Not familiar with contemporary Italian Cinema?

Lesson #1: Marco Bellocchio 

Your assignment: Watch this selection of films from the maestro, Marco Bellocchio.

Marco Bellocchio receives Golden Lion for Lifetime achievement from Bernardo Bertolucci

A young Bellocchio first caught the world’s attention in 1965 with one of his first films, I Pugni in Tasca (Fists in the Pocket). With this shockingly innovative drama, Bellocchio dismantled Italian society in a way that was a step beyond what anyone else was doing in the ’60.

The term “dark comedy” is an understatement for this story of, perhaps the most dysfunctional cinematic family ever. Alessandro starts murdering family members one by one as the film skewers sacred Italian societal institutions like the church and the family.

Get ‘I Pugni In Tasca‘

I Pugni In Tasca

The most important thing to note about Bellocchio is his evolution from brash young ’60s director to contemporary master, and his ability to stay relative in the midst of today’s explosion of talented filmmakers, so:

Moving on and skipping ahead to the 2000s, take a look at the 2003 Buongiorno Notte (Good Morning Night), Bellocchio’s story about the 1978 kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro, Italian president of the political party, Democrazia Cristiana.

Buongiorno Notte

The 70’s weren’t an easy decade for Italy – a terrorist group – BR, Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) was wreaking havoc, responsible for 14,000 acts of violence, the kidnapping of public figures, and having murdered 75, Aldo Moro was the most famous. Bellocchio tells the story shown through the eyes of one of the terrorists, a 23-year-old girl named Chiara (Maya Sansa), who in effect, epitomizes the young, idealistic anarchists who believed, as Chiara’s leader told her, “Per la vittoria del proletariato è lecito uccidere anche la propria madre. – For the victory of the proletariat it is lawful to kill your own mother.”

GET BUONGIORNO NOTTE

Vincere

Next take a look at his 2009 Vincere, in a way, this is just your ordinary “boy’s an abusive pig, girl gets off on abuse” kind of love story, but the significance and consequences of their screwed up relationship are what matters here. Here, the abusive pig is Benito Mussolini, played by Filippo Timi in a performance that the New York Times called “one of the best that would not win an Oscar”.

The girl getting off on the abuse is Ida, Mussolini’s “secret wife”, and her inability to let go when her husband wants to move on is a truly formidable sight to behold. Ida’s son, meanwhile has been sent to an orphanage. He asks a nun when his mother will come to get him and she tells him, “after she gets better”. He asks where his father is and she tell him, “He has to save Italy – don’t be selfish.”

GET VINCERE

Bella Addormentata

In 2012 Bellocchio brought Bella Addormentata (Dormant Beauty) to the Venice Film Festival and this one, you can stream.

Bella Addormentata takes the true life story of the last six days of the life of Eluana Englaro, comatose for 17 years when her family fought for the right to pull the plug and let her die and it shows us, not what was happening to this family, but to various people around her. A senator, played by Toni Servillo, who is leaning towards voting against a law that would prohibit families from making the choice that Eluana’s family made conflicts with a daughter (Alba Rohrwacher) who is firmly planted with the Catholic Church and thinks that Eluana’s family is committing murder.

There’s a doctor (Pier Giorgio Bellocchio) who finds himself compelled to try to save a drug addict played by Maya Sansa, there’s a famous French actress (Isabelle Huppert) who has left acting and practically the entire land of the living to care for her comatose daughter, and there’s an apparently bi-polar young man who angrily protests the church and its stand on the right to die issue, In the background of the Eluana death watch everybody’s tense and unhappy, watching what Berlosconi and the senate do and considering the implications for their own lives. Whether or not we are in the middle of a life and death situation, we all have our feelings about right and wrong that we’d like to impose on the rest of the world.

STREAM BELLA ADDORMENTATA on Amazon     NETFLIX     VUDU       iTunes

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

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.

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

Alessandro Borghi, Numero 8, @AleBorghi_

Pierfrancesco Favino, Filippo Malgradi, @pfavino

Stefano Sollima, director @StefanoSollima

Carlo Bonini, writer @carlobonini

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Italy’s extremely strong submission to this year’s Oscars.

• TODAY!  SIGN UP AND GET A FREE TICKET!

