L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2021 www.italoamericano.org 38 L'Italo-Americano C inema Italian Style is known f o r b e i n g a d y n a m i c f i l m f e s t i v a l s h o w - casing the top new Italian films from emerging film- makers and seasoned mas- ters alike. Seven narrative f e a t u r e f i l m s — i n c l u d i n g d r a m a s , c o m e d i e s , a n d a mystery— were screened at t h i s y e a r ' s f e s t i v a l , h i g h - lighting the extraordinary t a l e n t o f I t a l y ' s g r e a t e s t actors. Cinema Italian Style is c o - p r e s e n t e d b y L u c e Cinecittà and the Seattle I n t e r n a t i o n a l F i l m Festival, with the support of the Italian Ministry of C u l t u r e – C i n e m a Department and the Italian Cultural Institutes of San Francisco and Los Angeles, under the auspices of the Consulates General of Italy in San Francisco and Los Angeles, in collabora- tion with the Italian Trade Agency of Los Angeles and t h e A m e r i c a n Cinematheque. Its 17th edition, copro- d u c e d b y C i n e c i t t à a n d American Cinematheque, puts the spotlight once more on what Italian cinema has currently to offer, proposing in Los Angeles - and much of the United States, thanks to a partly virtual event - some of the most interesting t i t l e s o f t h e y e a r . T w o o f these films will be shown in t h e a t e r s , a s I t a l y r a c e s towards the next Oscars®. Cinema Italian Style has proudly presented Ennio on December 8th and The Hand of God on December 10th at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, where Paolo Sorrentino personally par- ticipated while promoting the launch of his new movie in the United States. During the event, Cinecittà together w i t h A m e r i c a n Cinematheque and Netflix paid homage to Sorrentino, a precious tribute with a ret- rospective of some of his most valued titles, that were s c r e e n e d i n L o s A n g e l e s ' t h e a t e r s : I l D i v o , T h e G r e a t B e a u t y , 2 0 1 4 O s c a r ® , T h e c o n s e - q u e n c e s o f L o v e a n d Youth. As for the other movies o n t h e a g e n d a , C i n e m a Italian Style offered some of the most interesting titles shown during major Film F e s t i v a l s t h i s y e a r : T h e M a c a l u s o S i s t e r s b y Emma Dante, Il Buco by Michelangelo Frammartino, Ariaferma by Leonardo Di Costanzo, Lovely Boy by F r a n c e s c o L e t t i e r i , L a M a c c h i n a d e l l e Immagini di Alfredo C b y R o l a n d S e j k o , O c c h i Blu, Michela Cescon's debut film, Come un Gatto in Tangenziale-Ritorno a C o c c i a d i M o r t o b y R i c c a r d o M i l a n i , E z i o B o s s o : L e C o s e c h e R e s t a n o b y G i o r g i o V e r d e l l i a n d F u t u r a b y Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi, Alice Rohrwacher, for the Documetary catego- ry. The star of this edition was, undoubtedly, Italian f i l m d i r e c t o r P a o l o Sorrentino with his latest w o r k , T h e H a n d O f G o d , which opened on December 3rd in US theaters. The film i s a b o u t t h e t r a g e d y Sorrentino experienced as a teenager and how he found escape in the art of cinema. "I come from a family that hardly had any contact with the artistic world, so there was no specific interest in literature, cinema, or music. And my very first contact with an art form was watch- ing Maradona play soccer, because his standards were so high, it felt very close to art. That was the first step towards focusing my inter- est on the world of enter- tainment," says the director, who was born and raised in Naples. "These are real char- acters. Naples has a non- conventional tradition when it comes to social behavior. Neapolitans tend to perform all the time. They're are all wannabe actors." In the meantime, on the E a s t C o a s t , t h e m a g i c o f Federico Fellini invaded N e w Y o r k , w h i c h f i n a l l y started its celebrations for Fellini's centenary, one year later than scheduled due to the pandemic. More than 100 years after his birth in Rimini, Italy, F e d e r i c o F e l l i n i ( 1 9 2 0 – 1993) still enthralls audi- ences with his films featur- i n g e c c e n t r i c c h a r a c t e r s , surrealistic imagery, autobi- ographical elements, and distinctive cinematic style. The MFAH celebrates this i c o n i c f i l m m a k e r w i t h screenings of his master- pieces during the resched- uled Fellini 100 tour. "Talking about dreams is like talking about movies b e c a u s e c i n e m a u s e s t h e language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop from one place to a n o t h e r . I t ' s a l a n g u a g e made of images. And in real c i n e m a , e v e r y o b j e c t a n d every light mean something, like in a dream," Fellini once said. Cinecittà inaugurated the long-awaited retrospective of all Fellini's films, for the first time entirely restored in 4K, at the MoMa The Museum of Modern Art, i n c o l l a b o r a t i o n w i t h C i n e t e c a d i B o l o g n a a n d CSC – Cineteca Nazionale. Paolo Sorrentino, who is traveling through the States t o s u p p o r t T h e H a n d o f God's race to the Academy A w a r d s , i n t r o d u c e d L a Strada, which he described as "One of the most melan- cholic films by Fellini, the author who, more than any other, was able to describe the inadequacy of man vis- à - v i s o f l i f e , t h e g r e a t e s t director of all time, who I have often been compared to, with my embarrassment: no one has ever been or will be like him." The retrospective is coor- dinated by Paola Ruggiero and Camilla Cormanni for Cinecittà and has been pre- sented in the world's most prestigious film institutes. All Federico Fellini's films have been digitally restored in 4K by Cinecittà, Cineteca d i B o l o g n a a n d C S C – Cineteca Nazionale. Ennio a film by Giuseppe Tornatore (Photo: CIS 2021) Italian cinema around the US with Cinema Italian Style and #Fellini100 SILVIA GIUDICI LOS ANGELES ITALIAN COMMUNITY

• Cover