Cinema Made in Italy (CMII) returns to London this spring with exclusive presentations of nine new Italian feature films to UK audiences, presented by the internationally renowned Cinecittà.
To cinema lovers, Cinecittà carries a special kind of vibration. Simply saying the word, or thinking it as I type this, makes one dream of lavish productions featuring international actors. Or, in my case, of legendary Italian actor Alberto Sordi riding on a white horse on Cinecittà’s set as a soap opera sheikh. in Federico Fellini’s 1952 black and white beauty Lo Sceicco Bianco (The White Sheikh).
So, in this age of renaissance for Italian cinema, it is only fitting that a festival featuring the latest and best Italian films would be presented by Cinecittà.
Among the gems to be discovered at the upcoming festival, which this year will run from March 12-16, are the opening night film by Francesca Comencini titled The Time it Takes (Il tempo che ci vuole), which offers a fitting tribute to her famous father Luigi Comencini. That name, for a girl growing up in 1970’s Florence, brings up visions of one of the first things I was ever allowed to watch on TV — The Adventures of Pinocchio, a five-part miniseries starring Nino Manfredi as Geppetto and Gina Lollobrigida as Pinocchio’s fairy. But to more adult audiences — though don’t pass on the miniseries if it ever comes your way even as a full-grown adult — Comencini father also directed the 1953 classic romantic comedy Bread, Love and Dreams (Pane amore e fantasia) which has been restored and will play in the festival. This classic features fantastic performance by Vittorio De Sica, Gina Lollobrigida and Neapolitan comic acting legend Tina Pica, who plays De Sica’s housekeeper “Caramella” or Candy. She is anything but sweet in the film and to me, carries a special kind of feeling with her performance, reminding me of my Neapolitan family.
The film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved and that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978.”
Closing the festival this year, on Sunday 16 March will be The Great Ambition (Berlinguer: La grande ambizione), the new biographical drama by Andrea Segre, starring Elio Germano —who has won Best Actor prizes for other projects in both Cannes and Berlin — as the visionary politician Enrico Berlinguer.
In between, some gems like Diva Futura by Giulia Louise Steigerwalt, the satirical, sometimes moving, account of photographer, director, producer and romantic Riccardo Schicchi. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s his modelling agency turned film studios launched the careers of international ‘adult’ stars, including Ilona Staller, also known as “Cicciolina” whose fame brought her all the way to the top as a member of Parliament, in a country where Catholicism rules. For art lovers, Staller was briefly married to American artist Jeff Koons.
Elio Germano as Enrico Berlinguer in Andrea Segre’s ‘The Great Ambition’
Also included are Anywhere, Anytime, the directorial debut from Milad Tangshir where a young and undocumented migrant from Senegal tries to earn a living in Turin with the odds stacked against him. The film has been deemed an ode to De Sica’s classic Bicycle Thieves, but also possessing nods to filmmakers such as Ken Loach with its use of non-actors and the empathetic lens cast on them. And Vittoria, by Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kaufmann, uses the real-life couple whose story is re-enacted. A tender and thought-provoking look at the human desire to give love as much as receive it, when a woman who is grieving the death of her father begins to dream of adopting a daughter.
More women’s stories include Love and Glory - The Young Deledda (L’amore e la Gloria La giovane Deledda) by Maria Grazia Perria, an insightful rendering of the Sardinian writer Grazia Deledda, who began writing about her rural family life in 1888, at age 17, and who would become only the second woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926. Documentary maker Perria lends empathy to the isolation of the writer, removed from mainland Italy, and seeking a vocation when under pressure to marry, evoking comparisons to the Brontë Sisters, or George Eliot.
Filippo Scotti and Rita Tushingham in Pupi Avati’s ‘The American Backyard’
Rounding out the standouts is The American Backyard (L’orto americano) which marks a return to the horror genre for Pupi Avati – a maestro of Giallo and lauded for his versatility across filmmaking. In this gothic thriller, troubled writer Filippo Scotti (who played the Neapolitan filmmaker in Paolo Sorrentino’s autobiographical The Hand of God) is driven to solve the mystery of a beautiful American nurse whose disappearance haunts her mother, played by Rita Tushingham.
To purchase tickets and discover the full lineup, check out the Cinema Made in Italy page on the BFI website.
And to find out more about Cinecittà, which manages "Archivio Luce" film and photographic Archive, and has been registered by UNESCO in the registry “Memory of the World”, check out their website.