  Thursday, November 17 at 5:45 PM – 11 PM PST Show Map Egyptian Theatre 6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, California 90028

  Part of the inaugural World Cinema Masters in Conversation section at AFI FEST, renowned documentarian Gianfranco Rosi will sit down with Venice Film Festival Artistic Director Alberto Barbera for an in-depth conversation about one of the year’s most lauded documentaries, FIRE AT SEA.

  
  Fire at Sea (FUOCOAMMARE), 2016, Kino Lorber, 108 min. Dir. Gianfranco Rosi. This Golden Bear winner at the Berlin International Film Festival is set on Lampedusa, midway between Libya and Sicily.

  READ MY REVIEW OF FUOCOAMMARE (Fire at Sea)

  In recent years, the little island has been deluged by a wave of African refugees, and the humanitarian crisis is filtered here through the lives of such bystanders as 12-year-old Samuele Pucillo, whose limited awareness of the newcomers’ plight reflects that of most people outside of frontline rescue personnel. “Gianfranco Rosi’s beautiful, mysterious and moving film is a documentary that looks like a neorealist classic.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian.

  After the feature at 8:00 PM stick around for the inaugural “World Cinema Masters in Conversation” section at AFI FEST, as director Gianfranco Rosi sits down with Venice Film Festival – Director Alberto Barbera for an in-depth conversation about FIRE AT SEA.

On Thanksgiving eve, I give thanks:

For bright young directors who are trailblazing new paths in Italian cinema.

Fearless, unstoppable, and exploding with new ideas and talent, these directors will be remembered for having changed the face of Italian cinema. Check out Caviglia’s Pecore in Erba, Vannucci’s IlPiù Grande Sogno, Bispuri’s Vergine Giurata, Messina’s L’Attesa, and Rohrwacher’s Le Meraviglie. 

For Americans, you’ll find the ones that have been distributed in the US HERE.

For documentary filmmakers like Gianfranco Rosi.

He told me that he’s never going to make regular feature films, only documentaries, and we should all be thankful for that. His latests, Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea) is the film that Italy has submitted to the Oscars, and it has a limited engagement in the USA right now.

READ MY REVIEW OF FUOCOAMMARE

For filmmakers who stand up to organized crime.

For us in the USA, making a movie about the mafia is entertaining and commercially smart filmmaking, but doing it in Italy might be hazardous to your health. Thanks to Garrone, Munzi, Pierfrancesco Diliberto and Ricky Tognazzi for shining a light on the topic in intelligent, thoughtful, and world-changing films like these.

For actresses who make women everywhere proud.

Besides being amazingly talented, annoyingly gorgeous, and seriously innovative, these Italian actresses are humble, hardworking, and dedicated to the art of cinema. These girls don’t know the meaning of the word diva; they are role models and examples for women everywhere.

Check out Greta’s Suburra, Paola’s Gli Ultimi Saranno Ultimi, Margherita’s Mia Madre, Laura’s Questi Giorni, Blu’s Piuma, Marianna and Angela’s Indivisibili, Alba’s Vergine Giurata, Anna’s Anime Nere and Bianca’s Short Skin.

For Paolo Sorrentino, for proving that Italian cinema still has what it takes to win an Oscar.

Watch his Academy Award winning La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty).

If anyone deserves to be famous, beloved, and talented, it is Paola Cortellesi.

It’s hard to imagine a more gracious, unassuming, unpretentious superstar than Italian actress Paola Cortellesi. I’d been nervous about meeting her in New York City (thanks to Italy On Screen Today) ever since I found out I’d been given the chance to do so, but I needn’t have been. She’s warm, she’s friendly, and she’s incredibly real for a woman who is number 13 on Ciak Magazine’s 2016 Power List.

I brought her a Cleveland Cavaliers T-Shirt so that she’d have something to (hopefully) remember me with, and she said, “You know I played basketball when I was young!” (I didn’t, but she is pretty tall! Usually I feel like a giant next to Italian actors and actresses, but Paola’s taller than me).

Naturally funny, I told her about how much I still love one of her earlier movies, Tu La Conosci Claudia (with Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo) and she seemed genuinely confused, probably because she wondered how I’d ever found out about a film that probably never played in an American movie theater. In it, she plays the uber-adorable Claudia, a young woman that is loved by (literally) everybody but wants to add meaning to her life. Has she always been funny? Was she a funny kid?

“At home”, she told me. “But out in the world I was very shy.”

