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Open Roads: New Italian Cinema At Lincoln Center 2021
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Open Roads: New Italian Cinema at Lincoln Center 2021
May 28 - June 6
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HIDDEN AWAY
INTRODUCTION
Opening the festival is Bad Tales, the second feature by festival alumni Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo (2018’s Boys Cry). A dark and absorbing portrait of youth in the Roman suburbs, the film took home the Berlinale Silver Bear Award for Best Screenplay last year. Highlights from other returning filmmakers include Daniele Luchetti’s The Ties, starring Alba Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro, I Am Love) in a family portrait spanning several decades; Claudio Noce’s Padrenostro, a quasi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale cast against the backdrop of Italy’s terroristic Years of Lead; and Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio’s Una Promessa, a moving parable about working-class survival.
Documentaries feature strongly in the Open Roads lineup, including Francesca Mazzoleni’s Punta Sacra, which focuses on a small village outside of Rome, threatened by encroaching real estate development; Franco Maresco’s The Mafia Is No Longer What It Used to Be, a fascinating exploration of anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and their enduring legacies; and a return to nonfiction for Pietro Marcello (Martin Eden, NYFF57) with For Lucio, which chronicles the life of Bolognese singer Lucio Dalla. Additional highlights include Salvatore Mereu’s Sardinian mystery Assandira; Pietro Castellitto’s The Predators, a dark comedy skewering class antagonism in contemporary Italy; Giorgio Diritti’s kaleidoscopic portrait of the visionary painter Antonio Ligabue, Hidden Away; and Elisa Amoruso’s semi-autobiographical tale of a budding relationship in late 1980s Italy, Sirley.
Open Roads: New Italian Cinema will go on sale on Monday, May 17 at noon, with an early access period for FLC members starting Friday, May 14. Individual rentals are $12 and a discounted Open Roads All-Access Pass is available for just $80 ($132 value). FLC members save an additional 20% on individual rentals and the festival pass. To access membership benefits for Open Roads, please click here.
Open Roads: New Italian Cinema is co-presented by Film at Lincoln Center and Istituto Luce Cinecittà. Organized by Dan Sullivan, Film at Lincoln Center; and by Carla Cattani, Griselda Guerrasio, and Monique Catalino, Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS
All films are in Italian with English subtitles unless otherwise noted.
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Opening Night
Bad Tales/Favolacce
Damiano & Fabio D’Innocenzo, Italy/Switzerland, 2020, 98m
The second feature by the D’Innocenzo brothers is an absorbing, richly traced group portrait of youth on the precipice of puberty, set on the outskirts of Rome. Our protagonists are the children of dysfunctional homes, and we observe them as they go about their daily lives amid the frequently apathetic, at times violent world of adults. The tensions in the air vibrate ever more intensely as Bad Tales simultaneously grows more dreamlike and more visceral, revealing bit by bit the everyday nightmare underlying suburban life. An energetic work that is at once a kind of dark fairy tale and a stylish act of sociological inquiry, Bad Tales is a wild ride that captivatingly makes the case that the kids are not, in fact, alright. A Strand Releasing release.
Assandira
Salvatore Mereu, Italy, 2020, 126m
Italian, Sardinian, English, and German with English subtitles
Salvatore Mereu’s previous work established him as a deft chronicler of life in Sardinia, and his latest, Assandira, furthers this pedigree in the form of a mystery film with a jagged political resonance. We meet our protagonist, Costantino (Gavino Ledda, author of the seminal Sardinian novel Padre padrone, which was famously adapted by the Taviani brothers in 1977), in the immediate wake of a devastating fire at the agriturismo owned by his son (who has died in the calamity). Mereu then takes us back, retracing the winding chain of events that led to this tragedy and the complex relationship between Costantino, his son, and his son’s German wife, powerfully bearing witness to the decline of traditional Sardinian culture amid a changing Europe.
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For Lucio/Per Lucio
Pietro Marcello, Italy, 2021, 79m
Following Lost and Beautiful (2015) and Martin Eden (2019), Pietro Marcello returns to documentary with his latest, a reverent portrait of the late Bolognese singer Lucio Dalla. Combining interviews with Dalla’s collaborators and friends with a kaleidoscopic array of archival footage, For Lucio chronicles his rise to prominence in the 1960s and ’70s, on the strength of his ballads that captured postwar Italy’s movement away from rural culture and toward hyper-industrialized urbanism, effectively discarding remnants of the past to make way for mass consumerism and the growth of the Italian middle-class. An intoxicating work of montage and cultural history, For Lucio is at once a moving tribute to its charismatic subject and a meditation on the concessions of modernity.
Hidden Away/Volevo nascondermi
Giorgio Diritti, Italy, 2020, 120m
Elio Germano turns in a tour-de-force performance as Naïve painter Antonio Ligabue in Giorgio Diritti’s melancholic and forceful biopic. Fragments of Ligabue’s upbringing, his early dealings with mental illness, his expulsion from Switzerland and relocation to his ancestral (deeply impoverished and soon to be Fascist-controlled) Italy, his being forced into a psychiatric ward, and his eventual arrival at a measure of artistic success are presented with dimensionality and grandeur that offer a fascinating counterpoint to Ligabue’s own rawly emotional paintings. The result is an absorbingly kaleidoscopic and empathetic portrait of a tortured visionary out of joint with the unaccepting society that surrounds him.
