bentivoglio lives alone in a palazzo, estranged from his adult children. But when a deadly blow sweeps him and his neighbour’s households away, Bentivoglio is offered a way back home to his family.
Katia Bernardi’s Sea Dreaming Gilrs (Funne - Le ragazze che sognavano il mare) is a joyous documentary about living carefree at any age. In the tiny Italian mountain village of Daone, a group of lively grandmothers led by the straight-talking Erminia begin planning a trip in honour of their Rododendro club’s 20th anniversary. They quickly agree on a trip to the sea, where many of their members have never ventured. But how will they raise enough money so that everyone can wiggle
their toes in the surf?
Selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, Pure hearts (Cuori puri) is the debut feature from Roberto De Paolis. Agnese, a 17 year old girl living with her devout mother meets 25 year old Stefano, a young man with a difficult past. As the two youngsters feel their precarious sense of stability slipping away, clinging to each other may be their only chance for survival. Delicately handled, the film features two magnetic performances from its lead actors, Selene Caramazza and Simone Liberati.
Sicilian ghost story, Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza’s superb follow-up to 2013’s Cannes Film Festival Critics’ Week prize-winner Salvo, interweaves the richness of fairy tales with the obscenity of Mafia control. In a Sicilian village on the edge of a forest 13 year-old Giuseppe vanishes. His classmate Luna, who’s in love with him, refuses to accept his mysterious disappearance, rebelling against the silence and complicity surrounding his vanishment. A film inspired by the true story of teenager Giuseppe Di Matteo who was kidnapped in 1993 in a bid to silence his father; a Mafia informant.
The writer and director of God Willing returns with the insightful comedy It's all about Karma (Questione di karma). Giacomo (Fabio de Luigi) is a polite but eccentric heir to an industrial dynasty. A practicing Buddhist, he is led by a retired French scholar (Philippe Leroy) to believe that the reincarnation of his father can be found in Mario (Elio Germano), a materialistic conman with a hefty debt. The absurd encounter develops into an unusual friendship, as the men discover they have more in common than they think.
Ignorance is a bliss (Beata ignoranza) sees the dynamic duo of Marco Giallini and Alessandro Gassman reunited as warring rivals once more, following their star turns in God Willing. This time it’s a war of modernity as a strict, old-fashioned, tech-phobic teacher Ernesto finds himself at odds with his cheerful and social media savvy young counterpart, Filippo. Their past comes back to haunt them with hilarious results when a young student makes them the subject of an experiment
designed to force them out of their technological comfort zones.
I can quit whenever I want2: Masterclass (Smetto quando voglio: Masterclass) is the follow-up to 2014’s I Can Quit Whenever I Want. In the second instalment of the trilogy, the adventures of neurobiologist Pietro Zinni and his academic colleagues take an action-packed turn when they are asked to secretly collaborate with the police to stop a rapidly spreading smart drug scourge.
Coffee (Caffè), told through a trio of loosely connected stories, explores human relationships through the common drink that wakes up the world in the morning. Filmed across different continents and languages, Cristiano Bortone’s feature is also the first ever Italian co-production with China. A panoramic snapshot of a globalised world in the grip of cultural and economic turbulence, the film was inspired by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s 2006 Oscar-winner Babel.
Popular TV satirist Pierfrancesco ‘Pif’ Diliberto follows up his hit The Mafia Only Kills in Summer with the equally funny prequel of sorts At war for love (In guerra per amore). It’s 1940s wartime in New York City where goofy Italian waiter Arturo (Pif) pines for Flora but she’s betrothed to the son of a New York mafia boss. Arturo’s only option is to ask Flora’s father for her hand in marriage — however, he still lives in Sicily. Penniless but determined, Arturo takes a ‘free’ passage to Italy by enlisting in the U.S. military at the start of the Allied invasion.
In After the war (Dopo la guerra), the tranquil life of an Italian ex-left-wing-terrorist who started anew in France is upended when the law preventing his extradition is unexpectedly lifted. Opting to flee Paris with his 16-year-old French daughter, his life and that of his estranged family in Italy, will change forever. Giuseppe Battiston delivers a complex performance in Annarita Zambrano’s debut, which screened in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2017.
Premiering in Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival, The intruder (L’intrusa) follows Leonardo di Costanzo’s Venice Biennale award-winning debut The Interval. A thoughtful and persuasive study in the limitations of compassion and the hard-won nature of trust, the film focuses on combative social worker Giovanna. Running an after-school care centre, Giovanna is asked to protect a young mother and her two children, confronting her with a moral dilemma that threatens to ruin her work and her life.
Stories of love that connot belong to this world (Amori che non sanno stare al mondo) is a brilliant relationship dramedy from Francesca Comencini. Adapted from her own novel, the film explores the fallout for women at the end of a long-term relationship. Claudia and Flavio were once passionately in love, but all of that is over. Now, in their fifties, they must venture anew into the world of love and dating once more but for Claudia confronting the end and accepting a new beginning isn't so easy.
LIFF Closing Night will feature a special 20th anniversary screening of the Roberto Benigni’s classic film Life is beautiful (La vita è bella). Benigni, Italy’s king of slapstick, plays Guido a young Jewish man married to Dora (Nicoletta Braschi); together they have a 5 year-old son (Giorgio Cantarini). When World War II breaks out, the family is transported to a death camp. Here Guido tries to shield his son from the horror by convincing him that the camp is an elaborate game, in which points are won against the guards by staying hidden and concealing fear.
Where and when
Sydney: September 12 to October 8, Palace Norton Street, Palace Verona, Chauvel Cinemas
Adelaide: September 13 to October 1, Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas
Melbourne: September 14 to October 8, Palace Cinema Como, Palace Westgarth, Palace Balwyn, Palace Brighton Bay, Kino Cinemas, The Astor Theatre
Canberra: September 14 to October 8, Palace Electric Cinemas
Brisbane: September 20 to October 8, Palace Barracks and Palace Centro
Perth: September 21 to October 11, Cinema Paradiso, Luna on SX
Hobart: Sept 21 to October 1, The State Cinema
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