You hear about this thing all the time, actors and singers that say they are comfortable on stage, but not one on one with people, and Paola told me that its true for her.

“I began as a singer when I was very young (age 13)”, she told me, and then went on to write and perform for a TV show, Mai Dire Gol (at age 19).”

Here’s Paola singing the theme song for Indietro tutta! 

So because I’m a woman, and not a young woman, I get curious about what it’s like for an actress in Italy that isn’t a teenager anymore. It seems ridiculously difficult for American actresses to find work as they age. Paola is only 42, hardly past her prime, but growing older hasn’t put a dent in her career by any means. She’s made 6 movies in the last 3 years, 5 extremely successful ones and 1 that is yet to be released (but it looks like a winner: Cristina Comencini’s Qualcosa di Nuovo also starring Micaela Ramazzotti).

Paola told me that it is a little easier in Italy for actresses, but not by much, and reminded me that even she had been cast, at 30, as the wife of Giovanni Storti, 18 years older, in Tu La Conosci Claudia (to be honest, I’ve spent years wondering how Claudia ever ended up with Giovanni in the first place). Evidence of her star power, her last few films have paired her with some of the most handsome, successful actors working today, Raoul Bova, Luca Argentero, and Alessandro Gassman.

Her latest film to be out in theaters, Gli Ultimi Saranno Ultimi (The Last Will Be Last) is a dark comedy that provides depressingly authentic social commentary on the economic crisis in Italy today, and Paola told me that it intends to harken back to the old neorealist films of De Sica, Comencini and Rossellini, with it’s “bitter” (amaro) overtones.

“They tell about the average man who goes to work, does his best, and is beaten down by society, and that’s what we wanted to do with this film.”

“Inspired by a bathtub”, ( in a comical side story, antennas cause the daily mass to be broadcast through the plumbing, an actual problem Nepi, for the town it is set in) Paola says that the film is based on her one woman play, Paola playing 6 characters from the story without wardrobe or makeup changes. She says that she wanted to tell this story to raise awareness for the situation in Italy, because there, according to her, so many people are “the last”, even the bosses, living with impossible situations.

READ MY REVIEW OF GLI ULTIMI SARANNO ULTIMI

One of THE MOST adorable things about Paola is her legion of fans, and it makes sense that they love her so much.

WANT TO JOIN HER FAN CLUB? CLICK HERE

I asked Paola what the nicest, cutest, or funniest thing her fans have ever done for me, and she told me a story about when she played in the movie Sotto Una Buona Stella with Carlo Verdone and her character’s name was Luisa Tombolini.

“Do you know the game Tombola?” she asked me. (I do now, but I didn’t then.) “It’s like your game “Bingo”.

Apparently some of her fans made her a gift with her name using the “tambolini” (game pieces), to commemorate her character.

I asked the girls from @PCnpf that I know if they’d been those fans, and they told me about a game that they’d made for her, an adorable Monopoly-style game. Paolopoly. Priceless!

When you are a nice person who is also gorgeous, a talented singer and an award-winning actress you are bound to have an amazing fan club!

Note to self: Start a distribution company and get her films over here to the USA. If you have a region free DVD player you’ll want to check out:

And here’s how.

Post on Facebook, Twitter, or as a comment below, AND YOU MUST USE THIS HASHTAG:

#ILOVEITALIANMOVIES2016

If you don’t use the hashtag, your vote will not be counted. Post the hashtag with your vote.

As an example, if you want to vote for Paola Cortellesi, you would post:

#ILOVEITALIANMOVIES2016 – Paola Cortellesi

You can also send your vote to: *protected email*

Below are some suggestions, but you can write in anyone you want. Paolo Sorrentino? Paolo Genovese? Margherita Buy? YOU DECIDE. You have until Christmas Day, midnight, to send your votes!

Should it be Gianfranco Rosi? His documentary Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea) is winning awards like gangbusters, and it’s on the shortlist for the Oscar for best documentary.

It could be Paola Cortellesi, who was Person of the Year 2015.

She won the Virna Lisi award this year and stars in one hit movie after another. (Plus, we love her.)

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi killed it in La Pazza Gioia and has been nominated for Best Actress in the EFA competition.

Checco Zalone’s a candidate! His film Quo Vado is the highest grossing Italian film of all time!

