Caro Luigi,

tanti auguri di buon compleanno all’attore preferito di I LOVE ITALIAN MOVIES. Tu sei una persona meravigliosa, un talento unico, insomma, il migliore.

Here are some birthday greetings to Luigi from our readers!

Auguri ad un Grande, appassionato ed emozionante!  Virginia Cerrone 

We’re showing one of his movies on October 11, La città ideale, in honor of his birthday! Sarah Scott (The Washington DC Italian Meetup Group)

Auguri a un grande attore! Paola Brunetti 

Adoro lo Cascio! Monica Scarselli 

Happy Birthday Mr. Luigi!:-D  Cindy Delarosa 

Tanti auguri da Budapest  Rabi Éva 

Tanti auguri ad uno splendido e coraggioso attore   Live-Italian: speak it, love it, live it 

Buon compleanno maestro  Catrinel Marlon 

Buon compleanno Luigi .. Grazie per decidere di essere un attore .. un grande attore .. E venendo sui nostri schermi, nei teatri e nelle nostre case ..
Quando noi, come gli amanti del cinema trascorrere del tempo con voi, anche se si sta giocando molti ruoli diversi, noi siamo con voi per ore .. Si diventa parte della nostra vita ..
Grazie per aver condiviso la tua creatività e la visione con noi !!! ‘ Teo Kim Merlino 

Paul A. Tiseo #TantiAuguriLuigiLoCascio 🇮🇹

Happy Birthday Luigi Lo Cascio!  Sherri Teter 

Love your movies and Happy Birthday! Terry Garcia 

Also, greetings from Marco Lobasso, Maria Mancinelli, ‎سامانتا سارتری‎, Teo Kim Merlino, Elisabetta Sanino D’Amanda, Palma Mazzei, Jim Spencer, Enrico Micarelli , Michael Lee, Carmen Arone, Elena Quaranta, Maria De Dilectis, Kurt Patrizi, Francesca Attiani, Marco Olivieri, Mago Bianco Gran Maestro, Ray McInerney, Maria Giovanna Cutini, Bruna Tachella, Amedeo Zaccaria, László Gengely, Pina Sprovieri, Germana D’Aloisio, Bruno Luciani, Maria Grazia, Laura Romolini, Maria Leone, Anna Maria Ginestra, Paulita Amboy, Mimma Pirri, Raffaele Zenardi, Wilma Spoto , Lucia Calì, Mariana Rata, Natalia Lastrucci, Karen Ashworth, Mako Tanaka, Giulia Stonem, Maria Medici, Saverio Lucia, Scuola Media Pianopoli I. C. Feroleto, Anto Puglisi, Gab Mar, Meli Parker, Sonia Todeschini, Paul A. Tiseo, Raffaella Balboni, Ely Anzani, Antonella Fazio, Marica Galise, Sonilde Gianlupi, Nicoletta Romeo , Marco Lobasso, Maria Lambiase, Erminia Lombardi, Joyce Love, Palma Mazzei, Mitrita Aldea, Donato Gattozzi, Cristina Ligas, Anna Giaccari, Laura Todini, Mary Mac, Paolo Cuomo, Tiziana Pizzi, Giuseppe Giugliano, Giusy Messina, Antoine Tartamella, William Shoaf, Sandro Salis, Francesca Maria, Stefania Di Cesare, Max Lombardi, Enrico Micarelli, Marco Trippi, Raffaelina Celardo, Pollena Trocchia, Lucia Santorelli, Cecilia Alfini, Silvia Antonelli, Marco Mezzadri, Paola Rossi, Monica Griffa, Maria Soriano , Kianush Behzadi, Akram Umar Dudra, Virginia Cerrone, Qaseem Bagrami, Alice Dalby, George Joseph Thekkel, Rizwan Sikandar, Rita Gialloreto, Anna Cappai, Roberta Lazzari, Fabrizio Grazia, Pietro Conti, Luciana Castellari, Michele Caggiano, Ettore Borghi, Stephanie Dean, Vittoria Nocera, KaU’r ReEt, Ajith Ratnayaka, Vale de Biase, D’Amico Donatella,Terry Garcia, SuperAnto Marotta, FilmFan,Anna Boada, Sherri Teter ,Anne Maltempi,and Rose Ann Pusateri-Rowe.

SPEND THE DAY WATCHING SOME LUIGI LO CASCIO MOVIES!

I Nostri Ragazzi – The Dinner

La Meglio Gioventù – The Best of Youth

Luce Dei Miei Occhi – Light of my Eyes

Il Capitale Umano – Human Capital

Salvo

In honor of Luigi Lo Cascio’s birthday, take a look at these scenes from his movies…

And then enjoy 6o Minutes of Luigi

I Cento Passi    5:08

I Cento Passi  1:44

La Meglio Gioventù   2:18

Il Dolce e L’Amaro   2:22

Mio Cognato  3:22

La Città Ideale  1:13

La Vita Che Vorrei  2:23

La Vita Che Vorrei    3:59

La Bestia Nel Cuore   9:42

I Nostri Ragazzi     1:06

Il Nome Del Figlio    4:32

Il Nome Del Figlio

Il Capitale Umano   1:25

Marina     2:00

Noi Credevamo      1:50

Luce Dei Miei Occhi    2:33

Il Più Bel Giorno Della Mia Vita     1:21

Il Mare Nero    9:36

Buongiorno Notte  3:44

Gli Amici Del Bar Margherita   1:23

More well-known as an author than for films, Margaret Mazzantini never-the-less has left her indelible mark in Italian cinema. The wife of Sergio Castellito, Margaret will be forever remembered for her collaboration with her husband on the 2004 movie Non Ti Muovere (Don’t Move).