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The Mafia Is No Longer What It Used to Be/La mafia non è più quella di una volta
Franco Maresco, Italy, 2019, 105
The latest from Franco Maresco (Belluscone: A Sicilian Story, 2014) takes as its point of departure the 25th anniversary of the assassination of anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino during the Capaci and Via D’Amelio bombings, hitting the pavement in Palermo to see what its residents think of the two martyred magistrates. This investigation soon spins out into an often satirical yet dogged examination of popular complacency over the Cosa Nostra’s enduring hold on some part of the national psyche. Maresco may ridicule many of his on-screen subjects, yet The Mafia Is No Longer… is less of a prank than an earnest and fierce lament, a wild yet complex provocation.
Padrenostro
Claudio Noce, Italy, 2020, 122m
Loosely based on a real-life assassination attempt against his father, who was a deputy police commissioner, by Nuclei Armati Proletari radicals in 1976, Claudio Noce’s latest is a coming-of-age tale cast against the backdrop of Italy’s tumultuous Years of Lead. Vividly imaginative 10-year-old Valerio (Mattia Garaci) witnesses an attempt on his father Alfonso’s (Pierfrancesco Favino) life by an apparent terrorist; though his father survives, a thick climate of fear descends upon the family as political tensions in Italy grow ever more volatile. But that summer, Valerio will meet an older (and possibly imaginary) boy, Christian (Francesco Gheghi), bringing an end to Valerio’s loneliness and adding a wrinkle to the family’s efforts to move on from the collective trauma of Alfonso’s near-death experience.
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The Predators/I predatori
Pietro Castellitto, Italy, 2020, 109m
Pietro Castellitto’s black comedy takes aim at class antagonism in contemporary Italy, with a vast network of characters—an assistant professor obsessed with the mystery of Nietzsche’s virginity (Castellitto); his father, a philandering doctor (Massimo Popolizio); his filmmaker mother (Manuela Mandracchia); a brash gun-shop clerk (Giorgio Montanini); and many others—flailing about and generally messing with each other in an inept world of schemes that seldom pan out. Ravishingly lensed by Carlo Rinaldi, buoyed by an inspired ensemble cast, and as insightful as it is gleefully brazen, The Predators plumbs the absurd for harsh, hilarious truths about latter-day social stratification.
Una Promessa
Gianluca & Massimiliano De Serio, Italy/France/Belgium, 2020, 104m
The De Serio brothers bring their background in documentary to bear in their fictional latest, a low-key humanist drama about class, parenthood, and getting by in a world of casual tragedy and chaos. Salvatore Esposito stars as Giuseppe, a half-blind laborer in southern Italy whose wife suddenly passes, leaving him to raise their son Antò solo. Giuseppe assures Antò that his mother will miraculously rise from the dead—but how can he deliver on this impossible promise? In their gripping chronicle of a father’s attempts to draw water from a stone, the De Serios unsurprisingly are also consumed with socioeconomic circumstances, painting a moving parable about working-class survival.
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Punta Sacra
Francesca Mazzoleni, Italy, 2020, 96m
Francesca Mazzoleni’s lyrical documentary traces a multifaceted portrait of Ostia, a small village at the mouth of the Tiber, south of Rome. The site where Pier Paolo Pasolini’s body was discovered following his murder, Ostia is now something of a down-home assemblage of illegally built houses for the organically grown local culture of the roughly 500 families living there. But as with so many vestiges of a time before our globalized present, Ostia’s existence is threatened by encroaching real estate development, suggesting its time may be more limited than its residents had hoped. Mazzoleni embeds with the locals and spends time with them, particularly Ostia’s women, initiating intimate conversations and ultimately arriving at an absorbing ode to their courage, strength, and perseverance.
Sirley/Maledetta primavera
Elisa Amoruso, Italy, 2020, 94m
Documentarian Elisa Amoruso’s semi-autobiographical fiction debut chronicles a young girl’s plight as she strives to make sense of her place in the world under the not-so-watchful eyes of her dysfunctional parents in the late 1980s. Emma Fasano stars as Nina, a 13-year-old whose family has been forced to move from the center of Rome to its outskirts; while her parents run afoul of each other, she starts classes at her new school, only to rapidly enter into explosive conflict with Sirley (Manon Bresch), a student from French Guyana. But antagonism just as quickly turns to friendship, and the two slip into a relationship that will define their coming-of-age.