Documentary filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi is the toast of Europe. Can he conquer the Oscars?

I interviewed Rosi when he brought his 2013 Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winning documentary Sacro GRA to New York City and remember his intensity catching me off guard.

He confirmed what I’d heard said around Venice that year: The Venice Film Festival Jury, headed by Bernardo Bertolucci, voted for Sacro GRA unanimously, and that no other nominated film was seriously considered. Rosi told me that Bertolucci had said that he loved it because “it was a film with no judgement”, a trait Rosi feels has become too rare in documentaries, particularly American ones, like Michael Moore’s.

“I don’t like this kind of filmmaking”, he said. “Everybody wants to be a small Michael Moore. I like to capture positive elements of the world.”

The doc that is causing the buzz now is much bigger. It won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for best documentary, a Nastro D’argento, an Italian Golden Globe, a European Film Award, and it’s been shortlisted for the Academy Award for best documentary.

Rosi’s heartbreaking documentary  takes on the European migrant crisis, and is one that will strike a nerve for Americans and our immigration debate. While we tend to talk about who does, and does not deserve to live here in the US, Italians on the island of Lampadusa are concerned with the more immediate job of saving the lives of desperate boat people in perilous situations at sea. Politics will come later.

These men and women will need to be absorbed into an already troubled Europe, or they’ll need to be sent back to their dangerous homelands, but as one resident put it, “If we don’t help them, who will?”
Rosi leaves the politics to the politicians and shows us the horrifying reality of overcrowded boats, a frantic SOS from one that is sinking, and a medical doctor describing the unimaginable number of dead and dying he deals with on a regular basis.

(The Frecciarosa? That’s that really fast Italian train that goes 200 miles and hour. And Gianfranco’s on it.)

This Sarajevo native is one of Italy’s finest cinematographers.

 
When I met Vladan in 2015 I was already impressed with his work; I was in New York City to interview him and director Francesco Munzi, in town with their award-winning Anime Nere (Black Souls).

Anime Nere is THE best film of that year, and my favorite. It’s got a compelling story, extraordinary acting, and gorgeous cinematography, thanks to Vladan.

“He (Munzi) wanted one part of the actors faces always in a shadow, like a Caravaggio painting,” Vladan told me.

“He wanted it to look like a Van Gogh painting. (It does!) and that requires totally different filters and light than other films that I had worked on.”

Then, I realized that Vladan had worked on so many of my other favorite films: Laura Bispuri’s Vergine Giurata, Sydney Sibilia’s Smetto Quando Voglio, and Paolo Virzì’s Tutti I Santi Giorni, to name a few.

More recently he blew me away with his work on Virzì’s wonderful La Pazza Gioia (Like Crazy), starring Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Micaela Ramazzotti.

“I fell in love right away with the film as soon as I read the script,” he told me. “The cinematography follows characters and their constant mood changes throughout the film, but also through the scenes, and ultimately even in a single shot. There was one time that I invisibly changed the light during the shot because the character changed emotions while walking. I changed the light from warm to cold to follow his state of mind.”
 
“There are are several scenes in the film where Paolo wanted to shoot in light that’s particularly special because it doesn’t last very long, for example, the scenes at sunrise and also the really long scene at sunset. For me it was a cool challenge and I planned my work to accomodate this requirement of direction that brought a special atmosphere to the film. We liked so many of the scenes we shot at dawn so much that we switched them with a lot of the daytime scenes and we did it knowing that we’d be facing practical problems for the implementation.”

We’re lucky here in America; we can see Radovic’s work in Anime Nere and in Vergine Giurata.

Anime Nere (Black Souls) on  Amazon, NETFLIX,Vudu, iTunes, and YouTube

and

Vergine Giurata (Sworn Virgin) on Amazon, Netflix, Vudu, and YouTube.

Congratulations to this talented and nice young man!

Alessandro Borghi will represent Italy in the 20th edition of the Berlinale Shooting Stars, a platform for young European actors organized every year as a special event during the Berlin Film Festival.

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

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, the Nastro D’Argento Revelation of the Year Award and was #25 on this year’s Ciak Magazine “It List”.

The Shooting Star program has launched the careers of stars like Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz.

This is the kind of stuff I live for, sharing a nice movie moment and a collective smile with an audience at the Venice Film Festival. At the premiere of Roan Johnson’s fun comedy, Piuma, I got one of those really nice movie moments.