Born in Dublin in 1961, Margaret is the daughter of the writer Carlo Mazzantini and the painter Anne Donnelly. When she was three the family moved to Tivoli where she grew up and attended the National Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Margaret and family

Primarily a theatrical actress, she began her career in a 1980 horror film called Antropofago, and it was on this movie set that she met Castellito. They married in 1987 and went on to have four children, all with the middle name of either “Contento” or “Contenta”, which means “happy”. Their oldest son Pietro acts as well, and starred in È Nata Una Star? starring Luciana Littizzetto, Rocco Papaleo and the young Castellito.  This 2012 comedy asks parents to consider something that they probably rarely have: What would you do if you found out that your teenage son was a porn star?

Non ti Muovere – Don’t Move

Non Ti Muovere was first an award-winning novel written by Mazzantini; she won the coveted Strega Book Award, the most important Italian literary prize. Is it a love story or a tale of violence against women? You can decide for yourself; you can buy the book, translated into English, on Amazon. 

One of the best films since 2000, it stars Sergio Castellito, Claudia Gerini, and Penelope Cruz as the prostitute Italia, an unflattering role that only a very brave actress would take. With Sergio directing and acting and Margaret as the screenwriter, this film went on to win David di Donatellos, Nastro D’Argentos, Italian Golden Globes, European Film Awards, and other film festival honors.

More recently Mazzantini’s book became a movie starring Riccardo Scamarcio and Jasmine Trinca and called Nessuno Si Salva Da Solo (No one saves themselves alone) about the difficulties of a couple dealing with anorexia. The story takes place all in the span of one evening, during a dinner in which a recently separated couple with two children must decide who’d get them for the summer, but end up spending the evening talking about what happened in their relationship.

Jasmine Trinca and Riccardo Scamarcio

You can also watch another Mazzantini/Castellito collaboration Venuto al Mondo (Twice Born), the story of a single mother (played by Penelope Cruz) who brings her teenage son to Sarajevo, where his father died in the Bosnian conflict years ago.

WATCH TWICE BORN

Happy Birthday Margaret! Auguri!

The most exciting of 2015: Suburra

If you haven’t yet seen the most awesome new movie collaboration between Netflix and Rai, why the heck not? If I were in charge, I would have selected Suburra as the submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film.

A crime story based on real events in Rome and Ostia, the acting is top-rate, the pace is exciting, and though there’s a lot going on it’s all connected before you get a chance to get lost or confused, and it leaves a lot of room for the TV series.

Also in the works a 10-episode mini-series, Netflix’s first Italian original series, based on the movie and due out in 2016.

The most awesome thing of all? You can  WATCH SUBURRA ON NETFLIX right now.

Suburra stars:

Pierfrancesco Favino as Filippo Malgradi, Elio Germano as Sebastiano, Claudio Amendola as “Samurai”, Alessandro Borghi as Aureliano “Numero 8”

and…Greta Scarano as Viola

Greta Scarano, Suburra

Greta Scarano, the second most exciting thing in Italian Cinema 2015.

Ascoltatemi bene, my prediction for 2016: This girl is going to be a BIG STAR. She’s gorgeous, and her talent is Emma Stone good. She’s Jennifer Lawerence good. She’s Reece Witherspoon good. Actually, she’s better than all three of them.

Alessandro Borghi, Suburra, Non Essere Cattivo

One more cool thing about Suburra to add to the list:

Alessandro Borghi, who plays Numero Otto (Number 8), and also stars in the film that will represent Italy for the Oscar, Non Essere Cattivo.  Alessandro is just what Italy needs right now; a great actor with big screen appeal and one who is VERY GOOD LOOKING.

Youth

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve notice the attention that Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth (La Giovinezza) has been getting here in the US, prior to its December 4 opening in New York City (more cities and dates to come throughout the month). It’s amazing and worth every bit of the buzz.

Mick, a director, played by Harvey Keitel, and Fred, a composer played by Michael Caine, on holiday together understand that their time on earth is limited, but they are handling their old age in different ways; Fred seems indifferent and lethargic, facing each day with a weary resignation. Mick, however, is working on his masterpiece, his “testament”, with a group of young screenwriters and with the enthusiasm of a younger man.

Director Laura Bispuri with Sworn Virgin actresses Flonja Kodheli and Alba Rohrwacher

Watch out for this young director; Laura Bispuri is intense, creative, and on her way up after her amazing Vergine Giurata (Sworn Virgin) about Hana, whose life is dictated by the tradition of her northern Albanian homeland. There, women can’t hold a man’s job, smoke, drink, or carry firearms, UNLESS, they give up their femininity. For a variety of different reasons (and I am guessing homosexuality is one of them) women can renounce their gender, and live as men, but they must swear to remain virgins.

Laura tells me that Vergine Giurata will be in American theaters in early 2016.

Pecore in Erba

Exciting for me (although I’m still trying to decide if Italy feels the same way), the comedies, specifically Alberto Caviglia’s Pecore In Erba.  Director Caviglio pulls out all the stops in this hilarious film about a boy who loves to hate and devotes his life to promoting antisemitism. You heard me; it’s a comedy.

Caviglia takes every stereotype, every prejudice, and every form of hatred toward Jews and spins them around like tops, creating a merry frenzy that is absolutely laugh out loud funny. I loved his refusal to consider anything politically incorrect; nothing under the sun was off -limits. Pecore In Erba is an excellent example of the Italian comedies that are reaching beyond Italian borders and have become a more universal belly-laugh.

This year’s winner will be The People’s Choice.

Here are the nominees and their merits:

Paolo Sorrentino

Paolo Sorrentino

The 2014 Academy Award winner for best foreign film, is clearly a vital player, and even if you think that The Great Beauty and Youth were the most frivolous things you’ve ever seen, you have to admit the international impact they’ve made. He’s a regular at Cannes, and his English language films have put him on a world stage unrivaled by any other Italian filmmaker. He’s creative, innovative, and never content with the status quo.