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The Ties/Lacci
Daniele Luchetti, Italy, 2020, 100m
An intimate chronicle spanning four decades, Daniele Luchetti’s latest skips across time and space, presenting fragments of a family’s history to arrive at a seductively complex group portrait. Adapted from a novel by co-scriptwriter Domenico Starnone, The Ties stars Alba Rohrwacher and Luigi Lo Cascio as a married couple raising their children in Naples in the early 1980s; a confession of infidelity sets the gears in motion for the events of the years to come, in which the family will be torn asunder only to reassemble time and again. An ambitious and moving drama anchored by an exceptional ensemble cast, The Ties plays with the irreconcilability of individual memories of a shared past to conjure the persistence of familial loyalty.
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Festival Schedule
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SIRLEY aka MALEDETTA PRIMAVERA
All films are available for five days following their premiere times, which are listed below. Anyone can sign on and pay-for-view. Have fun!
FLC OPEN ROADS WEBSITE
Friday, May 28 at noon ET – available to watch through June 2 at noon ET
Opening Night:
Bad Tales
Sirley
Hidden Away
Saturday, May 29 at noon ET – available to watch through June 3 at noon ET
The Ties
The Predators
Sunday, May 30 at noon ET – available to watch through June 4 at noon ET
Padrenostro
The Mafia Is No Longer What It Used to Be
Monday, May 31 at noon ET – available to watch through June 5 at noon ET
Punta Sacra
Una Promessa
Tuesday, June 1 at noon ET – available to watch through June 6 at noon ET
For Lucio
Assandira
FLC Members SAVE 20% on all rentals. If not yet a member, you can join today to start enjoying exclusive discounts and special invitations. Existing members can access their discounts at any time in the password-protected Member Corner.
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[Beginning links to reviews in the Festival Coverage section.]
BAD TALES/FAVOLACCE (Damiano & Fabio D’Innocenzo 2020) Opening Night Film.
In their prize-winning second film the twins turn to summer malaise, still outside Rome, in a setting influenced by American sources. Highly accomplished and attention-getting, but I'm not sure they have yet found their way.
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HIDDEN AWAY/VOLEVO NASCONDERMI (Giorgio Diritti 2020)
A biopic of Italy's most famous "Naive" artist, Antonio Ligabue. The lead performance by Elio Germano won the Silver Bear at the Berlinale. But it's an exercise in patience to watch it.
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SIRLEY/MALEDETTA PRIMAVERA (Elisa Amoroso 2020)
The former documentarian makes an autobiographical feature of a turbulent, insecure adolescence that unfortunately sees it all through a pretty pastel filter.
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THE PREDATORS/PREDATORI (Pietro Castellitto 2020
Winner of best new director at the Rome Donatello awards and best screenplay in the Orizzonti section at Venice, this debut is by the then 28-year-old son of prolific actor Sergio Castellitto, whose previous experience was only in acting roles. A series of deetached skits that gradually fit together, the film unreels as the story of two contrasting families, one posh and nutty, the other criminal and vulgar, who come together due to a car accident. A dark, expletive-intense study of class and morali
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THE TIES/LACCI (Daniele Luchetti 2020)
Chronicle of a divorce that never happened - a bit repetitious and grating, but with a notable cast (Luigi Lo Cascio, Alba Rohrwacher) and a final segment surprise that peps things up.
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THE MAFIA IS NO LONGER WHAT IT USED TO BE/LA MAFIA NON È PIÙ QUELLA DI UNA VOLTA (Franco Maresco 2019)
Satire of Italy's persistent loyalty to Cosa Nostra is piquant and subtle perhaps for locals, but reads as repetitious for anyone else. And from what I'm told, he's essentially replaying his previous film Bellusconi and trying to make it seem different. Even the irony of the title may be lost on us. Won the Jury Prize however at Venice.
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PADRENOSTRO (Claudio Noce 2020)
Handsome and touching boy's POV film about Years of Lead terror turns into a beautiful mess.
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PUNTA SACRA (Francesca Mazzoleni 2020)
A lyrical, sympathetic documentary view of a makeshift Ostia community, where the sea meets the Tiber river and where some 500 families live, is emotionally engaging, but lacks certain practical details.
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ASSANDIRA (Salvatore Mereu 2020)
A bonfire of the agri-vanities (damning agriturismo) becomes a police procedural, set in Sardinia, the region of director Mereu's work. Some shortcomings of the action may be balanced by the gravitas - in the lead role - of Gavino Ledda, author of Padre Padrone in his first time as an actor.
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UNA PROMESSA (Gianlucca, Massimiliano De Serio 2020)
Neorealist father and son slasher revenge drama is a mashup of genres that's simply unacceptable, despite the filmmakers' solid documentary experience and sociological aims. Sets out as an exposure of the brutalities of the slave-labor caporalato farms that exploit excommunitari immigrants, but has a fantasy-surreal-magic realist bent from the start, then turns to horror. Such a hybrid was new to me.
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FOR LUCIO/PER LUCIO (Pietro Marcello 2021)
Heavy in its use of Marcello's signature use of complexly edited archival footage, light on the investigative journalism, this is a pleasant portrait of Lucio Dalla, the late singer-songwriter who was active till he died of a heart attack the morning after a concert in 2012, a representative and admired Italian cultural figure. Only two talking heads though.