It’s the story of Cate (Blu Yoshimi) and her boyfriend Ferro (Luigi Fedele) maneuvering through nine months of teenage pregnancy. By the end of the film when the emotional stuff started to go down, I could feel us all growing closer.

As the consistently goofy Ferro and his (already at this young age) world-weary girlfriend Cate settle unrealistically into their situation, they set off an explosion that cause never-ending shock waves for Ferro’s long-suffering parents. Ferro hasn’t been the easiest child, and this is just one more thing for them to have to deal with; they don’t even seem very surprised (except when wondering how their son got a nice girl like Cate.)

Blu, a child star who played Nanni Moretti’s daughter in Caos Calmo, is just 19, setting out on a brilliant grown-up career, and I got a chance to ask her about what it was like to be young, talented, the world her oyster.

I was at the Venice Film Festival for the premiere of Piuma and I laughed throughout the whole film, and left with a big smile on my face!

First of all, what was it like to be at Venice, in the Sala Grande, with all those people laughing and cheering? Did it feel like a dream? What were you thinking when people were laughing and applauding throughout the film, and at the end, when everyone was cheering?

I love this first question! I loved the Venice Film Festival this year. I think very courageous choices were made and we, the cast and crew of “Piuma” are the proof of that. It’s unusual that a comedy like this gets accepted in competition at the festival but we were there to proof that “the heart is what counts”.  In fact, going to Venice is itself a big emotion, but going to Venice with “Piuma” has even a better feeling because personally I consider it an important achievement after hard efforts in these past years and it was a special movie for all those who worked in it… there is something magical about it! The red carpet brought me back to that magic. Walking there on the notes of Lorenzo Tomio’s (Italian composer) is one of the happiest experience I recall. A movie in the Sala Grande never looked so beautiful! I cried more than ever and at the same time I was deeply happy. It felt like everybody in that room was feeling the same things…

How did it feel to play a pregnant teenager? What do you think the movie says to teenagers about sex and responsibility?

This is one of the roles I always wanted to do. I was fond of Cate, Piuma and the story from the beginning because it reminded me a lot of my story with my mum (Magnificent Italian actress Lidia Vitale). I also was an unexpected child and with this movie I could live the same experience from the opposite point of view and appreciate even more the work my mum has done. In the end I made a lot of researches about pregnancy to make sure to bring the more truth I could. Those are things that happen and it’s a matter of respect to bring out the reality of the facts.
More than teaching about sex, I think Piuma can teach to people of all ages what it means to take  responsibility. When something unexpected occurs it brings out the worst in us and it can be an occasion to confront ourselves.

What do you want the audience to take from Piuma? Is there a message that is important to you?

What I really hope Piuma can give is an example. Not about pregnancy, but about how to face problems when they come…because they arrive and we can either fall apart or fly up as a feather so that we can see the whole view and understand that besides the obstacle we see in front of us, there is much more. That will allow us to smile and continue with another spirit.

The cast seems to be like a real family. Did it feel like that to you? What is Roan like as a director?

Family is the appropriate name for those who worked on Piuma. Starting from Luigi ( As Ferro) that besides a great collegue is now a big friend of mine, then Francesco Colella ( as Alfredo, my dad) that I deeply esteem as an artist and with all the others there was a deep harmony. Michela Cescon (Ferro’s mum) for example was for me an important female figure able to understand me without talking. This harmony was extended with all Piuma’s family. Before being actors, writers, technicians, we were all humans working hard towards something meaningful and for this I thank Roan for having being able to form such a team!

Was Caos Calmo (Quiet Chaos) your first film? How did you get started? What is it like to be a child star in Italy? It seems very difficult in the USA – is it the same in Italy?

Quiet Chaos was the first movie for the big screen. It was an amazing experience. Since I mainly grew up with my mum Lidia Vitale who is herself a great and known actress in Italy, I always wanted to be an actress. I think being an artist is alwasy very difficult, no matter where you live. Especially if you are a woman ahahah. We have some serious issues in the cultural side of our country even though things are going much better. It wasn’t and it’s not always easy to remain hooked to my dream but it’s worth it and I am never going to give up!

We’re cheering for you still, Blu!

Italian Cinema is better than ever, but these 5 are really shaking things up!