Laura Bispuri

Laura Bispuri

Laura hit the Italian Cinema world like a hurricane with her exceptional Vergine Giurata (Sworn Virgin). For awhile there, I couldn’t log on to Facebook without seeing yet another award from film festivals all over the world she’d won for her story of Hana, the Albanian woman who renounced her femininity and lived as a man in order to enjoy the rights that men have. At the Tribeca Film Festival she won the Nora Ephron Prize, and the jury said, “We are awarding a film that is exquisite in its broadness and its intimacy, with a truly original story that touches on oppression in a way that members of this jury have rarely seen before. The film constantly surprised us and made us question our own positions through a confident, passionate, and beautifully nuanced vision that showed a real respect for the audience.”

Elio Germano as Il Giovane Favoloso

Elio Germano

The 2008 Berlinale Shooting Star Germano is probably not the first name that comes to an American’s mind when they think of Italian cinema, but Elio Germano is a top dog and had an amazing year. His Il Giovane Favoloso was #19 at the 2015 Italian box office (and that includes the Hollywood films), with a tender and poignant performance that garnered best actor awards at the David di Donatellos and also the Venice Film Festival and the Nastro D’Argento for best film.

He’s won a best actor award at Cannes, a Golden Globe for best actor, and his 2015 roles in Alaska and Suburra make it clear that he is at the top of his game.

Margherita Buy

Margherita Buy

When I mention Margherita Buy in Italy, many times I am met with groans, I have a feeling it’s a case of sour grapes against this prolific actress that has won more Best Actress awards than Sophia Loren in Italy. She’s over 50 and fabulous, and her groundbreaking role as a woman in a lesbian relationship in this year’s Io E Lei proves that she’s not resting on her laurels.

Nanni Moretti

Nanni Moretti

Nanni Moretti has been at this for a long time, and the thing that I like best about him is that he is constantly evolving and reinventing himself as a filmmaker. He’s beloved for his earlier work like Caro Diario and La Stanza Del Figlio, but the work in his more recent films including the 2015 Mia Madre are even better.

Paola Cortellesi

Paola Cortellesi

Never underestimate La Cortellesi; she’s the Lucille Ball of contemporary cinema with adorable comic performances that have made her Italy’s darling. She’s far from just a pretty face, and as she ages, she just keeps getting better and better. If you doubt her, make sure you’ve seen the 2014 Scusate Se Esisto, and then look forward to her upcoming Gli Ultimi Saranno Ultimi with Alessandro Gassman and Fabrizio Bentivoglio.

Don’t like the nominees? Let us hear yours!

Brains + Talent + Energy + An Amazing Work Ethic = Paolo Genovese

Me and Paolo

I felt like a nerd at Comic-Con; how do you meet a director like Paolo Genovese and remain low-key and professional when you really are a huge fan and you really have watched La Banda Dei Babbi Natale 10 times?

You can’t. Anyway, I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop reminding him how cool he is and how much fun his movies are, the funnest by far, Perfetti Sconosciuti (Perfect Strangers), the one that has become a huge hit here in New York City at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Perfetti Sconosciuti

Perfect Strangers is a comedy about seven friends at a dinner party playing a game of “chicken” with their cell phones. The rules are simple: Put yours in the middle of the dining room table and share all calls and messages with everyone there. Once it’s suggested, nobody has the guts to admit it’s a bad idea, and let’s just say their friendships are tested.

I asked him about possible remakes in other countries and languages and he told me the rumors are true, there’s definite interest in making them, and Paolo may be involved in the productions.

But will it be the same, or will cultural difference change the story?

“No”, Paolo shook his head, “it’s a universal thing.” A human being and his cell phone is pretty much the same worldwide.

Here’s the top 10 things I learned about Paolo Genovese:

1. He’s funny (obviously), he says he thinks he is with his friends and family too, but
2. it’s easier to write funny stuff than be a funny person, because you have more time to think and that
3. he’s actually pretty quiet, and his actors would say his sets are calm and nonthreatening workplaces.
4. He thinks Checco Zalone is funny, but educated me about the difference between Checco (the comic) and him (the comedy filmmaker). Hollywood doesn’t have that distinction.
5. His scripts are not to be messed with; the lines are there for a reason, but
6. once they are spoken, an actor is free to embellish a bit, however,
7. the embellishment might end up on the cutting room floor if Paolo doesn’t like it.
8. He’s had a wife for 17 years and 3 kids so yes, he’s very, very handsome, but he’s taken.
9. He’s an award-winning ad man and still makes advertisements if he has time in between movies and he
10. works his ass off! Evidence: Nonstop screenings, interviews, and appearances here in New York. (Take a nap, Paolo!) PS, I have an
11. He loves American romantic comedies like When Harry Met Sally, and Paolo, your film Sei Mai Stata Sulla Luna is proof that you write good ones, so do an Italian remake of When Harry Met Sally! (Starring Greta Scarano and Edoardo Leo – no charge for this great idea!)

“Your dialogue is AWESOME”, I told Paolo, and I asked him for his secret to awesome dialogue.

“At an ordinary dinner party there are lulls and bits of boring conversation, so in a screenplay you have to make it all about the interesting parts and still make it seem natural,” and that sounds easy, but it’s definitely not, or everyone would be able to do it. Of course the superb acting by A-list actors Alba Rohrwacher, Edoardo Leo, Marco Giallini, Kasia Smutniak, Valerio Mastandrea, Anna Foglietta, and Giuseppe Battiston helps, but Paolo has a rare talent of making fascinating conversation sound ordinary, like we’re right there at the table and could jump in at any time.

