L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2018 www.italoamericano.org 18 L'Italo-Americano LOS ANGELES ITALIAN COMMUNITY W hile, back in the days , Rome and C i n e c i t t à w ere the main movie set chosen by Italian directors, from Rossellini to De Sica, from Visconti and Fellini to Pasolini, today, we've been w itnes s ing to the birth and development of regional cine- matography, with contemporary movie makers choosing specific areas of the Italian territory as shooting locations. For this reason, the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles has decided to create an event called A Taste of Modern Cine- ma: six presentations dedicated to a director and an Italian region each. It is a teamwork initiative among the Institute director Valeria Rumori, the Lingua Viva Association and the filmmaker and critic Valentino Misino, spe- cialized in the history of Italian cinema and in movie, TV and new media production. For every single event, Misino will illus- trate contemporary Italian cine- ma and describe each director by showing parts of their films, while referencing the most recent events in Italian social, artistic and cinematographic his- tory. Each appointment will wrap up with a tasting of the Region taken into considera- tion's typical products. "We have decided to extend our vision to the particularities offered by the Italian territory and its regional variations: gas- tronomy, to which the Week of Italian Cuisine in the World is dedicated, with its infinite vari- ety of products and typical dish- es, represents a perfect example of the privileged relationship between directors and the territo- ry," says the director of the Ital- ian Cultural Institute. The Institute has long been paying close attention to contem- porary Italy's new trends and excellences, with a series of ini- tiatives whose goal is to promote Italy not only as a film set, but also as a cultural and artistic des- tination. Among the events orga- nized in such optic, Filming on Italy, a festival organized by Tiziana Rocca's Agnus Dei Pro- duction, that will reach its third edition in 2019; the exhibition Grand Tour of Contemporary Italy, dedicated to Italian film sets in every region since the 40s; the series Viaggi in Italia that, along with the National Tourism Agency (ENIT), has been presenting different local realities for the past two years, through the promotion of cultur- al, artistic, touristic and food and wine tours. The latest addition to this list is A Taste of Modern Cinema, whose first edition kicked off on October 15th at the Italian Cultural Institute in West- wood, and will be moderated throughout by Valentino Misino, originally from Bari, but based in Los Angeles where he works in production and direction. Valentino, tell us more about A Modern Taste of Ital- ian Cinema. A Modern Taste of Cinema will have six presentations, each one of them focusing on a region, a director and a film, with an eye on Italian/regional culture and society; all of this will be analyzed through the cin- ematographic lens, and the spe- cific style of the director who will be singularly examined. At the end of each meeting, a vari- ety of food specialties from the region in question will be served, along with some local wine from the same area. As a good cinephile, I don't like spoilers so I won't reveal our gastronomic choices: they will be a surprise. What's the event's goal? Addressed to the community of Los Angeles, the world's cap- ital of film and television indus- try, A Modern Taste of Italian Cinema aims to (re) discover the flavor of Italian movies with an gastro-intellectual approach, focusing on new filmmakers. How did you choose the directors and the regions? A Modern Taste of Italian Cinema is an experimental event and we hope to do more editions in the future. With a pioneering perspective, along with the Ital- ian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, we decided to focus on Italian directors who currently are internationally acclaimed and are known in the Hollywood industry, also in terms of awards. For example, Paolo Sor- rentino, who won the Oscar for The Great Beauty, but also Luca Guadagnino, director of Call me by Your Name, who worked on international productions. By doing this, we wanted to make sure that our choice was suffi- ciently heterogeneous and evocative region-wise. However, while the selected directors are associated to an Italian region that represents them, that's not necessarily the region they are from. Can you give us an exam- ple? A very clear example is the one about the Italian-Turkish director Ferzan Özpetek, who is associated with Apulia: Özpetek, an Istanbul native, has repeatedly declared his love for Apulia, specifically Lecce and Salento, and twice he set his movies in Lecce - Mine Vaganti (2010) and Fasten your Belts (2014). I am aware I've left out many direc- tors and regions, but we hope and we long to include them in the future editions, that will focus especially on the charis- matic female filmmakers who've been shining bright in the con- temporary Italian scene. The meetings will end with food tastings. How do the fla- vors blend with the Italian film tradition? Italy is known worldwide for its culinary tradition as well as for artistic and cinematographic culture. I was academically trained in Rome, and profession- ally I grew up in Cinecittà: in Rome I've learned that film and food go hand in hand. There are so many anecdotes and urban legends about cine- matographers and food: to name a few, Luchino Visconti's lavish meals - he had a personal chef on set - or Fellini's fights with Masina, when the maestro was eating too much at the end of the editing sound session and he couldn't sleep at night. For those who grew up watching movies - in Italian pane e cinema, bread and cinema, an expression that truly says it all - cinema becomes equal to a good meal: at the end of a filming day, during a pro- duction meeting, to celebrate a premiere. There is an inseparable ritual between the love of eating together on set or at the end of a filming day, and the filmic prac- tice - I speak as a producer when I say that the best deals are made at a dining table. And in general, the sense of acceptance and food sharing is etched into our Italian DNA: food, like cinema, communicates deeper than mere intellectual channels.There is no better way to have our American friends dis- cover our contemporary cinema and its territorial identity than with the tasting of the flavors from the territories shown on the big screen. It is a sort of 5D cine- ma: the fifth dimension belongs to our taste buds. The Events ■ 15 October: Paolo Sor- rentino (Lazio, Rome) ■ 22 October: Luca Guada- gnino (Lombardia) ■ 29 October: Ferzan Ozpetek (Apulia) ■ 5 November: Giuseppe Tor- natore (Sicily) ■ 12 November: Matteo Gar- rone (Campania, Naples) ■ 3 December: Paolo Virzì (Tuscany) Price: 65$/event Hours: 7PM/9PM for RSVP: write to ina.cohen@esteri.it the week before the event. The organizer  reserves  the right to cancel events  w holly in case of an insufficient num- ber of participants (6 people) SILVIA GIUDICI Valentino Misino with actress Celeste Aliki Cinema and food together for "A Modern Taste of Italian Cinema"

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