Paolo Sorrentino

I was watching the first episodes of director Paolo Sorrentino’s new HBO TV series The Young Pope (starring Jude Law and premiering in the USA on January 15) and it hit me; Sorrentino is one of the cinema greats of all time, Italian or otherwise. Moving to TV, he’s on cutting age of good things to come for other Italian filmmakers.

You can love or hate his movies; you can “get him” or be confused by him; but you can’t dismiss him. His films are a cut above anything else in terms of innovation, creativity, bravery, and beauty, and La Grande Bellezza is arguably one of the best Italian films of all time.

Alessandro Borghi

Number 25 on Ciak Magazine’s 2016 “It List” Alessandro Borghi is big and about to get bigger. Last year his roles in Suburra and Non Essere Cattivo cemented him in the “Best Actor” category, and his role in Michele Vannucci’s Il Più Grande Sogno this year keeps him there.

He’s got talent, charisma, and, as a friend just said to me, “He’s a babe!”. Yes, he is VERY GOOD LOOKING and we will look for his Ciak Magazine ranking to get even higher in 2017. Watch for him in the upcoming TV series based on Suburra, the movie.

Checco Zalone

I have yet to get an Italian to admit liking Checco, and yet his movies are the top-grossing in the history of Italian cinema. They dismiss him, saying that he speaks to the lowest common denominator, but that can’t be all of it.

First of all, I think that intellectuals misunderstand Checco. Yes, he’s a boorish lout, but he’s a boorish lout who is willing to learn. He isn’t celebrating stupidity, he’s lampooning it. I think he’s funny.

There are plenty of boorish louts in Italian cinema that I HATE (i.e.: Mandelli and Biggio), but Checco’s got something VERY BIG going on that can’t be ignored.

Angela and Marianna Fontana

In the “Where Have You Been All My Life?” category, the stars of the Edoardo De Angelis film Indivisibili, actresses/singers Angela and Marianna Fontana are at the top. These lovely, multi-talented twin sisters are mind-blowing in the film and destined for greatness.

Paolo Genovese

Director Paolo Genovese already had my attention with films like Una Famiglia Perfetta the Christmas movie about the guy who hires a family for Christmas. He’s witty and smart and his dialogue is awesome, and Americans got to see this for themselves when he brought his award-winning Perfetti Sconosciuti (Perfect Strangers) to the Tribeca Film Festival (it won best foreign screenplay).

There’s talk of an American remake, but it will be beloved when it comes in its original form to US theaters.

Italy’s extremely strong submission to this year’s Oscars.

• TODAY!  SIGN UP AND GET A FREE TICKET!

  Thursday, November 17 at 5:45 PM – 11 PM PST Show Map Egyptian Theatre 6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, California 90028

  Part of the inaugural World Cinema Masters in Conversation section at AFI FEST, renowned documentarian Gianfranco Rosi will sit down with Venice Film Festival Artistic Director Alberto Barbera for an in-depth conversation about one of the year’s most lauded documentaries, FIRE AT SEA.

  
  Fire at Sea (FUOCOAMMARE), 2016, Kino Lorber, 108 min. Dir. Gianfranco Rosi. This Golden Bear winner at the Berlin International Film Festival is set on Lampedusa, midway between Libya and Sicily.

  READ MY REVIEW OF FUOCOAMMARE (Fire at Sea)

  In recent years, the little island has been deluged by a wave of African refugees, and the humanitarian crisis is filtered here through the lives of such bystanders as 12-year-old Samuele Pucillo, whose limited awareness of the newcomers’ plight reflects that of most people outside of frontline rescue personnel. “Gianfranco Rosi’s beautiful, mysterious and moving film is a documentary that looks like a neorealist classic.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian.

  After the feature at 8:00 PM stick around for the inaugural “World Cinema Masters in Conversation” section at AFI FEST, as director Gianfranco Rosi sits down with Venice Film Festival – Director Alberto Barbera for an in-depth conversation about FIRE AT SEA.

On Thanksgiving eve, I give thanks:

For bright young directors who are trailblazing new paths in Italian cinema.

Fearless, unstoppable, and exploding with new ideas and talent, these directors will be remembered for having changed the face of Italian cinema. Check out Caviglia’s Pecore in Erba, Vannucci’s IlPiù Grande Sogno, Bispuri’s Vergine Giurata, Messina’s L’Attesa, and Rohrwacher’s Le Meraviglie. 