I have one more idea for you Paolo: Perfetti Sconosciuti – The Board Game 

Players advance on the board and win the game with calls and texts from ex-girlfriends and secret lovers garnering the most points. Here’s the advertisement: Perfetti Sconosciuti, the game that starts with FUN and ends with DIVORCE! (Again, no charge for the great idea).

Perfetti Sconosciuti (Perfect Strangers)

READ MY REVIEW OF PERFETTI SCONOSCIUTI

Once Tribeca is over, we’ll be watching for the films return to the rest of the country, and we’ll be here to let you know about it.

Quo Vado  is the latest in Checcomania and it’s coming, with Checco Zalone himself, to Canada’s ICFF in June.

Quo Vado?
Director: Gennaro Nunziante

Screening times and locations:
June 9 @ 7:00pm TIFF – Toronto
June 10 @ 9:00pm Colossus – Vaughan
June 10 @ 9:15pm Colossus – Vaughan
June 11 @ 4:00pm NIFF – Niagara
June 12 @ 7:00pm Museum of fine Arts – Montreal
June 13 @ 7:00pm Cinematheque Quebecois – Montreal
June 14 @ 7:00pm Cinema Guzzo – Montreal
June 14 @ 7:00pm Cinema Cartier – Quebec City

The Checco train started at full speed with the comic’s first film Cado Dalle Nubi (I Fall From The Clouds, 14 million euro at the box office), Che Bella Giornata (What A Beautiful Day, 44 million), Sole A Catinelle (51 million), and finally Quo Vado, a blockbuster that has brought in, to date, about 65 million.

Quo Vado is the highest grossing Italian film of all time and the second highest ever of all films at the Italian box office (Avatar beat it by about a million). Written by and starring Checco Zalone (stage name of Luca Medici) and directed by Gennaro Nunziante, it’s about a guy named Checco (as usual), a racist, sexist, homophobic nitwit with a heart of gold.

I know how it sounds, but stay with me.

Checco decided from an early age that his classmates who aspired to become doctors, lawyers and musicians had it all wrong. Checco knew what he wanted from an early age: an easy government job and job security, and in Italy that comes in the form of a “posto fisso”, a job virtually impossible to get fired from. Little Checco’s make-believe involved putting on a little suit and sitting behind a little desk in a pretend office, rubber stamping stacks of papers and answering phones.

“Hello, Uncle? Let me call you back. I don’t have to pay for the call.” Because the office is paying, just like it does in all good office jobs.

Checco’s got it made, with a job that will (supposedly) be forever, a girlfriend that is at his beck and call (because she’s riding that “posto fisso” gravy train for all it’s worth), and a good old Italian super mom who does the same, because she adores her mammone (mamma’s boy).

Problems arise with a change in the political climate and government attempts to end bureaucracy, but Checco is determined not to give up his sure thing and he digs his heels in, DEEP. An official, La Dottoressa Sironi (played by Sonia Bergamasco from La Meglio Gioventù) is assigned to transfer employees to undesirable locations in order to force them into quitting, but she’s met her match when Checco’s file lands on her desk.

She stews as Checco cheerfully finds the good in every transfer, and just when it looks like she can’t shake him up, Checco finds himself at the North Pole, wondering if he’s going to have to surrender. But wait, there’s a pretty colleague that he’s to work closely with, so problem solved. He’s found the good in the North Pole.

Quo Vado is so very politically incorrect (as all of Zalone’s films are) that I’m dying to know what Americans would make of him. Rapid fire one-liners that are offensive about 50% of the time and rampant, wall-to-wall stereotypes are, and I don’t make this statement lightly, VERY FUNNY. I don’t know what this says about me and I don’t care. I laugh. Out loud.

Did I wince just a little in the African jungle scenes with Checco telling his story to a primitive, loincloth wearing  African tribe? Yes, of course. “Italians have big heads and small hearts”, the chief tells Checco.

“Only in the north”, shrugs Checco.

When Checco ends up in Norway, comparing Italian and Norwegian stereotypes is done pretty cleverly, and again, it’s laugh out loud funny. You’re going to want to see Checco with a blond viking beard, embracing Nordic manners and learning the language.

Zalone has said that he’d like to cross over to American audiences, and his scheduled appearance at this year’s ICFF in Canada may be a sign that he’s serious about winning over North America.

YOU CAN MEET HIM, AND SEE QUO VADO FOR YOURSELF:

Thank you for the silliness. You and your partners, Aldo and Giovanni, hold a special place in my heart.

The Cast of Tu La Conosci Claudia, Giacomo Poretti. Giovanni Storti, Claudia Cortellesi and Aldo Baglio

Back when I started studying Italian I used to spend whole days in Rome going to the movies and scouring the city for DVDs (back when there were stores that sold them) and one day I happened upon Tu La Conosci Claudia? (Do You Know Claudia?).

Starring the extra adorable Paola Cortellesi and the comedy trio, Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo, it’s the cutest rom-com ever about an unhappily married woman (Cortellesi) who decides she wants more from life. She decides that the best way to be happy is to help others be happy, so she randomly pilfers a file from her psychiatrist’s office (Poretti’s file) and, well, chaos ensues, but what else do you expect from Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo?

I’m still a big fan, and as I just told director Paolo Genovese, I watch their Christmas “classic”, La Banda Dei Babbi Natale (The Santa Claus Gang) every Christmas while I wrap presents.

La Banda Dei Babbi Natale

If Aldo is the sincere but simple-minded one, and Giovanni the loveable grouch, Giacomo is the sweet guy that tries to reign the other two in.

Tanti auguri and thanks for the laughs, and the Italian lessons! 

Don’t miss this unique opportunities to meet one of Italy’s finest actresses – Laura Morante.

Written by, directed by and starring in Assolo, Morante delivers that WOW product you aren’t expecting from a movie about a 60-year-old woman.  In it, she’s Flavia, twice divorced with two sons. In the opening scene she describes a dream she’s been having: all the men in her life are at her wake, talking about how needy, boring, and easy to move on from she’d been.

“How long could it last with Flavia?”, one husband asked the other, talking about her most recent relationship.

“Two or three months…until you realize you’re doing all the work.”

For me, Assolo isn’t even mostly about Flavia and her inability to thrive in relationships. It’s not about relationships in general, or even about women who are alone. Assolo is about what it is like to be a women, or more specifically, a woman who is not in her twenties anymore.

It’s not an issue for everyone; as a matter of fact it seemed like the other women in her world were managing  post-30 life just fine. But Assolo’s about Flavia’s perceptions, fair or not, her memories, her nightmares, and her insecurities.

Laura Morante has never been better. Always one of Italy’s top actresses, she’s moved on from the at times over-wrought over-acting of the 80s that many of her contemporaries still favor; with these recent sensitive, subtle, lovely performances, she’s a proven member of the “New Wave of Italian Cinema Club.”

You can see her, with her film tonight at The Film Society at Lincoln Center’s  Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.

Follow the stars of your favorite new movie.

Suburra has a strong presence on Twitter

READ MY REVIEW

WATCH IT ON NETFLIX

FOLLOW THE SUBURRA STARS!

Greta Scarano, Viola, @gretascarano

Greta Scarano

Alessandro Borghi, Numero 8, @AleBorghi_

Alessandro Borghi

Pierfrancesco Favino, Filippo Malgradi, @pfavino

Pierfrancesco Favino

Stefano Sollima, director @StefanoSollima

Stefano Sollima

Carlo Bonini, writer @carlobonini

Carlo Bonini

At 52, sexy Sabrina’s surprising everyone, taking bold new roles.

Sabrina Ferilli with Christian De Sica, ‘Natale a New York’

I first noticed her as the femme fatale in the cinepanettone films, the popular Italian Christmas films that seem more bedroom farce than holiday entertainment, and I think that’s how Italy identified her. Frankly, I never took her seriously, but Paolo Sorrentino did. He cast her in the Academy Award winning La Grande Bellezza, and everybody including me took notice.

With Toni Servillo in La Grande Bellezza

Then, in a career move that really shook up everyone’s perspective of her, she played a completely out of the closet lesbian in Maria Sole Tognazzi’s Io E Lei (Me, Myself and Her), one half of a couple that included Margherita Buy.

With Margherita Buy, Io e Lei

So at 50, the world found out that, hey! This girl can act! Happy birthday, Sabrina. Keep the surprises coming!

Sexy girl power over 50 – Sabrina Ferilli

Documentary film at its finest, L’esercito Più Piccolo del Mondo (The World’s Smallest Army) is a film full of hope for humanity.

L’Esercito Più Piccolo Del Mondo

Maybe it’s because I’m Catholic, or because I love Rome, or because director Gianfranco Pannone has so skillfully and sweetly told the story of young men in today’s Vatican Swiss Guards that I have so much affection for this wonderful documentary that premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival.

Probably all of the above, with the addition of the appeal of the protagonists, exemplary young men who have just arrived at Vatican City for their training, sincere and ready to work hard as part of L’Esercito Più Piccolo Del Mondo, The Smallest Army in the World.

I spoke with Pannone about his exceptional documentary, and about modern Italian documentary in general.

I interviewed Gianfranco Rosi (Sacro GRA) a few years ago and he told me that he didn’t like the kind of documentary that Michael Moore makes; according to him, Moore is too negative, ““I don’t like this kind of filmmaking”, he told me. “Everybody wants to be a little Michael Moore. I like to capture positive elements of the world.” You seem to be of the same kind of documentary maker; am I right?

I’m not a fan of Michael Moore because I don’t like edgy cinema and in this, Gianfranco Rosi and I are in agreement. I prefer a kind of documentary that questions, that believes in an active participant, that provokes. I like to plant doubt, and that’s what Moore doesn’t do. What he says in his films often are things that I agree with, but I don’t like his way of taking the viewer by the hand, as if he were a child. Ultimately you don’t go to see a Michael Moore film to discover anything new, but to have something confirmed, and I this is what I don’t like. I have great respect for Moore, but I think more about film that is less “state sponsored”, that believes in something very important and is one that expresses a thought. I prefer cinema of style, that knows how to take the audience using the language creatively rather than expressing itself with the words, words that can very easily become slogans.

L’esercito Più Piccolo del Mondo made me happy, happy for humanity. I liked getting to know people like the ones in the film. What do you want the public to take from it?

I’d like audiences to take an urgent need for humanity, the same humanity that Pope Francis passed on to me in the months that I was filming, I believe that today there is a great need to pass on to others the power of humanity to those who need empathy, attention, and someone to hear them. And those that have seen it (the film) I think have recognized the human force that my film follows in the 80 minutes of the story. From the beginning, the idea of L’esercito…it was to give to the world a group of young men that are like so many others, but have decided to serve the church in 16th century clothes. A curious and confusing thing. Did I succeed?  It’s not for me to say, but to me, the public seemed curious to know. Certainly this film gave me so much in human terms. It was a real honor to be able to be able to achieve it and to bring it to movie theaters.

What do you say to people who think that the Swiss Guard is no longer necessary?

For a long time I thought that there is no need for the Swiss Guard, but this film changed my mind. I learned that the world needs symbols that they can recognize. And if it’s true that seeing young men in 16th century clothes seems anachronistic, it’s equally true that the Swiss Guard represents the times with a secular past that has its contradictions, but everyone needs. Because in the Jung school of thought, we take inside us a past that we didn’t personally experience, and in the end, we are our parents, our city, our country…and even those without faith are also part of 2000 years of rich history and controversy. And it’s intoxicating to be able to see this secular past as our own. Maybe people know it right away, but I believe that something deeper is coming for the soldiers that dress in uniforms from another time and guard the Vatican doors.