For Americans, you’ll find the ones that have been distributed in the US HERE.

For documentary filmmakers like Gianfranco Rosi.

He told me that he’s never going to make regular feature films, only documentaries, and we should all be thankful for that. His latests, Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea) is the film that Italy has submitted to the Oscars, and it has a limited engagement in the USA right now.

READ MY REVIEW OF FUOCOAMMARE

For filmmakers who stand up to organized crime.

For us in the USA, making a movie about the mafia is entertaining and commercially smart filmmaking, but doing it in Italy might be hazardous to your health. Thanks to Garrone, Munzi, Pierfrancesco Diliberto and Ricky Tognazzi for shining a light on the topic in intelligent, thoughtful, and world-changing films like these.

For actresses who make women everywhere proud.

Besides being amazingly talented, annoyingly gorgeous, and seriously innovative, these Italian actresses are humble, hardworking, and dedicated to the art of cinema. These girls don’t know the meaning of the word diva; they are role models and examples for women everywhere.

Check out Greta’s Suburra, Paola’s Gli Ultimi Saranno Ultimi, Margherita’s Mia Madre, Laura’s Questi Giorni, Blu’s Piuma, Marianna and Angela’s Indivisibili, Alba’s Vergine Giurata, Anna’s Anime Nere and Bianca’s Short Skin.

For Paolo Sorrentino, for proving that Italian cinema still has what it takes to win an Oscar.

Watch his Academy Award winning La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty).

If anyone deserves to be famous, beloved, and talented, it is Paola Cortellesi.

It’s hard to imagine a more gracious, unassuming, unpretentious superstar than Italian actress Paola Cortellesi. I’d been nervous about meeting her in New York City (thanks to Italy On Screen Today) ever since I found out I’d been given the chance to do so, but I needn’t have been. She’s warm, she’s friendly, and she’s incredibly real for a woman who is number 13 on Ciak Magazine’s 2016 Power List.

I brought her a Cleveland Cavaliers T-Shirt so that she’d have something to (hopefully) remember me with, and she said, “You know I played basketball when I was young!” (I didn’t, but she is pretty tall! Usually I feel like a giant next to Italian actors and actresses, but Paola’s taller than me).

Naturally funny, I told her about how much I still love one of her earlier movies, Tu La Conosci Claudia (with Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo) and she seemed genuinely confused, probably because she wondered how I’d ever found out about a film that probably never played in an American movie theater. In it, she plays the uber-adorable Claudia, a young woman that is loved by (literally) everybody but wants to add meaning to her life. Has she always been funny? Was she a funny kid?

“At home”, she told me. “But out in the world I was very shy.”

You hear about this thing all the time, actors and singers that say they are comfortable on stage, but not one on one with people, and Paola told me that its true for her.

“I began as a singer when I was very young (age 13)”, she told me, and then went on to write and perform for a TV show, Mai Dire Gol (at age 19).”

Here’s Paola singing the theme song for Indietro tutta! 

So because I’m a woman, and not a young woman, I get curious about what it’s like for an actress in Italy that isn’t a teenager anymore. It seems ridiculously difficult for American actresses to find work as they age. Paola is only 42, hardly past her prime, but growing older hasn’t put a dent in her career by any means. She’s made 6 movies in the last 3 years, 5 extremely successful ones and 1 that is yet to be released (but it looks like a winner: Cristina Comencini’s Qualcosa di Nuovo also starring Micaela Ramazzotti).

Paola told me that it is a little easier in Italy for actresses, but not by much, and reminded me that even she had been cast, at 30, as the wife of Giovanni Storti, 18 years older, in Tu La Conosci Claudia (to be honest, I’ve spent years wondering how Claudia ever ended up with Giovanni in the first place). Evidence of her star power, her last few films have paired her with some of the most handsome, successful actors working today, Raoul Bova, Luca Argentero, and Alessandro Gassman.

Her latest film to be out in theaters, Gli Ultimi Saranno Ultimi (The Last Will Be Last) is a dark comedy that provides depressingly authentic social commentary on the economic crisis in Italy today, and Paola told me that it intends to harken back to the old neorealist films of De Sica, Comencini and Rossellini, with it’s “bitter” (amaro) overtones.

“They tell about the average man who goes to work, does his best, and is beaten down by society, and that’s what we wanted to do with this film.”