Could you tell me about the state of the documentary in Italy? It seems pretty strong. It seems like there is money there for it.

Italian documentary has never enjoyed such good health as it does today. Of course, good health in terms of creativity,  less so for the economic side of it. You know, there is a lot of energy around “cinema del reale”, in the last few years some very interesting people in their thirties have joined my generation and established themselves; and they aren’t missing out on the awards and the recognition in the European festivals.

I think all this depends on 20 years of fraudulent politics that saw its peak in the Silvio Berlusconi years, perceived by many as “the great huckster”.

Many filmmakers went in person to look for the real country, the power that it was hiding, telling about it from inside many intricate stories of the past and above all the present of this Italy, one that it’s not wrong to call a national mosaic. A story of a country that, in contrast, TV hasn’t always shown, sometimes because of political censorship. However  the investments in auteur documentaries fail.  Few, in fact, make it to public television, and support comes rather from the regional film commissions. The results are weak, because in my opinion it lacks a courageous marketing strategy for all cinema, even fiction based film.

Can you tell me about your next project?

Right now I am working on a fictional film called Corpo a Corpo (Hand to Hand). It is the story of a difficult relationship between a father and a daughter who is just barely out of her teens He’s Tunisian and he’s lived in Italy for 30 years, a secular leftist, and he has to deal with a daughter that prays in Arabic to Mecca and practices Thai boxing.

It scares him, because he thinks that she might be a soldier for radical Islam, but he’s wrong. There’s a blindness in the father, incapable of recognizing his daughter’s concerns. Corpo a Corpo is a film about the deep crisis of secularism, incapable of answering an increasingly troubled world. I hope to make it happen next year.

He’ll be at Venezia73 with his latest film ‘Il Più Grande Sogno’ and I predict mass hysteria.

Talk about managing a career in a smart way, Alessandro Borghi’s last two feature films have been huge, and he’s been huge in them. Playing Numero 8 in the cool Netflix production Suburra and Vittorio in the movie Italy submitted to the Oscars, Non Essere Cattivo (Don’t Be Bad), Borghi is on the precipice of greatness. (Good thing I’ve already gotten my selfie with him, because he’s going to be in high demand.)

Borghi won last year’s David di Donatello for Best Supporting Actor and the Nastro D’Argento Revelation of the Year Award.

He’ll be at this year’s Venice Film Festival in a film competing in the Orrizzoti (Horizons) section in Michele Vannucci’s  Il Più Grande Sogno (The Biggest Dream), the story of Mirko, a Roman criminal who gets elected to his local council (overwhelming, without even running) and decides to change his life.

1. This actor started with a career doing stunt work at Cinecittà.
2. This actor was a big TV star before appearing in movies.
3. This actor got famous on the Italian version of the tv reality show Big Brother.
4. This actor was a child star in a Nanni Moretti movie.
5. This actor has won more best acting awards than any other Italian actor.
6. This actor is in-laws with Christian De Sica.
7. This actor grew up with beekeepers.
8. This actor posed nude for Vanity Fair.
9. This actor began as a street performer.
10. This actor’s sister was the first lady of France.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ANSWERS.

Not getting older, getting better.

Raoul Bova has made a career out of playing the part of “handsome Italian guy who American women lust after” in American made movies Under The Tuscan Sun and All Roads Lead To Rome, but there’s more to him than that. “In his first big break Ferzan Ozpetek cast him as “handsome guy living across the street from bored housewife who can’t stop watching him from her window” in La Finestra Di Fronte (Facing Windows).

WATCH La Finestra Di Fronte

He stars in two adorable comedies with Paola Cortellesi, Nessuno Mi Può Giudicare (Escort In Love) and Scusate Se Esisto (Do You See Me), neither of which you can find in the US very easily but are about 1000 times better than Under The Tuscan Sun and All Roads Lead To Rome).

My absolute favorite clip with Raoul Bova and Paola Cortellesi in Scucsate Se Esisto. No subtitles, sorry, but you don’t need them to enjoy this one.

She’s the next big thing, and it’s her birthday!

I’ve “known” Maria Roveran, because of Facebook since I contacted her after her extraordinary performance as Luisa in Alessandro Rossetto’s Picola Patria.

Maria Roveran in Piccola Patria

In Venice starring in the Golden Lion nominated Questi Giorni with Margherita Buy, I finally got to meet her in person,  I said to her, “I told you that you were going to be a big star! Do you remember?”

She giggled modestly but happily. She’s thrilled with this opportunity, but also worried about getting this kind of role in the future. “Directors prefer actresses with a more Mediterranean look”, she told me.

“This is changing”, I reminded her. “Just look at Margherita Buy.” 

Margherita Buy and Maria Roveran

Maria says that working with seven time David di Donatello best actress award winner Margherita was like working with an icon. “She’s really a beautiful person, smart, funny, kind, and generous with other actresses.”

I reminded Maria that she’s the same kind of actress, and told her how impressed I’d been with her gentle, subtle portrayal of the young girl with cancer in Questi Giorni. Her character Liliana hadn’t told anyone, even her friends or her mother about her illness, and you could see the pain from worrying about dying and the joy of being alive in her eyes.

Questi Giorni

“Acting is about the simple things that you do”, Maria told me, “like crying. I have cancer, so now I have to cry, but Giuseppe (Piccioni, the director) said, ‘No!’ You have to suggest with your eyes a war between two feelings’. Giuseppe taught me a very big, important lesson, because as an actor you can’t take the easy way. Many times it’s the most difficult way, showing the contrast between the mind and the body.”

“I had to be very, how do you say it? Equilibrata?”

“Balanced”, someone across the room helped her out.

“I want you to do an American movie”, I told her.

“But my English…”, she fretted. (Her English is not a problem, believe me.)

“I want to do some small independent movies”, she told me. “You have to bet on the young directors and the independent films. It’s my dream.”

Maria is a singer, too, and Alessandro Rossetto had her write and perform some of the music in Piccola Patria. What does she like better, acting or singing?

“For me they are two faces of the same thing.  When I sing I can in explain personal and intimate things that sometimes I can’t explain so well.”

“Giuseppe reminded us about how we should sound, he’d say, “Please, say it more gently”, don’t be loud,  don’t use your voice like you have to claim the screen. You have to be balanced, and it’s the same for me in singing.”

I am shy with my feelings and it’s strange because I am an actress and so sometimes people think that you are not shy because you have to act – also Margherita is very shy. She’s beautiful because she tries to overcome her personal shyness. And for me, my music is like this, because I can overcome my shyness with it. Singing is a good way to research the feelings of the character – because I am Maria, but when I was Liliana, I was in a different world that I can’t explain.”

For me It was a really big responsibility to play a young girl with cancer. I did a lot of personal research – I talked with doctors and patients and I want to have empathy for the character.

“Acting is a little like playing, but it’s not a joke for me. It’s not like, “Oh now I have to cry because I have cancer”, no, no. When people ask what’s your job, it’s strange to say you’re an actress. You’re not a doctor, or whatever role you are playing, but it’s a serious kind of “playing” for me, because I want to act with the conviction of the character.”

Italy’s finest actress is over fifty and shows no sign of slowing down.

You can go see her right now, you lucky Americans, in her BEST ACTRESS winning role Mia Madre (My Mother), Nanni Moretti’s truly lovely film tribute to his own mother.

CLICK HERE FOR CITIES AND DATES

Mia Madre (My Mother)

My husband likes to complain about the roles that actresses like Meryl Streep take and I have to remind him, constantly, that women their age they are lucky to get parts at all. Fair or not fair, that’s the way it is, and so that’s what makes 7 time Best Actress winner Margherita Buy and her brilliant career so special.

Starring most recently as Adria in Giuseppe Piccioni’s Golden Lion nominated Questi Giorni (These Days), she’s the hot single mom, the one who dresses a little too young for her age but can pull if off, so why not? She’s got an apparently successful hair salon, but she’s not what you’d call good with her accounting, so her teenage daughter Liliana (Maria Roveran) steps into the mothering role from time to time, to help keep things afloat.

Though I hated to remind her of her age, I had to ask, “How are you pulling this off? How are you still getting the sexy roles?  One obvious answer; she’s still very sexy looking, but there’s more to it than that, and Margherita chalks it off to luck.

“I’m very lucky”, she told me, because throughout my career while I was growing older I have always managed to find beautiful stories and directors who gave my great roles where I’ve managed to play younger women (because she looks younger, obviously) and portraying characters at appropriate ages.”

“You don’t have to play the same role, as some actresses do”, she went on. “I’ve been able to play women who evolve and change and I was able to evolve with my characters. I’ve always felt close to the women I’ve played.”

Doing dramatic roles, in fact, “I am always too involved, sort of trapped by the characters.”

The role of Adria is definitely a dramatic one, the mother of a young daughter with cancer, but there’s a comical side to the party girl mother who won’t grow up, and I asked Margherita how she managed to play a character that was so different from herself.

“I found her amusing”, she said. “She’s a woman who I know; I’ve met many people like her in my life. She’s uneducated but she’s simple, and I understand her fragility, her insecurities, wearing clothes that are too young for her. I actually love her.”

“She had a child when she was very young and she wasn’t able to enjoy her youth, but she doesn’t want to give up being a woman”, she said. “She moved me.”

Though Margherita starred in one of my favorite comedies of all time Maledetto Il Giorno Che T’ho Incontrato (Damned The Day I Met You with Carlo Verdone), she says she doesn’t do comedies as often because they have to be well written “or otherwise it’s better not to do them”.

(Maybe Meryl Streep should take this advice.)

Whatever it is that Margherita Buy is doing to remain youthful and relevant as a woman and an actress, I don’t see any sign of that letting up.

Margherita, just so you know, luck has nothing to do with this. You really are something special.

See Margherita Buy’s movies here in the USA. Check out:

Giorni e Nuvole (Days and Clouds) 

Viaggio Sola (A Five Star Life)

Habemus Papam We Have A Pope

Roberto Saviano leads the fight against organized crime, but he’s paying a price for it. 

Gomorrah the TV Series is now available in America

Roberto Saviano’s father, a doctor, reached out to help a man who had been gunned down in a Camorra (Naples organized crime) shooting, and for that act of kindness he was beaten to a pulp. For Roberto, this was the beginning of a dichotomous existence of fame and living in hiding.

READ GOMORRAH THE BOOK

WATCH GOMORRAH THE MOVIE

WATCH GOMORRAH THE TV SERIES

Gomorrah the movie

Saviano is the author of the prize-winning and best-selling book Gomorrah, which became an award-winning and very successful movie (directed by Matteo Garrone) with the same name, and is the number one TV show in Italy, now available for Americans. The name is a play on words that came when a priest in Caserta made the comment that the Camorra was turning the area into a Gomorrah.

To write his book, Saviano went undercover, doing odd jobs that put him in contact with Camorristas and at the same time researching news and legal documents.  The book was an instant success, but it’s left him in an unfortunate situation. It’s been years since he’s been able to move freely in society.