“Inspired by a bathtub”, ( in a comical side story, antennas cause the daily mass to be broadcast through the plumbing, an actual problem Nepi, for the town it is set in) Paola says that the film is based on her one woman play, Paola playing 6 characters from the story without wardrobe or makeup changes. She says that she wanted to tell this story to raise awareness for the situation in Italy, because there, according to her, so many people are “the last”, even the bosses, living with impossible situations.

READ MY REVIEW OF GLI ULTIMI SARANNO ULTIMI

One of THE MOST adorable things about Paola is her legion of fans, and it makes sense that they love her so much.

WANT TO JOIN HER FAN CLUB? CLICK HERE

I asked Paola what the nicest, cutest, or funniest thing her fans have ever done for me, and she told me a story about when she played in the movie Sotto Una Buona Stella with Carlo Verdone and her character’s name was Luisa Tombolini.

“Do you know the game Tombola?” she asked me. (I do now, but I didn’t then.) “It’s like your game “Bingo”.

Apparently some of her fans made her a gift with her name using the “tambolini” (game pieces), to commemorate her character.

I asked the girls from @PCnpf that I know if they’d been those fans, and they told me about a game that they’d made for her, an adorable Monopoly-style game. Paolopoly. Priceless!

When you are a nice person who is also gorgeous, a talented singer and an award-winning actress you are bound to have an amazing fan club!

Note to self: Start a distribution company and get her films over here to the USA. If you have a region free DVD player you’ll want to check out:

And here’s how.

Post on Facebook, Twitter, or as a comment below, AND YOU MUST USE THIS HASHTAG:

#ILOVEITALIANMOVIES2016

If you don’t use the hashtag, your vote will not be counted. Post the hashtag with your vote.

As an example, if you want to vote for Paola Cortellesi, you would post:

#ILOVEITALIANMOVIES2016 – Paola Cortellesi

You can also send your vote to: *protected email*

Below are some suggestions, but you can write in anyone you want. Paolo Sorrentino? Paolo Genovese? Margherita Buy? YOU DECIDE. You have until Christmas Day, midnight, to send your votes!

Should it be Gianfranco Rosi? His documentary Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea) is winning awards like gangbusters, and it’s on the shortlist for the Oscar for best documentary.

It could be Paola Cortellesi, who was Person of the Year 2015.

She won the Virna Lisi award this year and stars in one hit movie after another. (Plus, we love her.)

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi killed it in La Pazza Gioia and has been nominated for Best Actress in the EFA competition.

Checco Zalone’s a candidate! His film Quo Vado is the highest grossing Italian film of all time!

Documentary filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi is the toast of Europe. Can he conquer the Oscars?

I interviewed Rosi when he brought his 2013 Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winning documentary Sacro GRA to New York City and remember his intensity catching me off guard.

He confirmed what I’d heard said around Venice that year: The Venice Film Festival Jury, headed by Bernardo Bertolucci, voted for Sacro GRA unanimously, and that no other nominated film was seriously considered. Rosi told me that Bertolucci had said that he loved it because “it was a film with no judgement”, a trait Rosi feels has become too rare in documentaries, particularly American ones, like Michael Moore’s.

“I don’t like this kind of filmmaking”, he said. “Everybody wants to be a small Michael Moore. I like to capture positive elements of the world.”

The doc that is causing the buzz now is much bigger. It won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for best documentary, a Nastro D’argento, an Italian Golden Globe, a European Film Award, and it’s been shortlisted for the Academy Award for best documentary.

Rosi’s heartbreaking documentary  takes on the European migrant crisis, and is one that will strike a nerve for Americans and our immigration debate. While we tend to talk about who does, and does not deserve to live here in the US, Italians on the island of Lampadusa are concerned with the more immediate job of saving the lives of desperate boat people in perilous situations at sea. Politics will come later.

These men and women will need to be absorbed into an already troubled Europe, or they’ll need to be sent back to their dangerous homelands, but as one resident put it, “If we don’t help them, who will?”
Rosi leaves the politics to the politicians and shows us the horrifying reality of overcrowded boats, a frantic SOS from one that is sinking, and a medical doctor describing the unimaginable number of dead and dying he deals with on a regular basis.

(The Frecciarosa? That’s that really fast Italian train that goes 200 miles and hour. And Gianfranco’s on it.)