“Not long after the book came out in 2006, someone left a leaflet in my mother’s postbox. I was living in Naples, but she was still in Caserta. It showed a photograph of me, with a pistol to my head, and the word “Condemned”. Soon afterwards, I was invited to give an address at a gala to inaugurate the new school year in the town of Casal di Principe, home of the most powerful Camorra clan, with one of the highest murder rates in Italy. I singled out the Camorra bosses from the stage, naming them publicly, which local people had been too intimidated to do. I told them they should leave. The then-speaker of the Italian parliament was there with his bodyguards. After the event, they told me it would be too dangerous to go back to Naples on public transport, so they took me with them.”

Ever since then Saviano has been living with bodyguards, unable even to go out casually for a beer, so let’s go out for him and raise a glass to his health and continued safety. Tanti Auguri Roberto! As we Americans love to say, ‘thank you for your service”.

And DON’T MISS SEASON ONE OF GOMORRAH THE TV SERIES!

Gomorrah the TV series

I’ve been asking Italian filmmakers about their favorite movies.

When I am talking to Italian directors, actors, and producers they are usually talking about the film that they are promoting, rightly so, and I decided to ask them what else they’re watching and liking these days, films made by other people.

I’m starting with one of my favorite actresses, Bianca Nappi, star of Alberto Caviglia’s ‘Pecore in Erba’ (Burning Love), Ferzan Ozpetek’s Mine Vaganti (Loose Cannons), and Duccio Chiarini’s  I Dolori del Giovane Edo (Short Skin). 

In Pecore in Erba, a film that wowed audiences at the 2015 Venice Film Festival, Nappi plays the adoring sister of a famous, young anti-semite (it’s a comedy, you heard me, it’s a hilarious lampoon of religious intolerance). She’s an absolute ironic genius, walking that fine line between zany and realistic, a classic “straight-man” in the midst of the outrageous satire.

One of Bianca’s other talents? She’ll give you your horoscope at Ladyblitz.com!

Bianca told me, “When we started shooting Pecore in Erba I was excited and very focused about my character because we all knew it would be a complex work. The whole movie is in fact based on a delicate balance between satire and reality, an interesting challenge! Honestly I knew in my heart it could become a big deal, but until it was out at the Venice Festival, you never know..”

“I think that the cinema produced by a country respects its social reality, economy and culture, and in the last five or six years there has been a rebirth in Italy, above all with directors and auteurs that are the true spirit of cinema, in my opinion,” says Nappi. “Maybe the economic crisis that Italy has gone through and is going through has served to eliminate the superfluous and made us return to our origins, that is to say making films that are more sincere and more original. We actors can’t do anything but follow this current and help the directors realize their visions.

So what film does Bianca recommend? One that I have never seen (but it’s on my list of “films to see ASAP”).

“Among modern Italian films, without a doubt one of my favorites is Matteo Garrone’s ‘L’imbalsamatore’ (The Embalmer), a powerful film noir about love and desire. If you haven’t seen it, see it!”

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L’imbalsamatore

A 2002 film that the New York Times said that the “tricky comedy thriller The Embalmer subjects it to a diabolical homoerotic twist”, it stars Ernesto Mahieux, Valerio Foglia Manzillo and Elisabetta Rocchetti.

In what they call a “psychosexual power struggle”, Valerio (Valerio Foglia Manzillo) a handsome young guy begins working with Peppino (Ernesto Mahieux), a taxidermist and embalmer, a gay man pretending to be heterosexual.

A photo gallery of Paola, and a surprise for the No Perditempo Girls!

Under 30 and on their way up.

The Berlinale has its shooting stars and we have ours.

Blu Yoshimi (Di Martino)

Nanni Moretti lovers will remember Blu Yoshimi from his movie Caos Calmo, playing Nanni’s daughter. When his wife died, he wanted hate being away from his little girl so much that he sat on a park bench every day outside her classroom window when she was at school, even conducting business meetings there.

Blu was amazingly talented at that young age, and still is at age 19.  As Cate, the pregnant teenager in Roan Johnson’s Piuma, she is absolutely perfect, overwhelmed and yet calm and resolved in her unfortunate circumstances. She is on my list of actresses to watch, and I can’t wait to see her in the upcoming English language film, The Banality of Crime.

Ondina Quadri

At just 22, Ondina is a naturally gifted actress who, her first time out, won the Italian Golden Globe for Best Actress and Best Actress in a Debut Film at the Venice Film Festival. Even though she’d never acted before, she took on the difficult role of Arianna, the Intersex teenager who’d been assigned the female gender and never told about it.

Daphne Scoccia

Getting chosen for the role in Fiori, Claudio Giovannesi’s film about a teenage girl in a juvenile detention center was “destiny”, according to 21-year-old Daphne Scoccia. Giovannesi, at lunch with producers at a restaurant in Rome, noticed their pretty waiter and asked her if she wanted to do an audition.

“Why not?” she thought, and “Thank goodness!” I say, because she’s a revelation in the role (and she’s gorgeous; she has “celebrity” written all over her.

The Fontana Sisters

Fame: twins Angela and Marianna Fontana want it and they are going to get it. Beautiful, multi-talented, and a spectacular screen presence, they are singers that caught the eye of director Edoardo De Angelis for the role of conjoined twins who could easily have been separated at birth, the their parents figured out that they could make a buck off them left intact. At Venice Film Festival debut of the film debut of Indivisibili, the girls won a Best Actress Special Mention, the Pasinetti Prize.

Laura Adriani

Laura Adriana is only 22 but seems years older in terms of experience and talent. I first noticed her as the precocious teenage Emma in Paolo Genovese’s Tutta Colpa di Freud and was even more impressed with her as Angela in Giuseppe Piccioni’s ‘Questi Giorni’.

Michele Vannucci

Let’s add a guy into the mix, and a director, instead of an actor; Michele Vannucci  is talented way beyond his years, and he’s too young to be so smart. Honestly, I look at Michele and I think, “What the hell have I done with my life?” He’s not even 30 and he’s crafted a true piece of art in his first feature film Il Più Grande Sogno.